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About Chad

Chad Boblett is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Lexington, Kentucky. He became an owner-operator, runs Boblett Brothers Trucking Company, and founded Rate Per Mile Masters to help carriers get paid what they're worth. He served as a Sergeant in Marine Corps Motor Transport, has advised trucking-tech companies including Motive, SmartHop and CloudTrucks, and writes for DAT and Motive. His core message: get your authority, work smart with brokers, and name your price.

I spent ten years in the Marine Corps, came home from Iraq, and went to work as a company truck driver. The money was good. Then I hurt my knee and neck, went through two surgeries, and couldn't drive. I went from having everything to living in a weekly-rent motel in Lexington with almost nothing. The only thing I still had was good credit.

So I took the leap I'd always wanted to take. In January 2011 I put about $35,000 on four credit cards, bought a used Volvo from a truck lot right down the road, added a dry van, and got my own authority. It came through in about three weeks, and I ran my first load on the fuel that came in the truck. I named the company Boblett Brothers in honor of my fellow truckers. In the Marines you learn that everybody depends on each other, and trucking is no different.

Out on the road, the trucking radio shows were all about cutting costs and saving a few cents a gallon. Nobody talked about how to make more money. The real rate talk happened at the docks, where drivers traded phone numbers and the names of brokers who paid well. So I started a Facebook group, put my friends in it, they added their friends, and Rate Per Mile Masters was born.

We kept it professional from day one and moderated it hard. For more than a decade I've read and approved every post and every comment myself, because that's my passion. When FreightWaves profiled the group in 2018, they called it the largest professional online forum in the U.S. on rates and logistics in the freight industry. Today it's more than 36,700 owner-operators, carriers, brokers and agents helping each other get paid what they're worth. My message hasn't changed: the money is there. You just have to ask for it, know where to look for it, and set yourself up for it.

DAT was my first partner. Over the years I've written for DAT and Motive, advised trucking-tech companies including Motive, SmartHop and CloudTrucks, and been quoted by Overdrive, FreightWaves and Transport Topics. My rules with brokers are simple. I use the data, so I already know what a lane pays before I call. And I keep it business: "I don't want to be friends with you. I want to run a business and make a whole lot of money."

Fast facts

• Marine Corps: Sergeant, Motor Transport, 1996–2006
• Trucking since: 2006; owner-operator since 2011
• Company: Boblett Brothers LLC, Lexington, KY · USDOT 2114519 · MC-737113 (authority granted Feb 16, 2011)
• Community: Rate Per Mile Masters, 36.7K members
• Stage: MATS Pro Talks speaker every year since 2022 (and was keynote at DAT's first user conference in 2016)
• Writing: DAT blog and Motive guest author