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Enterprise Fleet recap: How carriers can power through inflation

Bill Wettstein is president and chief financial officer of Nussbaum Transportation.

This fireside chat recap is from the FreightWaves Enterprise Fleet Summit.

FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: How fleets can power through inflation in an uncertain market. 

DETAILS: Inflation is putting fleets under pressure as costs from fuel to driver pay soar. What can carriers do to control costs, especially as the markets soften?

SPEAKERS: Bill Wettstein, president and chief financial officer of Nussbaum Transportation, and Thomas Wasson, FreightWaves’ enterprise trucking carrier expert. 


BIO: Wettstein has been with Illinois-based Nussbaum Transportation since 1998. He spent 21 years as CFO before adding president to his title in 2021. Wettstein focuses on sales and pricing. He also holds a CDL.

Key quotes from Wettstein:

“If you look at inflation and our costs in the last two years, it’s probably exceeded the previous 15.”

“We’re watching the market closely and keep our costs in line. I mean, we’ve done it too many times: You get fat and happy, get your costs out of line, and then the market softens and you pay the piper.” 

“Fuel is up, whatever, maybe a buck in the last six weeks and so trying to adjust for that as our fuel costs have gone up [while] the spot market has cooled. We’re trying to educate our people: ‘Hey, look. Yes, we know that there’s some cooling in the spot market, but fuel prices are going up. So we need to consider that too.’”

Nate Tabak

Nate Tabak is a Toronto-based journalist and producer who covers cybersecurity and cross-border trucking and logistics for FreightWaves. He spent seven years reporting stories in the Balkans and Eastern Europe as a reporter, producer and editor based in Kosovo. He previously worked at newspapers in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the San Jose Mercury News. He graduated from UC Berkeley, where he studied the history of American policing. Contact Nate at [email protected].