When 23-year-old Joe Denney went into business for himself hauling equipment for contractors, quarries and distributors in Middle Tennessee, he did so with years of experience despite being only 23 years old.
He had gained much of that know-how by moving sand, gravel and asphalt for his father's company, Denney Trucking in Lebanon, Tenn., during and after his high school days.
Denney's career trajectory changed, though, when he recognized a need in the industry — one which led him to purchase an old truck and lowboy set up for $20,000.
"One of the guys that owned a track loader said, ‘Man, I always seem to have a hard time finding anybody to move this stuff to where I need it and when I do, its three or four days before they can get here. You ought to go [into the hauling business],'" Denney said. "I told him I couldn't do it because I was responsible for dispatching more than 45 dump trucks at that time."
Still, he took the advice and, as a result, the track loader owner continued to call on him for his service.
That eventually led to Denney starting his own one-man company in 2000, J&D Specialized Equipment Hauling, even as he kept working for his dad.
Today, Joe Denney's business in Lebanon, east of Nashville, is regarded as the region's premier equipment and components hauling firm.
Along with his wife, Joey, the company employs approximately 80 employees using 50 trucks and more than 200 trailers, with approximately 65 of those being lowboys.
Her duties within the company, Joey said, are handling "all the back of the house, including human resources, insurance, risk mitigation, operations and administrative processes. Joe has more technical knowledge and I'm more process oriented. "
"We have anywhere between 550 to 650 active customers each year," she said. "Most of our work is in [the Middle Tennessee] region."
Besides the trucking and hauling operation, J&D's main business, the company also offers equipment storage for its clients, a logistics division, a rigging department and a full-scale shop to minimize equipment downtime.
In its formative years, though, J&D's success depended entirely on Joe's seemingly unceasing amount of drive and energy, balanced by Joey's organizational skills and financial acumen.
To drum up more work for his company, in 2002, Denney summoned the courage to approach the Nashville branch of Power Equipment — one of the largest construction machine distributors in the Southeast — to see about hauling its equipment wherever the Knoxville-based company needed.
"I think I drove around the parking lot three times before I stopped because I was a little nervous," he said. "Once I got in, I sat down and the guy working at the front counter was Dennis Dorris, the rental coordinator at Power."
As it turned out, meeting Dorris proved advantageous for both Denney and Power Equipment.
"Dennis gave me an opportunity," he said. "After I moved that first machine for him, I called back and asked, ‘OK, what's next?' But, he said, ‘I'll call you when I need you.' Regardless, that was my entry to the industry and helped me get more business."
Power later provided Denney with a chance to take on a larger role when Dorris called to say another hauling company that worked for the distributor was no longer able to handle the workload.
"I quickly agreed because up until that point I had been getting all the hauling jobs that were left over," Denney said. "The first thing I did was call my dad and tell him I was going to quit his company because to succeed at mine, I had to do this work full time."
From that day to the present, he said, "Power's Nashville branch has never had to use anybody else because I'm always going to take care of it for them. That has been the case for more than 20 years. In fact, we're not going to let down any of our clients, even if I have to do it myself."
Known for Quick Response Time
Denney's promise has made J&D Specialized Equipment Hauling a respected name in the industry due to its rapid response and professionalism when called upon by Power Equipment and other construction-related companies. Others among its client base are contractors, utility companies and mining operations.
Given Power's huge market, which spreads across the entirety of Tennessee as well as portions of southwestern Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi and most of Arkansas from its eight dealership locations, it has helped J&D finely-tune its logistics division to operate the company's hauling operation like a Swiss-made watch.
"We have trucks running around in all those places for Power and many of our other clients," he said. "Let's say Matthew Spence, one of Power's Nashville territory managers, gets a rent request from a contractor. He may call it into our office and say, ‘We need this dozer moved out of Tupelo, Miss., in the morning and brought to Nashville.' Well, chances are we may have somebody in Memphis that's coming back from Little Rock, Ark., or a guy in Birmingham that we can send over there."
As J&D now transports an average of 14,000 loads per year, the trick is figuring out how to get each piece of equipment to the right location as quickly as possible.
"With a lowboy business, you really need to have a plethora of customers, and it takes an arsenal of trucks and haul equipment to cover everything because our clients want it all moved today, not in a week's time," Denney said. "It's a logistical game that plays out every day."
His association with Power Equipment also has helped to spread the word about J&D's hauling efficiencies to other potential clients.
