10-4 Magazine March 2022

before that. After finally getting his CDL, Ron continued to run with his dad for a couple more years after he got a “local” gig, hauling loads between Fountain Valley, CA and San Diego, CA, five days a week. This fell under a new division that Bekins had formed called Timelok, which focused on time-sensitive LTL freight. Wanting to go out and drive on his own, Ron went to work for Vince Amato who ran Pyramid Logistics out of Fountain Valley, CA (another Bekins agent), driving one of their Kenwor th T600s locally. In 1999, Ron star ted running regularly between Los Angeles and Las Vegas and San Francisco – all day every day (as he described it) – in a newer T600. In 2001, he decided it was time to buy his own truck and ordered a custom 2002 Peterbilt 379 with a Cat 6NZ, a 300” wheelbase, and four large fuel tanks. Painted all white with a Charcoal Grey frame, Ron felt like a king in his new stylin’ ride. Back then, long and low trucks were just star ting to be a “thing” everyone wanted, and Ron was at the forefront of that trend. Leasing his new truck on at Pyramid through Bekins Van Lines, Ron never thought he would leave. As an interesting side note, Ron met his wife Joan while working with Pyramid – she was his dispatcher for many years. They got married in 1999, bought their first house in 2000, and, as Ron put it, “The rest has been an awesome ride ever since.” In 2002, shor tly after Ron got his new Peterbilt, Joan secretly reached out to us at 10-4 Magazine and sent us some pictures. She wanted to surprise Ron by putting his truck on our cover without him knowing it. By then, we had done a few “surprises” like that and, quite frankly, they never worked out well. We have since made it a policy NOT to do surprises! Needless to say, it did not work out and Ron’s truck (back then) never got put on our cover. And now, here we are, 20 years later, finally getting it done. I asked Ron if he was glad we waited, and I got a resounding “Yes!” from him. I hope we made it wor th the wait, Ron. I like to think we are better at what we do now, and the magazine has come a long way over the past 20 years regarding quality and color. Back then, there was no centerfold, the cover story was only about a page or two long, and all the pictures 10-4 Magazine / March 2022 11 inside were black and white. Compare that to now, with glossy paper for the cover and now a huge color centerfold, along with a six-page story filled with beautiful full-color pictures, and I’d say it was smar t for him to wait – even though he had no idea we would ever be doing this in the future. Anyway, back to our story. After running with Pyramid in his Peterbilt for about three years, Ron had a bit of a falling out with the owner one day and, on a whim, he and his buddy Paul Roop, who was also an owner operator at Pyramid, decided to stop at the local licensing place on their way home and apply for their own authority – and Deluxe Distribution was born. Star ting out with just their two trucks, they began hauling trade show stuff for Tri-Valley Transpor tation in Livermore, CA (to this day Ron still does some hauling for them). In 2007, Ron got a call from Vince Amato’s brother Steven, who runs Premier Displays & Exhibits in Cypress, CA. After striking a deal, they became one of Ron’s primary customers, and still are today. Hauling all sor ts of interesting things related to trade shows and enter tainment events, Ron also has warehousing space in Santa Fe Springs, CA where he offers storage to many of his clients. His warehouse is filled with all sor ts of weird stuff like a lowrider car made out of Lego bricks (that actually runs and drives), statues and figurines of characters from EA Spor ts’ video games, and props from various movies and TV shows (he recently did some hauling for The Walking Dead television series). He also