The $90,000 Trailer Sitting Idle: Todd Waldron on Trailer Sharing

Machine transcript of the Riverside recording "Todd & AirFreight.com" (2026-10-14, 24:57). Each speaker track was transcribed on its own (faster-whisper small + WhisperX), so the speaker labels are exact; the words are ASR and not proofread. Spellings to confirm before quoting: REPOWR (ASR writes 'repower'), Truckstop, Q Carriers, Chris Hines (ASR 'Heinz'), Ron Lazo, GenLogs, Highway, 'Katina' (unknown telematics partner), 'Load Away' (product name). Word-level JSON and the per-track files are on HD 15: AirFreight-video-pipeline/incoming/on-air/ep-11-waldron/. Made 2026-10-17 by Duncan (Fable, Claude Code).

[0:00:02] Kevin: Welcome back everyone to another exciting edition of on air with air freight.com. I'm the host Kevin Carpenter and Man, I you know, I love to talk about logistics. You know, I love to talk about how big the transportation world is Set aside the fact that everything in the room right now Got there because of the transportation sector. That's just simply a fact of life the world moves forward every day the power the lights stay on the cars keep moving every day because of the transportation world but let me tell you the transportation world is gigantic and one of the things I love to do is explore the different corners of it and that's what we do on this podcast with that you know we love to be in the C-suite we've got another C-suite guy on here today I don't know how we get so lucky it's not talent we got a guy named Todd Waldron and he is the COO or I'm sorry Chief Commercial Officer for a company called Repower and that's R-E-P-O-W-R we'll put a link in the description there he's a leading he leads commercial strategy and network expansion he's been on both sides of the business he run he's run trucking and brokerage operations as CEO of Q carriers and then he served as Vice president of Carrier Experience at Truck Stop, which is very cool. That's something I'm familiar with a little bit. He brings more than 15 out. He just said 19 years. He's been in the business for 19 years, including at CH Robinson and JB Hunt, where he helped develop JB Hunt 360, which is another product I'm familiar with. So this is very cool to have you, Todd. Thank you very much for joining us, man.

[0:01:50] Todd: Yeah, it's awesome to be here. I appreciate you having me.

[0:01:54] Kevin: And so I'm broadcasting here from Central Alabama. Tell me where you're at.

[0:02:00] Todd: I am down in Chattanooga. So I live in Minnesota, based out of Minnesota, but our company repowers based out of Chattanooga, Tennessee. And I'm actually down here on site at our global headquarters, we'll call it down in Chattanooga,

[0:02:14] Kevin: beautiful country there in Chattanooga. Okay, well, let's jump right into it. air freight.com handles shipments at a micro level. I mean, we're talking one skid. Sometimes one it's going in one van. It's picking up at one place. It's going to one delivery and it's got a one very important deadline. That's that's what we're dealing with. And then we just do that over and over with a single with one point and a contact handling each shipment for the customer. Repower is really on the other end of that spectrum. You're a marketplace. Just give me the high level overview of what you guys do, what problem you're solving.

[0:02:53] Todd: Yeah, absolutely. So we're laser focused in the trailer space. And so the foundation of the company about six years ago started trailer sharing marketplace. And so the marketplace was the foundation that allows and enables fleets to get their trailers where they need them to be to relocate them, as well as rental assets, and then allows carriers and brokers on the demand side to rent and utilize that equipment and find equipment, trailing equipment where they need to be. And so that was the foundational idea that's now focused on the optimization of the trailing assets. And so that marketplace allows us and enables us to be able to provide optimization solutions and look at this underutilized, underoptimized asset of the trailers and provide a lot of benefit to the industry and also to the carriers in the trailer owners that own the equipment.