"When Power needs a big Komatsu PC490 excavator in its Nashville store moved to a job site in Hermitage and wants us there within an hour to move that 110,000-pound machine, most haulers just can't react that quickly — it's not realistic for them.
"While others may say they can deliver in two or three days, I tell my clients, ‘Don't worry, it's either going to be done today or it will be there when you wake up in the morning,'" he added. "That's what started selling our services as much as anything."
Jobsite Equipment Moves Another of J&D's Specialties
Denney transports equipment for a long list of dealers and contractors that work in areas with a high concentration of new construction, such as the ever-growing Nashville and Knoxville markets.
One of the major efforts that J&D was involved in was downtown Nashville's "Fast Fix 8," a 2015 Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) project to replace eight aging Interstate 40 bridges.
Omaha-based Kiewit Corp. employed J&D's drivers, lowboys and other equipment to move bridge panels across the work site at night, Denney said. In addition, he provided a storage yard for the contractor's machines.
Five years later, Kiewit returned to the Music City to widen and improve more than 7 mi. of I-440. Once again, the contracting firm called on J&D — this time to move all of Kiewit's equipment from one side of the highway to the other.
"At 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., seven days a week, we would deploy trucks out there to move equipment across the site," Denney said. "TDOT wouldn't let Kiewit drive an excavator across a bridge, so I went out there on a Sunday morning and put the excavator on a trailer and carried it to the other side."
On many days, Kiewit would have up to 12 machines for J&D to transport wherever the contractor wanted them.
"Then, at 5 p.m., we would be back down to the job site during the middle of Nashville's rush hour to again move equipment," he said.
To Denney's way of thinking, if he gets a contract to move a piece of machinery, he and his crew will do so regardless of the job's size and difficulty.
In fact, he said the biggest single machine that J&D ever hauled was a 150-ton (approximately 330,000 lbs.) Cat 6015 hydraulic mining shovel for Jones Bros., a heavy highway construction firm in Mt. Juliet, Tenn.
"The customer wanted to move the shovel from one end of the job to the other, so we just built ramps and drove it up on the side of an old-school heavy-duty trailer. We also moved transformers that weighed close to 300,000 pounds and some substations."
J&D's largest highway load called for using a truck and dolly system to transport a 190,000-lb. cooling tower from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Delaware for a chemical company. The structure was carried on a 16-axle dolly setup, which altogether weighed 300,000 lbs. (approximately 150 tons) and was 190 ft. long.
The key to making such a delicate move, he said, is calculating the proper weight transference while considering the vehicle's acceleration, braking, and turning.
Many Contractors Also Rent Storage Space From Denney
Denney also started buying and grading various properties in the region to serve as equipment laydown yards for his clients. He created the lucrative service in 2008 after learning the Nashville location of Garney Construction needed larger space for its idle machines.
"I was at their office and saw that they had a small yard that made it difficult to move equipment in and out of," he said. "After talking to the right person, we began renting space to them here in Lebanon. Now we've got probably 25 storage customers and many more laydown yards."
So far, Denney has purchased 40 acres for developing storage space, and he has another 100 acres on hand for future use. The multi-acre yards are built by J&D using the construction pieces it buys from Power Equipment — further proof that their business collaboration is a two-way street.
Among the construction equipment purchased through Power were two large Komatsu PC360 excavators, a D61 mid-sized dozer, a pair of Takeuchi TL12 skid steers, and a Takeuchi TB290 mini-excavator.
For the hauling side of the business, J&D also has acquired Etnyre lowboy trailers, he said.
"When Kiewit needed four acres to be excavated for their use on the Cumberland City [Tenn.] gas plant, I knew we could build it faster than anybody else. So, my crew did all that grading work for them. Our construction equipment is used solely for developing my own personal properties."
In Kiewit's case, its permanent laydown yards are in areas where it has a long-term lease with J&D. If the contractor were to get another nearby job that required more room for its machines, Joey Denney said J&D could then offer a short-term lease.
"I think that's one of the things that's helped our customers," she said. "It was born out of a need to service our customers fully. Having that long- and short-term option — an extra three, six or 12 months — means they aren't committed to 10 acres for the next five years."
After working closely with Power Equipment for most of J&D's 25 years, Joe and Joey Denney's admiration for the Tennessee dealership continues to grow.
"They remain one of our top customers every single year," said Joey. "They're a company and an organization that, from our perspective, has it all together. Power is certainly the most organized company that we deal with, and they continue to be very loyal to us." CEG
(All photos courtesy of J&D Specialized Equipment Hauling.)
