10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

COVER FEATURE - AUGUST 2007

GUARDIAN ANGEL
BERT AND HIS PETE NEVER TRAVEL ALONE
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor

Fourteen years ago, Bert Cano lost his only sister in a tragic car accident – but, at the same time, he acquired a guardian angel. And if “divine protection” was not enough, he wrapped his Peterbilt in barbed wire for further security. And after many years of driving and over one million accident-free miles under his belt, apparently his safeguards are working.

Bert, who lives in Colusa, California and operates under the name Cano Exxpress, has been driving since he was eighteen years old and has been an owner operator for the past thirteen years. At 35 years old, Bert has been with Knight Transportation for twelve years, and is proud to say that he was one of their first owner operators.

Bert came from humble beginnings, growing up on a small ranch in the state of Michoacan, Mexico. He moved to the United States when he was fourteen, and worked in construction for two years in the Riverside area. At sixteen, he moved north to Colusa, California to be with his family. Once there, he began working on a ranch, and by the time he was eighteen, he was the Farm Foreman. He taught himself how to drive a truck on the ranch, as equipment and other supplies always needed moving. Back then, the trucks he had to choose from included a 2-axle International cabover and a GMC General conventional. Bert never got a regular Class-C license to drive a car – his first drivers license was a Class-A commercial license. At eighteen he could haul loads throughout California, but he would have to wait until he was 21 to go out of state.

Wanting to drive full time, he left the ranch and joined Adams Trucking out of Woodland, California. Adams specialized in agricultural products like grain and fruit, but they also had an air freight division. In the winter, when farming slowed down, he hauled air freight loads between Seattle and San Diego. He worked with Adams for four years, but after his younger sister Nancy was killed in a tragic car accident, Bert quit and took six months off to help his family, and himself, get through the ordeal.

The accident occurred in Albany, Oregon, where Bert’s parents and sister had recently moved. It was a cold day in early November of 1993, and Nancy, who was a senior in high school, was on her way to school with a friend when an RV hit a patch of ice and lost control, hitting the pickup Nancy was driving. Both of the girls were killed instantly. Nancy always said that if something bad were to happen to her, she wanted to be buried on their ranch in Mexico. Hearing the terrible news, Bert dropped everything and went to be with his family. He spent the next six months taking care of all the arrangements and his family, and took a long trip to Mexico to fulfill his sister’s final wishes.

A few years prior to the accident, Bert had met a girl named Maria and the two had been talking about getting married. It didn’t seem right for them to be living together with Bert’s parents after the accident, so in February of 1994 they got married. A few months later, Bert decided that it was time to go back to work, so they returned to Colusa. But Bert did not want to go back to working for someone else – he wanted to buy his own truck and become an owner operator. They sold a pickup truck for the downpayment and purchased a slightly used (one year old) 1993 Kenworth W900L.

Bert didn’t even have a job when he bought the truck, so he quickly picked up some magazines and found a job at Market Transport in Portland, Oregon. He hauled food products for them for about six months, and then decided to move on. He thought he might try a larger company, so he signed on with Swift. That lasted for about three weeks. After that, in March of 1995, he signed on with Knight Transportation.

At that time, Knight only had one terminal in Phoenix, Arizona and about 25 company trucks. Based on his truck number, we figured out that Bert was their sixty-first owner operator. Today, Knight employs more than 4,000 people, who work out of 24 Service Centers across the country, and has roughly 3,700 trucks and over 8,000 trailers, as well as over 500 owner operators. Knight Transportation has become one of the most remarkable success story in the truckload industry. Their revenues have grown from $13 million in 1991 to almost $500 million in 2005 – and Bert is proud to have been a part of all that growth. Bert is currently based out of Knight’s Service Center in Katy, Texas.

Bert’s wife Maria has always been an integral part of Cano Exxpress – she has always handled all of the paperwork and “behind the scenes” stuff. But in the beginning, she didn’t really know what she was doing and she forget a few things and did a few things wrong. They paid a few hefty fines, but learned a lot along the way. In 1999, things were going well, so they purchased a brand new Peterbilt. The next year, they bought two brand new Volvo trucks. And then in 2003, they purchased the Peterbilt (new) that is on our cover/centerfold this month (but it looked nothing like it does now). Then they traded in the two Volvos for two more brand new Peterbilts. So now they had four Peterbilts – and four big payments to prove it.