[0:03:50] Kevin: Yeah, I mean, I think I can see how something like that even would come up. I could see where someone would be in a situation, they're having a problem. Is that kind of how repower was invented and could you describe that scenario for me and what that rudimentary problem was that someone was facing that they solved sure yeah

[0:04:11] Todd: the fact of trucking is that you have a multitude of assets, but they're in the wrong place and or carriers don't have access to them. And so our founders were in the transportation industry and realized that there's a number of underutilized and assets out there that nobody can access and nobody can then connect the freight to them. And so it foundationally was, hey, if you have idle underutilized or trailers you're not using, put them in the marketplace and they can get reserved and rented and you can gain revenue on them. What that's really turned into is the relocation component is our foundation or core value today in that your large enterprise medium-sized fleets have a multitude of trailers that are not in the right places. And so being able to relocate them, they previously had to pay a driver to go out of route and or use a loadout solution that they're paying someone to move these trailers. Now through repower, they can get them to where they need to be and actually eliminate that cost and also add back revenue in a lot of cases where they're gaining revenue to get their trailers where they need them to be so and but you you're yeah absolutely and

[0:05:29] Kevin: it's it's taken the same concepts of your your ubers and your door dashes that owner well well what's the model there's I think there's a specific name for the model like a rent use model or something like that where you know you on the you on the item someone like Repower has given you the opportunity to market that and you know, basically you you know Let other people utilize it when it's not being utilized for one thing But then in the logistics world you just pointed out this is a major pain point in logistics world you you're Nine-time. Well, I would say seven or eight times out of ten You're moving freight one direction, you know, and then your trailers are where you know, you sold your goods Now your trailers are at the the place of delivery and now you have to get your empty trailers back So that's that's a problem. That's a major problem. You guys are solving and and just for our expedite for our expedited world listeners I mean, we know we're not alone in this transportation world but let's zoom out just a second and and point out the fact that not everyone understands that you know in the Trucking world in the real in the major meat and bones trucking world. It's two major components to every shipment you have your trailer and you have your power That's not really the case an expedite. It's one, you know, most of the time. It's one unit We don't even think of drop, you know We don't even think of dropping a trailer in the expedite world these guys have their trailers They hold on to them, you know, there's no world of letting your trailer just go off into the wild and you know seeing what happened. That's just a normal occurrence in the transportation world though, right? As far as trailers go.

[0:07:10] Todd: yeah your typical fleet has anywhere from 2.5 to 4 trailers per every truck and so you look at the rise of the drop trailer solution and you know warehouses need flexibility in order to drive of optimization of their warehouse. And so they thrust into this drop trailer environment. At that time, trailers cost what $10,000 a trailer. Now we're in an environment where their drive-ins are $50,000, reefers are up to $90,000, and you have this need to support the drop trailer solution and enable flexibility, but yet it's a much more costly asset now. In an average trailer, it has 30% to 40% of its life that is empty or idle, and so it's not been optimized in the industry. A lot of other assets are trading in pools, whether it's chassis or containers, but they're also been optimized such as the driver's time or the truck's time and things like that, hours of service, and how do we optimize that? How do we optimize fuel stoppage? But the trailing side of it is an incredibly expensive asset now that has not been optimized

[0:08:24] Kevin: Yeah. And are you, as to your knowledge, are you guys the only one in the space?

[0:08:31] Todd: Primarily, yeah, I think there's there's there's been a few others Out there, but that have not established the product market fit as well as the scale that we have in a marketplace. So we have

[0:08:41] Kevin: A marketplace is a delicate thing to try to launch, right?

[0:08:44] Todd: Yes. And so we have over 10,000 carriers in the marketplace and we have, you know, over or 275 suppliers that are leasing companies, trailer owners, carriers, large enterprise fleets. And so we've moved over 60,000 trailers to date. And so that enables this foundation of a universal trailer network that then can scale and provide value to everybody in the industry.

[0:09:13] Kevin: Yeah. And I would say that the crucial part is the beginning is getting that getting to that critical mass point. You know as you're trying to launch. I mean is this your well, how involved were you in the launching of this marketplace? Or where did you take over in the process?

