FIXIN' TO BE BUSY: Canada's top fleet maintenance guy is 75. He could teach us all a thing or two.

The average age of retirement in Canada is 62. Only six percent of the population continues working full-time after 65. Ten years ago, when Active Transport's mechanic-in-chief Ben Vandespyker turned that age, instead of retiring he started a new job and only this month, shortly after his 75th birthday, is he starting to take it easy, by cutting back to four days a week. 

"I wouldn't know what to do if I retired," Vandespyker says as he leans back in his office chair, "I'd miss dealing with people. Being home alone, I'm really glad to come in and stay busy." And stay busy he does.

At the moment he oversees the fleets of two companies; Active Transport and its subsidiary, Grant Haulage. Active runs about 76 trucks and 310 trailers. Grant Haulage has 162 trucks.

There are 10 mechanics in the Grant Shop, and they're unionized. The Active shop employs seven (non-unionized) mechanics, and the two garages keep seven apprentices busy. (The apprenticeships are key to smart maintenance management, Vandespyker says. More on that later.)

Most of the Active trailers are flatbeds, and many of them do extra long, extra-complicated loads so the shop does a lot of custom building.

"Spec'ing equipment is the most important part of my job," Vandespyker says without a moment's hesitation. He also like specing his staff.

If it were up to Vandespyker, he'd hire fresh-faced farm kids. "They can fix just about anything; they are happier kids and they usually have that willingness to get their hands dirty and be a mechanic." 

THE HITCH POST: The wall chart keeps Vandespyker’s
team apprised of each trailer’s status.

Guido Groppini, the General Manager of Fort Garry Industries in Mississauga, says everybody who knows Vandespyker realizes how much he cares about training. 

"He's always teaching them everything and has schooling for them. He wants all his guys to be on top of everything."

Earlier this year, his colleagues recognized Vandespyker's remarkable career when he was named the Volvo Trucks Canada Fleet Maintenance Supervisor of the Year. Anybody you talk to about the award says the recognition is long overdue. 

When Volvo Trucks Canada District Service Manager Don Coldwell presented the award at the Canadian Fleet Main­tenance Seminar (CFMS) in May, he described Vandespyker as "caring, generous, reliable, fair, with a good ability to listen."

Vandespyker wasn't on hand at the Toronto ceremony to hear the kind words. He was visiting his ailing sister, back in Holland, the country he left to come to Canada 52 years ago.

Vandespyker's daughter Lisa accepted the trophy on his behalf. He also has a son, Jamie. As you read this, there's a good chance Jamie and his dad are fishing, in Northern Ontario, which they do for a week every August. ("For as long as I can remember. It's just the two of us," he says).

Vandespyker also lost his wife, Carolyn, earlier this year, after a particularly aggressive and brief battle with cancer. His sister has recovered, by the way.

"There are not too many people like Ben," says Groppini, who met Vandespyker when the mechanic worked for D&W Forwarders, which is where he was working when turned 65. "He's a straight shooter, and he doesn't tell you any stories."

What he will give you, however, is solid advice on making your shop serve your fleet efficiently.

All his vehicles are outfitted with automatic slack adjusters and he says his trailers use grease in their wheel bearings. ("All of Europe uses grease and they don't have any leaking seals like we do here.")

He's thorough too.
"When we do a brake job, we do everything, cams, bushings, the whole works," he says. "It's the same with everything we do. "Like my late father used to say, there's no sense doing anything if you don't do it right.'"

While the Active fleet typically purchases 40 new tractors a year, this year he's buying 40 2010 tractors but he's going to use 2007 engines in them. "We can let somebody else try the new engines for a year."

During a tour of the Active shop, Vandespyker points to a diagnostic desktop computer that can be toted around the shop as needed. "I know you can buy smaller laptops, but you can also use laptops and then put them on the fender of a truck where they'll be driven away and you'll never see them again." That's practical.

While Vandespyker's quick to agree that today's trucks are significant improvements over the iron that he used to run, there are some things that haven't gotten better.

"It's nothing to see a truck go a million clicks without touching the engine," he says. "But I find now that it's harder go get a mechanic who likes to fix things. We're all getting to be parts-replacement people."

And for his part, Vandespyker has no plans to be replaced for a long time to come.

