“Celebrating 15 years is about looking back and paving the way forward,” said founder and CEO Kameel Gaines. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
The third agency for the employment of truck drivers Equipment on wheels celebrates its 15th anniversary next week.
The Houston-based recruiting agency has partnered with transportation companies across the country to innovate recruiting strategies, improve driver retention and inform industry leadership.
To celebrate 15 years in business, CEO Kameel Gaines is hosting a virtual celebration on January 24 to discuss the company’s major milestones. The event will be broadcast live YouTube and – if possible – TikTok.
Ahead of the event, FreightWaves spoke with Gaines in a phone interview about her journey as an entrepreneur in the trucking industry, her insights into hiring drivers and what the growing diversity in the industry looks like.
“Rig on Wheels is more than an employment agency; we are partners in helping transportation companies grow and thrive,” she said. “Celebrating 15 years is looking back and paving the way forward.”
Born in Chicago, Gaines first started Rig on Wheels after being laid off when the school she ran enrollment for closed. Responding to an ad for contract truck drivers, she discovered her passion for an industry she initially knew little about.
Gaines said entrepreneurship is in her blood — her mother ran several of her own companies in her youth — so she wasn’t afraid to start her own business.
It wasn’t easy though. Gaines recalled a turning point early in her new job when she considered going part-time to work full-time elsewhere.
“It made me sad,” Gaines said. “That’s when I knew I liked it. When I knew I loved him, I poured everything I had into him. I started studying. I started to educate myself so much about all things trucking… At that point I realized it wasn’t just ‘I like it’. It was, ‘I love this.'”
With the help of her mentor, Larry Johnson at Sterling Recruitment Solutions, Gaines sharpened her recruiting skills. She said Johnson was like a father figure to her, and she still keeps up with him today.
“He was a strong figure when it came to mentoring — more so than trucking,” Gaines said. “He has taught me a lot these 15 years… He is a lifelong mentor.”
When asked how she manages all these components of her business, Gaines said that having a great team working for Rig on Wheels has helped her.
“My team is magnificent,” she said. “I believe that you hire people who are good at what they do and you hire people who are smarter than you… In the beginning, you may not be able to hire the best because of the money. But hire someone who compliments your personality so you can all work together as a team.”
Gaines also said it’s important to hire workers who are versatile and can grow and develop skills within their company.
“You don’t want to get someone who can only do one thing,” Gaines said. “It’s artificial intelligence. You want to find someone who can manage artificial intelligence, [who] is open-minded [and] it works well with your particular company culture.”
Rig on Wheels’ Faces of the Road initiative launched in 2024 to celebrate the diversity of America’s truck drivers with a product line that showcases drivers’ unique journeys and contributions to the industry.
“A lot of times when you see some truck driver stuff, it’s just an older white male,” Gaines said. “But those days are over. Our truck drivers are white, black, Hispanic and Asian… It’s more than that, but they’ll usually fall into those four categories.”
This year, Rig on Wheels has developed a calendar where each month different drivers from different backgrounds and nationalities will share their experiences in the trucking industry.
“Rig on Wheels is very driver-centric,” Gaines said. “We needed the drivers to see themselves, and that’s part of the retention. I believe that retention starts with recruitment, it’s not a separate thing.”
She said that truck drivers and society as a whole should look at transportation as a respectable career for all people. As an African-American woman and business executive, Gaines said she herself occasionally faces “issues” rooted in discrimination.
“What I do is try hard all the time,” Gaines said. “And I tell my staff that [they] we are working with and for the black woman in this industry and we cannot afford to make mistakes. We don’t get a second chance.”
Gaines talked about the changes she’s seen in driver hiring over the past 15 years.
“The driver has changed because the industry is not as respected,” she said. “There was a time when being a truck driver was more appreciated… It’s becoming a bit more of a challenge [because of that.] Now I see that we are changing that.”
She said that over the past 18 months, carriers have begun enforcing greater discipline for drivers who are not well-mannered or lack work ethics.
“That culture is present in this industry and it just started spreading like a bad rash for years and years,” Gaines said. “But now there are carriers that have come down. Like, ‘If you do this, then you can’t be hired by us for a year.’ They really push themselves and are strict about it.”
Gaines said the change was driven by shippers pressuring carriers to introduce a different type of mover to the market.
“Carriers have had to compete at levels for these accounts that they haven’t had to compete at in a very, very long time,” Gaines said. “If you got 98.2% on time, you failed.”
She said it changed the hiring discussion from “not hiring drivers with safety issues” to “not hiring drivers who left their last company or were fired for showing up.”
“It puts some respect back into the industry,” Gaines said. “And I think truck drivers should be respected just as much as pilots. It’s the same thing.”