[0:09:27] Todd: I was involved in a different regard. So when I, so I had, in 2019, I took over as CEO of a company called Q Carriers out of Minnesota. So refrigerated food and beverage asset based business with the brokerage as well. And so I was working on a hybrid asset solution with a brokerage power only solution. And that's when I first got introduced to repower when they were in their early days of starting up. And so I loved the concept, the idea, and started working with the guys here. fast forward. I then was at truck stop and had met Chris Heinz, our CEO. So Chris has over 40 years in the industry, primarily a lot of time in the trailer and leasing side of the business, running G capitals trailer leasing business called tip. And then he ran a publicly traded trucking company for five years. And so I got to know him and had just connected with him over time. And he had come in, stepped in as CEO about a year ago and and that kind of progressed in the opportunity to actually join the company here. We had established product market fit. The founders did a great job doing that, but then we reached this point of how do we then continue to scale the business. And so Chris came in and then built a team with myself, also Ron Lazo, who's who's got many years in the industry as our CEO. And so we just got a lot of exciting things happening. So,

[0:10:50] Kevin: Mean I imagine so that's it's kind of an exciting Company type of a company to run because it's mostly I would imagine just kind of tweaking tweaking settings here and there You know, there's not a lot of But I but I have a real quick question It's a marketplace, usually marketplaces are going to join two different, very different types of consumer customers. We'll call them both customers. They're going to have two customers. Like most load boards, you were on truck stop. You have carriers and shippers, very different. But the people that own these trailers and the people that have the ability to move these trailers, they're the same people. So that's a, that's to me, that's, that's what makes this a very promising type of a marketplace because usually with a marketplace, you're going to, you're going to lose customers. You're just not going to have enough, you're going to have all these people that want to run freight, if that's what it is. And not enough people, you know, that actually have the money and that are bringing the business to the, to the actual table.

[0:11:57] Todd: Yeah, and and that's the exciting thing is that you're right that the participants can participate on both sides of the marketplace We see our large enterprise fleets gain value from renting trailers to subsidize their fleet You know and same with medium-sized It's like if that dead zone you mentioned if I'm sending trailers to a dead zone I can't get them back at why not use a repower trailer that might be needed by somebody else in that area But it also expands beyond that, where you start to see value, I mean, we provide value to shippers that need access to equipment, brokers who need access to equipment. And so not only do you have these core participants, but you also have other areas of the supply chain that this is able to support. The other thing I'd say is what we've realized and developed over the last couple of years is the realization that it can't be like a loadboard marketplace where you make the connection and then you're not involved anymore. Because the trailing, there's things happening when the trailer's moving, we have a customer success team that's there to support the entire length of the reservation throughout. So we can help connect those dots. We don't just say, here the trailer's been moved hands off. We're engaged in the entire process to make sure that everything goes smoothly and that there's value and connections being made throughout the process.

[0:13:15] Kevin: Got it. That makes a lot of sense. You gave me another question here. What percentage of the trailer fleet has tracking? Has GPS tracking on it? Okay,

[0:13:29] Todd: probably upwards of 70% has tracking now these days in some form or fashion. And so I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but you see you've seen that grow where you get, you know, you get tracking.

[0:13:43] Kevin: have the tracking.

[0:13:43] Todd: We also have the majority of our equipment is 10 years or newer, right? And so that that lends itself to having more connection to the units. We also have worked with so we have direct connections with a lot of the telematics providers and trailer tracking providers. We also work with Katina that enables connections to additional both ELV and the trailer tracking units. We have work with them that opens the door for a lot of a lot more tracking solutions. We found it

[0:14:15] Kevin: integrated into your platform. It doesn't just end at, you're gonna have it here within the next couple of weeks. Yeah.

[0:14:23] Todd: exactly. And we found it was necessary to know, especially in our current environment that's overwhelmed with fraud to know who has the trailer 100% of the time. So we also have a partnership with GenLogs is another one that enables knowing

[0:14:36] Kevin: Just learned about that company.

