FIXTITLE Ray Covington.docx

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

The Story

Of

Ray Covington

Born as the baby of four children in 1970, Ray Covington has the privilege of calling Rockingham, North Carolina home. Raised on a farm with a total of 42 acres that had been in the Covington family for generations, it was only natural for Ray at an early age to help tend to the land, just as his mom and her parents have before them. “We literally lived off of the land. About 15 acres of it,” Ray says. As young as eight years old, Ray plowed the land by horse. Until their family was able to farm with equipment, they did everything by hand. He recalls, “I remember we raised pigs, cows, even horses and produced corn, beans…any and everything.”

Ray grew up with two older brothers and one sister. Each with their share of duties to perform. They were taught the meaning of hard work and respect from day one. He refers to it as ‘country living.’ With him being the youngest of the bunch, he wasn’t given any slack. Ray was still expected to pull his own weight. He goes into detail, “Of course I had to feed and water all of our animals every day. When the well went dry, I’d have to tote water over from the spring.” During school days, he and his siblings would walk to meet the bus about a half a mile away. Sounds simple enough, but this was another testament towards Ray’s upbringing. “Walking to catch the bus for school was also a part of our regular routine. Rain or shine, we had to walk to get there. Some days it would rain so much that the creek that we needed to pass would flood over.” He laughs as if it were no big deal, “All we would do was throw some logs down and cross over. Then continue our walk to the bus.”

Ray’s mother, along with her father and his brothers not only set a good example on how to live a successful life through hard work and dedication, but they all had planted a seed within Ray that later blossomed into a career that provided him with a means of living and ability that would enable him and his family to be blessed with a fortunate life, as well.

Working side by side with his uncles and great-grandfather, who were all log haulers, gave Ray the opportunity to be around trucks. He could remember back before they were introduced to a wrench, “We had to pick each piece of timber up ourselves and stack them on the old straight truck, one by one.” A few years later is when the wrench came into the picture and immediately made Ray’s days a bit easier with every load.

One of Ray’s uncle’s lived near his bus stop. Occasionally, before the bus ran Ray would drop by his house early in the mornings and help tinker around. There he watched his uncles and began absorbing his surroundings. Soon he learned how to work on cars, too. “It was nothing for me to drop a transmission or pull a motor before even starting my day at school,” he says in a joking manner, but I’m thinking that he has done this more than once.

Going into high school, Ray took to sports. Between his time spent in school and helping his family on the farm, he found a way to squeeze in practices and games during the week. On the weekends he worked part-time at a grocery store. At 16, Ray had his driver’s license and his sister’s spare car. It was a Thunderbird, cream in color with a brown top. His junior year, his brother gave him a 1974 Ford pickup. That same year while playing football, Ray injured his knee. He quickly recovered and later went on to attend Winston-Salem State University on a football scholarship. He went into the nursing field, but due to a sequence of events Ray lost his scholarship. Determined not to burden his mother with his responsibility, he chose to leave school and return home to a full time job.

The grocery store that he worked for at the age of 16 was the first place he turned to. Soon after, he landed a job at the local cotton mill working in the dye house and eventually worked his way up to a line supervisor position. After five and half years, the mill closed their doors. It was then when Ray made his final decision. The choice that changed the direction of his entire career. He said, “I didn’t want to be inside anymore…”

Ray enroll into the Charlotte Truck Driver Training School located in Charlotte, North Carolina. After weeks of learning, training and driving he received his CDL September of 1997. On certain days the school would have trucking companies visit to recruit drivers. Each representative would give their pitch, explaining what their company had to offer and how their business could benefit their professional trucking career. Ray selected his pick of companies that offered straight pay and went with a flatbed outfit hauling steel. Driving over the road, they put Ray in a flat top Freightliner. He realized quickly that flatbed was not his cup tea. He laughs as he explains, “The first time the wind got ahold of my tarp, it scared me! Then another time I was hauling a couple of coils and it felt like it was going to turn over. I was not comfortable.” He switched companies in 1998 and continued to travel all 48 states. About a year later, in an effort to save his relationship at the time, he came off of the road and went with a local company hauling asphalt. Within time Ray separated and also returned to his precious employer, Transport America as a company driver. He was back in an International Cabover delivering a variety of items from mail to household goods.

Transport America promoted Ray to a company driver trainer. Next in 2002, he went to work for a friend that was an owner operator leased onto Transport America. The owner operator placed him in a Classic Freightliner XL. He drove a dedicated route out of Charlotte to Minnesota, back and forth, Monday through Friday. After three years, his friend wanted to downsize his fleet. This opened the window for Ray to step out of the shadows and become an owner operator himself.

In 2005, Ray purchased his first truck. A 1999 Century Freightliner, off-white with blue stripes. He continues to run the system for Transport America mostly in the mid-west area. In 2006, Ray was elected by his fellow independent drivers as the president of the Board of Owner Operators for Transport America. With this role, he intermediates with the operations side of Transport America and their team leaders and dispatch on behalf of the owner operators. “As they say, ‘Volume works better than singles,’” he explains.

A few years later in 2010, Ray purchased a 2005 Columbia. The following year he was named 2011’s Contract of the Year Driver and was also recognized for reaching his 1 million mile mark (all with Transport America). To this day, he continues to drive for Transport America for a number of positive reasons. One being the obvious, “They keep me trucking. When I left the factory I told myself that I was not going back to being closed up in some building. This job allows me to see different places and meet new people all of the time. Here with Transport America, I’m able to call my own shots and when it comes to getting me home they make it their priority! That’s what is important. That’s why I’m still here.” He has found a home with Transport America. It’s easy to do so when the company builds their business around their number one asset; their drivers. “From day one, they’ve made it about us drivers. Their open-door policy is exactly that… any time that we need to talk, it doesn’t matter if it’s with the CEO, the VP or operations, they always take the time to sit down and discuss any issues that are bothering us.”

When Ray is not on the road, he says that he tries to catch up on his ‘Honey-Do List’ at home. Still a newlywed as of this past December, Ray puts his wife, Natasha and their blended family of 5 children as his top priority. Natasha is a medical lab technician at Wesley Long Hospital near Greensboro, North Carolina. The couple always find themselves busy with their full-time jobs and their kids’ schedules. Together they have four daughters and one son, ages ranging from 10 to 24. The three oldest are college students, with Deedee enrolled at Richmond Community College, Tyronne at A&T State University and Brandolyn attends her father’s alma mater, Winston Salem State University. Tiasia is their second to youngest, a senior in high school. Then their baby of the bunch, Miss Tyla will soon be turning 11 in February. Ray says, “We enjoy spending a lot of quality time together when we can.” With his schedule and him working away on the road so much, when he is finally able to be home he makes every day count. As he said before, his home-time is extremely important. As it should be.