JUST A GOOD 'OL (RATHER, YOUNG) BOY:

Andrew Mazurka drives a 2006 Pete 379 with a 550 Cat and it's a beaut. It's mostly champagne colored; the fenders and roof are metallic green. It's got a shiny bow-tie drop visor, 7-in. stacks and he says its special no-polish rims "make it easier to keep looking good."

The truck has a coffin bunk and one of those low-down broad chrome bumpers that is engineered to flip up in case he has to drive over any obstructions or particularly rough roads. The bumper's an innovation from the team that customized Mazurka's truck -- 12 GA Customs, in Guelph, Ont. 

Mazurka pilots the rig around the Ottawa-Windsor, Ont., corridor under contract to Kleen Transport, a four-truck family-owned fleet based in Norwich, Ont.

Mazurka actually bought the Pete from fleet-co-owner Brian Kleen, and that comes in very handy because not only is Mazurka an owner-operator, he's also a farmer.

He and a friend, Peter Snyder, take cash crops off 100 acres near Guelph and sometimes, especially this time of year, farming takes a lot of extra energy. So when Mazurka's haying or spraying, he can rely on Brian Kleen to keep the truck earning.

"I think about 80 percent of my life's spent trucking; 20 percent farming."

The thing about Mazurka is, he's also 24 measly years old. "I'll be 25 in October," he says.

That puts him into the endangered-species category. Most long-haul drivers saw their 40th birthdays years ago. Only about 17 percent of Canadians who take their commercial licence tests are under 25. An even smaller group than that actually want to drive for a living. 

Mazurka says it takes optimism to be a
farmer and a trucker. He has both, for sure.

The question is, where does a guy like 6-ft, 5-in., 250-lb, half-farm-boy half-gear jammer and good-with-equipment Andrew Mazurka, B.A., come from? And are there more like him? Wouldn't fleet owners like to know?

Mazurka was first brought to the attention of Today's Trucking by his friend, the country singer Brittany Brodie. 

Brodie's father Al is a driver with Labatt's and Brittany knows that when the economy's in better shape, fleets itch for drivers like Mazurka.

"Andrew's an excellent truck driver and a hard worker," she says. "And he's also a terrific communicator. You know how they're always saying 'drivers are your best ambassadors?' Andrew would make a good ambassador for anybody he works for."

He's also a pretty capable rep for the industry in general. Proud of his truck, careful, and above all, optimistic.

"They say you have to be optimistic to be a farmer; and that you have to be just as optimistic to be a trucker, so I have to have that double ray of sunshine, I guess," Mazurka says.

An honor-roll student in high school, Mazurka also loved trucks and other big machines. And in 1989, a cousin, Henryk Wenzel, immigrated from Germany. A few years later, Wenzel started driving long haul.

He was with L.E. Walker on a trip south when his young cousin Andrew asked to tag along. Wenzel obliged and the ride proved to what you might call a gateway trip. The boy got hooked.

"I didn't know I created such a monster," Wenzel says. "He just fell in love with it," says Wenzel. "I let him drive the Pete when he was about 16 or 17 and he took to it as if he'd had 10 years under his belt. He's a smart kid.

"Needs a haircut though."

When it came time to choose a university course, Mazurka was naturally drawn to agriculture.

"Everybody told me not to be a farmer because there's no money in farming, but we knew there's lots of money in the agricultural business," he says.

During the summer after his first year at university, Mazurka landed a job in agricultural research, and the position required a commercial truck licence. The next year, when he was all of 18, he got a part-time job with Guelph-based Transport and Service.

"Everything evolved from there. Before long, I was doing some team long hauls. I turned 21 while on a run in the States," he says.

Immediately after university, Mazurka signed on with the marketing department of the agricultural giant Monsanto. It suited his academic training perfectly.

The only thing it didn't suit was Mazurka. "Who wanted to be in an office all the time?"

At church, he got to know farmer Peter Snyder, who told Mazurka he was looking for somebody to farm some cash crops with, and Mazurka leapt at the chance to purchase a partnership.

He purchased the truck from Brian Kleen, who had already completed much of the custom work, but Andrew returned to the shop for a few more touches, including the bow-tie visor.

Mazurka says if things work out as planned, he might purchase another rig. "I think there's a bright future in the transport industry," he says, adding, "if you play your cards right."