[0:14:38] Todd: what's happening. Yes, it's a fascinating model, but it helps us know who has the trailer. So we've invested in security and safety significantly. We have a partnership with Highway on the front end to verify and understand identity and make sure that the providers in the marketplace not only match our baseline requirements, but also match that of the trailer owner so that they have a decision-making and guardrail setting power over who can haul their trailers.

[0:15:06] Kevin: are able to bring, sorry, the trailer owners are able to bring their individual requirements to the table here and select carriers accordingly. Okay.

[0:15:16] Todd: so we can integrate, if they use highway, we can integrate to their highway

[0:15:19] Kevin: to the highway.

[0:15:19] Todd: instance and use their guardrails based off of that or also through the setup process. Our customer success team goes through, here's the guardrails we have, where do you want these set? So it's set up for success on the front end.

[0:15:36] Kevin: I love to explore it from the expedited angle. So if I'm a customer and I, I mean, let's just say I'm just in a bad situation and I need this particular trailer and maybe this doesn't, maybe this situation doesn't just happen just because of the way the logistics work. But if I need a particular trailer, what's the fastest I'm gonna be able to use your network to get something moved from A to B to get a trailer repositioned? Great question, I think it's fast.

[0:16:01] Todd: need it there, and that can be legally done by a driver, right? And so if we look at our average reservation length is about 22 days, but you have both ends of the spectrum and that averages can be dangerous, right? So you have those that are doing 60, 90, you know, six month rentals on trailers, but you also have those that take them for one shipment. And so, what we see in marketplace conversion is about 75, 80% of our listings get a rental. And if you need something quicker, there's two ways and two things that help. One is we just launch short run pricing, which is a lower pricing to the carrier renting so that it incents getting that trailer reclote located faster. So, if it's under 14 days, we offer them a lower price, almost half in some cases, to rent that trailer. And so, now we're seeing a great adoption of that, and so that a carrier might piece together a couple trailer reservations because they can get them for a cheaper price. Two, we're also in the launch process of our loadaway product that is, if the marketplace is not able to cover or doesn't get a rental or get the trailer moved by the time you needed, then it would feed into a load away that's paying a broker, like a loadout process, it's paying a broker to move that trailer. So then you're able to maybe move it quicker if you weren't able to. But a few things in lead time, if I know ahead of time, that enables a faster marketplace conversion. And then also, like, what are the boundaries? Where does it need to go to? And if there's alternatives or solutions to have multiple drop off locations and things like that, that can also speed up your velocity of turn. But yeah, anyway, I mean, you're talking a matter of days, it could be five days, seven days to get a trailer to where it's needed. So yeah.

[0:18:02] Kevin: sounds like there's a lot of pros to what you what you offer here when is doing the trailer sharing or renting not a good like when is that not the right thing to do yeah

[0:18:15] Todd: it's really become a great solution, a lot of use cases. I mean, you know, when you don't want to extend the capital and or the lease agreement, you don't know when you're you're how long the freight's going to be or what have you, it's a great solution, but it's now even offering trailer options for longer term commitments. And we see a lot of brokers that will come to us with six month projects or a year of projects. But I would say it really comes down to what your strategy is as a carrier and when do you think it's right to own and put trailers or cost against owning the equipment versus having a much more flexible solution that you can vary based off of the marketing and demand. The reality is, is we live especially in the one way freight environment. We live in a very volatile market and a lot of freight is not consistent year round. And so it's hard to align an asset agreement against that. We enable more flexibility the ability to better matches what happens in freight cycles.

[0:19:25] Kevin: and that's that's kind of why I'm asking that is because it doesn't seem like there's a lot of downside to it I suppose if if you're just really good at keeping your equipment optimized I mean I don't see a I'm just trying to find the reason that you know a real reason why Company wouldn't want to do this. I'm guessing you have shippers in your in your network as well, right? That actually own that you know that are just getting moving product and then trying to get their trailers back, right?

