14 10-4 Magazine / March 2025 more desirable. The bed on the truck is 27.5 feet long, and the trailer is 28.5 feet long, which allows Bobby to haul 480 standard small bales of hay, or 544 of the newer-style compressed bales, which weigh the same and have the same amount of hay, they are just a little smaller in size. All the pinstriping on this rig, which is lime green, silver, purple and orange, was done by Harry’s Auto Signs... aka Harry’s Custom Paint... aka Harry’s Auto Art, located in Hollister, CA. Running at least one load a week with this unit, how can Bobby operate it when others can’t? Paso Robles is located in San Luis Obispo County, and that county, as well as many around it, are part of a NOx-exempt area, which allows Bobby to operate his cabover within these areas. In fact, he can legally run between Santa Barbara County, all the way up to Santa Cruz County, along California’s Central Coast. One of the places he frequently delivers to is a place called Stepladder Ranch & Creamery in Cambria, CA. Established in 1870 and located way up on a hill with a tight driveway, Bobby was able to deliver a load of hay for their goats (they make goat cheese there) with the cabover. The guy there said, “This is the first hay truck we’ve ever had all the way up here to the barn in 150 years. They usually deliver it to us one block at a time!” Currently, the RVT fleet includes 13 power units and a bevy of trailers, as mentioned before. Bobby could not run this company without the help and support of his awesome wife and partner, Brenda. The two met in the early 2000s when they both worked at Michael Dusi Trucking (MDT) – Bobby was a driver, and Brenda worked in the office. Back then, Brenda was married to another driver at MDT, and coincidentally, Brenda’s sister was married to Michael Dusi at that time. Bobby and Brenda started dating in 2009 and got married in 2015. Brenda has four grown children – a son named Austin (31) who has his own rig and works in the family business, twin daughters, Kyleigh (30) works in the wine industry and Kelsea (30) is a hairdresser, and daughter Kenda (29), who is married to Bobby’s right hand man and driver Ryan and owns her own salon. The couple also has four young grandchildren, with another on the way. With nine employees and many subhaulers (depending on the time of year), Brenda runs the entire office and does all the billing. Bobby said, “Brenda is the peanut butter to my jelly!” They also get help from Brenda’s sister, Melinda, who handles all their accounting and compliance stuff. And, as mentioned before, the company is very diverse and can (or will) haul just about anything. In addition to Brenda, Bobby wanted to thank his son-in-law Ryan, who helps him keep all the trucks looking good, his stepson Austin for all his help at the company, and all their drivers for helping to keep the wheels turning. And speaking of wheels, there is one more set of wheels we have not mentioned. After being rolled over in an accident in December 2023, one of Bobby’s 2-axle Peterbilt 389 hay trucks, with a 36” sleeper, has been being rebuilt and totally customized by Kyle and his crew over at Transportation Services. This truck, which is scheduled to make its debut at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY this month, will be a head-turner, for sure. Down about as low as a big truck could ever get, this rig features tons of custom body work and a special metallic tangerine orange and cream paint job. Along with a custom interior, this rig will sport a diamond theme – there are several diamond-shaped windows (including peep hole windows in both doors), and the taillights are also shaped like diamonds. The goal is for Bobby to have this new truck, along with the cabover, at MATS. Lastly, I wanted to talk about where we took most of the pictures for this feature. What was once an 1,150-acre thoroughbred racehorse facility known as Cardiff Stud Farm in Paso Robles, CA, which cost over $30 million to build and was rumored to once be worth about $60 million, is now a wedding venue and home to acres of vineyards called Windfall Farms. The property, which is mostly vacant today, has over 22 miles of fencing, 25+ beautiful horse barns, three big hay barns, a full vet clinic, an owner’s residence, three employee houses and a huge shop. Once owned by TV game show host Alex Trebek, it is sad to see the place empty, but one can still imagine what it was like in its heyday. If diversity is the key to survival in today’s tough trucking industry, then Bobby Vaz and RVT should be okay. He not only has a wide variety of trucks and trailers to handle almost any type of haul, he also isn’t afraid to try something new and invest in whatever equipment he might need to make that venture possible. Like Bobby says, “You can’t pull the trigger if you don’t have any bullets!” Bobby was raised the right way, at the right time, and in the right place to appreciate and enjoy all that the best of trucking has to offer. And it doesn’t get much better than an old school Peterbilt hay truck and trailer! Apparently, never saying “no” has its advantages. n
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