Things were going good until one of their drivers had three major accidents in just one month. After they let him go, another one of their drivers decided to buy his own truck and start out on his own. Then another driver quit. Now they had four trucks but just one driver – Bert. The trucks sat parked for three months while Bert and Maria tried to find drivers, which just about bankrupted them. Finally, they sold three of the trucks and just kept one for Bert – the 2003 Peterbilt featured here.

Back then, the truck was painted all white with red (vinyl) tribal flames. Bert drove the truck like that for three years without any problems, until he hit a deer in Arkansas last year and busted his fender, bumper and headlight. Looking for a good excuse to take an extended vacation in Mexico, Bert decided to drop the truck off at a shop in San Antonio, Texas and have it fixed while he was gone. When he got to the shop, he mentioned how he always wanted a truck with a barbed wire theme and the guys, Eddie and Omar Garza, got excited. That night, Omar made some sketches and showed them to Bert the next day. Bert liked the design so much that he decided to let the brothers repaint his entire truck. Then he left for Mexico.

While he was gone, the truck got new fiberglass front fenders, a new 18-inch American Eagle bumper, and a new paint job – black on top and metallic orange copper on the bottom, divided by airbrushed barbed wire “stripes” down each side. When Bert picked up the truck, the brothers pointed out how they included Bert’s last name “Cano” in one of the barbs. After taking the truck home, Bert decided to really start fixing it up.

The first thing Bert did was remove the Double JJ brackets and attach his single round headlights directly to his Double JJ Blinkerbars. He then installed a grille made by Roadworks and strung real barbed wire (painted orange) in three of the gaps between the bars. He also built a custom visor, removed the horns from the roof of his cab, relocated the cab lights, installed 8-inch pipes and dropped the front fenders so they would sit closer to the tires. He then took a pair of polished aluminum half fenders, shaved off ten inches, fabricated custom brackets, and then mounted the fenders rolled forward as far as he could go. Jimmy Mojica, Bert’s cousin, built the rear light bar out of heavy gauge steel, adding five small “penny” LED lights in the center and using a pair of Double JJ Light Grills as taillights.

A short time later, the truck got its “finishing touches” from painter Steve Cervantes. Steve, who is also from San Antonio, painted some small, orange, barbed wire stripes on Bert’s frame and a small mural of a Bandito Crow on the deck plate behind the fifth wheel. Bert showed Steve a picture of his sister, and Steve suggested that he paint a mural of her on a piece of aluminum so that Bert could rivet it to the back of the sleeper (that way, if he ever sold the truck, he could remove it and keep it). Bert was skeptical, but he told Steve to give it a try. The next morning, the mural was done and Bert loved it. He told Steve, “It was like you knew my sister – it’s perfect!” Now his truck is a rolling memorial, dedicated to the memory of his sister.

When he is not trucking, Bert likes to spend time with his wife and their two boys – Raul (10) and Jesus (5). He also likes to take out their 1932 Chevy Sedan for a cruise or a show whenever possible. Featuring a chopped top and two-tone purple paint, the hot rod has been known to win a trophy from time to time – and turn a few heads. Both of Bert’s boys help him work on the truck and keep it clean, but neither has ever said that they want to follow in his footsteps. Raul is very quiet and spiritual, spending most of his time reading the Bible or drawing, while Jesus is a bit more rambunctious. To make sure the boys do not take what they have for granted or forget their culture, they take them to the primitive ranch in Mexico where Bert grew up as often as possible. This helps them to remember how blessed they are and to appreciate and understand how much their mother and father have accomplished, for them, over the years.

Bert started working when he was only fourteen years old, and he has given 110% effort in everything he has done. He’s been a farmer, a rancher, a truck driver, an owner operator and a small fleet owner. Not all of his endeavors have been successful, but he has never given up – and he is always looking for more opportunities to grow. And after all those years and all those miles without any problems, Bert feels truly protected and safe, thanks to his guardian angel. Through a lot pain and grieving, he has realized that he will never get his sister back, but her memory will live on forever in his heart and, now, on his truck.