34 10-4 Magazine / June 2025 fellow author at 10-4, Trevor Hardwick, who lives a couple hours up the road from Ryan in Stanwood, WA. Figuring Ryan would enjoy meeting Trevor and getting to see his beautiful 2023 Peterbilt model 389 and stainless spread-axle reefer up-close, Trevor went one step further after speaking with Ryan’s mom Danielle to make the arrangements. Inviting Ryan to the January 2025 ATHS Cascade Chapter Meeting at Kooy Trucking’s shop in Arlington, WA, Ryan’s mom and dad dropped him off and he got to spend the afternoon with Trevor and a bunch of other “truck nuts” like them. Welcoming him into their group, the members held a raffle where many members kept giving Ryan their winning raffle tickets, with Ryan leaving the meeting with a ton of trucking swag and other goodies! But Trevor wasn’t done yet. Having driven his 1982 Freightliner FLC 120 conventional to the meeting, Ryan got the ride of his young life. For the next two hours or so, Ryan had a grin from ear-to-ear while riding in that old Freightliner back to Trevor’s house, where Ryan got to see Trevor’s Peterbilt and all his other trucks, along with his vast collection of trucking memorabilia. After that ride with Trevor, his mom told me, “You couldn’t wipe that smile off Ryan’s face!” A few years earlier, Trevor and I had been talking about how “at our age” we’re now those guys in the trucking industry we looked up to when we were younger, and how we now need to be the ambassadors for the next generation. With that in mind, I began thinking about some of the people in trucking who I met when I was younger and that have been a big influence on me. Guys like Randy Williams, who I met around 1988, who was a Mack Trucks dealer and principal owner of Banner Truck and Trailer Sales in Evansville, IN, for many years, along with truckers like Chuck Kemner and Richie Bula, who I met at the age of 15, the first time I went to the Walcott Truckers Jamboree in 1991, and my longtime friend Duncan Putman, who wrote for Trucking International at that time. Having met Duncan in 1990, he introduced me to another longtime friend now, Calvin Cochran. As I’ve gotten to know Ryan, we now trade emails almost on a daily basis and talk trucks. Ryan will usually share his photos from his latest “truck spotting” adventure atop the overpass and tell me what he saw or other places where he’s been, with one recent trip with his dad to the PACCAR Technical Center in Mt. Vernon, WA, to look around and shoot pics of the trucks parked there. Recently, a local Montesano dump trucker named James Nations, who had noticed Ryan truck spotting from his perch atop the overpass, stopped to talk with him, asking Ryan if he’d be interested in doing a photo shoot with his red Western Star dump truck for him (which he did). While Ryan has trucking dreams and aspirations, he’s already doing what he loves in life, and is well on his way. So, from Trevor Hardwick and myself, “Hey Ryan, keep on truckin’ and keep on truck spotting, because we can’t wait to see where all this ends up!” n EDITOR’S NOTE: All the photos for this feature were taken by either Ryan or his family. Thank you, Ryan!
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