[0:19:56] Todd: yep, yep, there's shippers. They're not hugely present today, but there's certainly shippers present, but they also like shippers with private fleets or dedicated fleets. They're not as much relocating between pools, but they are doing, you know, you might start up a new facility. And so it's a great way to either get trailers quickly or bring in additional trailers and start to You increase the speed of startup by not having to wait for new trailers to get delivered And then trailer or re-sizing of pools and then moving the trailers out if you're closing down a site or relocating So there's there's definitely use cases that we see for for the shippers for sure.

[0:20:42] Kevin: okay Man, I'm almost I'm almost I've almost exhausted my my questions here But I have there's one other interesting angle to this that I see which is the data Man, are you guys? Learning some things that we that probably the the market as a whole didn't you know, you're bringing understanding to this What are you guys doing with that data? You guys do you sell this data? Do you use it for proprietary purposes? Do you like and if so, how could you you mean? I don't the as a marketplace I don't know how you could use the data, you know, how you could use the data as far as because you're learning about cycles You're learning about where capacity is moving and when throughout the year, especially over time If you get some years of data Tell me about that

[0:21:30] Todd: Yeah, we don't monetize the data at all, but we do use it. One, we just released our first half, probably a month ago, we released our first half of 2026 trailer utilization report. And so it highlights data from the industry, but also that we've seen in the marketplace around trailer utilization. Two, you'll see over my shoulder that trailer optimization platform or top is we launched earlier this year, and essentially it's giving you a high level visibility of all your trailers. So it takes the location, the pool, the region, and bubbles that up and they say, where do I have trailers and where do the trailers need to be? And so we're essentially enabling each of our customers to utilize that data. So this now, like you look at the industry and there's certainly gaps in visibility to the data, and then what do I do with it? So now we've connected to elevate the visibility of the data. Where do I need trailers and manage the balances of trailers that I need, the idle times that I want on my trailers, or where I want to have those thresholds, and then automatically executing by feeding into the marketplace to get those trailers to where they need to be. So now you dynamically are balancing your trailer pools. So that's just one of the early stages of what you do with that data, and then we're about to release equipment planning and analysis that enables you to plan. How many trailers do I need to buy, purchase, and where do I have costs that I can squeeze up?

[0:23:10] Kevin: You know, it's largely, you know, you learn these things for as being a, from being a freight broker over the years, you learn certain cycles, you learn, you hear lore about certain things that happen, the Christmas trees, you know, move in every, every fall into winter there from the, from the Northwest. So you, you can now, I mean, well, you can see that to some extent, I would imagine you can see these cycles. Todd, I appreciate you coming on, man. I think this was very enlightening. Uh-oh. Do I still have? I still have audio, right? You can hear me? Oh, I thought I lost audio. Before you leave, we're going to take you through what I call the on-air gauntlet. This is something every guest goes through. I'm just going to hit you with three rapid-fire, unrelated questions. I have a hard time staying away from food related questions as you'll see But yeah, here we go. Are you ready for the on-air gauntlet, Todd?

[0:24:07] Todd: Let's go, let's go.

[0:24:08] Kevin: All right, Todd What's a food you'll never eat again? Dill or bread bread and butter all of them

[0:24:19] Todd: of them. Pickles mail, I'm a picky eater.

[0:24:22] Kevin: So a lot of okay What movie will you stop and watch every time it's on

[0:24:28] Todd: a few good men. It's on a lot. It's problematic.

[0:24:34] Kevin: What song are you singing if your life depends on knowing every word?

[0:24:40] Todd: I know I'm one of those people that sings but doesn't know the words. I'll go years and don't know. So every song.

[0:24:47] Kevin: dead you haven't you're done Todd. Thank you very much for being on air with airfreight.com

[0:24:55] Todd: me. It's been a pleasure.