While working for a milk hauler based out of Door County, Wisconsin, in 1977, Jerry had initially planned to purchase this business, but after the deal fell through, Jerry began talking with another milk hauler from Oconto County who he would regularly meet at the plant they would deliver to. Looking to get out of the milk hauling business, Jerry began talking with this milk hauler, and after several conversations, a deal came together with Jerry purchasing both his route and truck – a tri-axle 1974 Ford LTS-9000 equipped with a 4,200 gallon milk tank. With the deal done, at the young age of just 21 years old, on March 1, 1978, Jerry Schroeder Trucking, Inc., was born, and the rest is history. Prior to getting into trucking, Jerry had attended NE Wisconsin Technical College where he learned to become a mechanic and work on diesel engines. “I figured I’d better know how to work on them if I was going to own them,” Jerry said while telling me about his trucks. “Milk Hauling is a 24 hour a day and 7 days a week job, so the trucks gotta go! They have to be at the farms and there’s no room for any breakdowns, so proper maintenance on these trucks is extremely important.” Telling me how reliable his Mack Trucks have been, “That first truck, the Ford, had been worked pretty hard when I got it. It had a Cummins PT-270 in it, and those engines had trouble keeping the head bolts in them due to the high torque, so it was a bit of a learning curve (and pain in the rear) for me when I first started trucking.” Needing a newer truck and one that could haul more milk, Jerry bought the 1978 Chevrolet Titan 90 cabover, which was powered by a 318 Detroit and equipped with a 5,000 gallon fiberglass tank, in 1980. “Some of the farms you go into to pick up milk are pretty tight, so trucks like a cabover or conventional with a set-back front axle are helpful and a must-have for maneuverability at times,” said Jerry. While Jerry had more hauling capability with the new tank, as mentioned previously, he had weight problems with the Titan 90. So, after purchasing his first quad-axle Mack in 1983, the 5,000 gallon fiberglass milk tank was moved over to the chassis of the new quad-axle Mack. With a weight of around 35,000 lbs. (including the installed tank), Jerry said, “Milk weighs 8.6 lbs. per gallon, and like anything else in trucking, the more you can haul, the more profitable and efficient you can be. I could put on 43,000 lbs. of milk with 10-4 Magazine / February 2025 55 that tank on the Mack, and with the quad-axle set-up, it was legal.” In 1984 Jerry added a second truck to his fleet – an International – but that truck was quickly replaced two years later with another Mack RS in 1986. By 1985, the fiberglass tank he had on his 1983 Mack Value-Liner was getting worn out. “The frame of the tank and the tank’s cross-members were cracking and in bad shape,” said Jerry. With that in mind, he decided to make an upgrade. Contacting the Bar-Bel Fabricating Company, which was based in Mauston, Wisconsin, who specialized in stainless food-grade tanker bodies and trailers, Jerry had them build him a 5,500 gallon stainless tank for his Mack, that was also equipped with storage boxes, and was 2,500 lbs. lighter than the previous fiberglass tank. A high quality milk tank, Jerry ran the Bar-Bel on four of his Macks over the course of 20 years and rebuilt the tank twice during that time. Asking Jerry what a typical day in the life of a milk hauler is like, he said, “14 hours is a normal day, 12 hours is a short day, but like anything, you can’t control the weather, ice and snowstorms in the winter, or if the processing plant you’re delivering to can’t unload you right away, so sometimes you gotta sit and wait. The days can be long at times and wreak havoc on your schedule for the next day,” explained Jerry. He continued with, “Most days you work, come home, eat, shower, go to bed, and then you’re back up at 4 AM (or whatever time you gotta go) and do it all over again. This is 24/7, 365 days a year, and no matter the weather. When I started hauling milk in the late 1970s, I’d have 35 to 40 farms I’d load at, but over the years the farms have got bigger, and later on, throughout the late 1980s and into the 1990s, it would be 10 or fewer farms. Nowadays, a lot of the farms are straight loads in a tanker of 8,000 gallons or more.”
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