From our side of the fence

Brian

Hofhenke

Ortonville, Minnesota

What company do you drive for? Valley Queen Cheese

What does a typical day look like for you? I usually pick up 2-3 loads of milk a day. Sometimes each load is from one dairy; other times, three loads are from the same dairy, depending on my route for that day. I haul anywhere from 100,000 to 195,000 pounds a day. That takes just 10-12 hours a day. I also run the route truck when needed, picking up the smaller dairies. This ranges from 2-6 stops a day, with about 30,000-42,000 pounds of milk per day.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I have been driving for Valley Queen for two years, and I hauled for Associated Milk Producers Inc. for about seven years, hauling to Dawson, Minnesota. I’ve probably driven about 750,000 miles.

How did you become a milk hauler? I guess you can say it is in my blood. I’m a third-generation milk hauler, with both my grandpa and dad having hauled milk. My dad still hauls milk for AMPI, going to Paynesville, Minnesota.

What is your favorite season to haul? Any season that is not winter. I am not a big fan of snow, ice and cold. The end of summer or early fall would be the best, when it’s not too hot or too cold.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? It is hard to choose a favorite part of the job. I enjoy everything that I do.  I would not want to do anything else. I am fortunate enough to be doing something that I enjoy; not everyone can say that. Winter driving is the most challenging part of the job. Thankfully, it has been a decent winter so far.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. It is interesting to see how things have changed so much, from the number to the size of dairies. I spent a lot of time with my dad on the route when I was young. He used to have 60 dairies that he would pick up. Some were four-day pick ups, so he usually picked up two loads, 20 stops a day. Seeing dairies with buckets and step savers has now changed to carousels and robots. I miss those days.

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Steve

Schultz

Forest City, Minnesota

What company do you drive for? Schultz Milk Hauling, Inc. I own the company

What does a typical day look like for you? The alarm goes off at 12:30 a.m., and I am on the road by 1 a.m. I make 14 stops every day. On average I haul 220,000 pounds of milk a day with the straight truck I drive. I haul four loads one day, and five the next day. On average it is a 14-hour day. The other milk truck that I own hauls tankers. That driver will haul anywhere from 3-5 loads a day, with 8- to 10-hour days.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I have been hauling for 29 years. I drove part time for my dad for three years and then decided to take over the family business. As far as miles, I would not have a clue. I have more of a local route than most do. 

How did you become a milk hauler? I started hauling milk part time late in 1997 when my parents owned this business.  I then took the family business over Jan. 1, 2000.

What is your favorite season to haul? Definitely summer. This job is no fun in the winter. Rain, snow or ice, we've got to get that milk picked up, no matter what, and be on time doing so.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? My favorite part is the relationship I have with my dairy farmers. I have known some of these families my whole life and would do anything for them. I have cried with my dairy farmers and I have laughed with them. My dairy farmers treat me very well. For me, hauling milk is more than just a job. I take a lot of pride in what I do. The most challenging part, no doubt, is finding people to work

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. Being appreciated by my dairy farmers means the world to me. I've gotten many meals during the holidays. One dairy farmer in particular had sold their cows the year before. They called me on Thanksgiving, asking me where I was and brought me out a plate full of delicious food. I was like, “Wow, this right here is what it's all about.”

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Shawn

Wolbeck

Melrose, Minnesota

What company do you drive for? Ryder.

What does a typical day look like for you? My typical day starts between 1 and 3 a.m. and ends between 1 and 3 p.m. each day. I haul four loads of milk each day. The most stops I have on one load are from four farms. A lot of loads have one or two farms. Each day I haul between 175,000 and 200,000 pounds of milk.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I’ve been full-time hauling milk for 26 years. I have put on about 1.5 million miles so far.

How did you become a milk hauler? I started working for Bill Kemper from Melrose after I graduated from high school. He did excavating and milk hauling. I helped with excavation for the first year, then transitioned to hauling milk part time on the weekends. That eventually turned into hauling milk full time and I never looked back.

What is your favorite season to haul? My favorite time to haul is summer because I get out in the country and can watch the crops grow and see what is going on in each neighborhood.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? What I like best about my job is talking with the farmers and listening to what they have to say. From the good to the bad of farming, it is always interesting. The most challenging part is usually the Minnesota winters, with the road conditions that we travel on. It makes for some interesting days, that’s for sure.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. Sometimes we get to haul more than milk around. Several years ago, I used to pick up by Parkers Prairie. One winter, when I got back to the plant in Melrose, I could hear meowing coming from under the backside of the cab. Come to find out, one of the farmer’s cats decided to get a free ride. Needless to say, the cat was a bit shaken up from the experience.

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Darel Dinse

Ellendale, Minnesota

What company do you drive for? I own my own trucking company, D&D Enterprises.

What does a typical day look like for you? My route is a 2-day route. On one of the days, my first stop is one load of 50,000 pounds of milk and my last load is five stops and 53,000 pounds of milk. The second day of my route is just one load, which is three stops and 47,000 pounds of milk. I usually try to leave home at 3 a.m. and that usually gets me home by 4-4:30 in the afternoon.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I got started in 1988. I will have been hauling for 38 years in April. I average 90,000 miles a year, so I estimate I am close to 3 million miles driven.

How did you become a milk hauler? My dad brought me into it. It was something my dad did starting when he was 19. When I was an adult, a route came up for sale, and I bought it, and then we bought another route together. Then, I bought my dad out in 2000.

What is your favorite season to haul? Summer. You can roll the windows down and just relax. It's just much more peaceful, and the birds are singing.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? My favorite aspect is just the farmers. They become family to you. You see them every day, and they're always, “Hey, how's it going with you?” I've always said it's the farmers who are the best part. The most challenging aspect is the hours and not being able to find help. I have had seven days off in the last two and a half years because I can't find anybody who wants to drive. You're stuck every day doing it. I enjoy what I do, but it's still nice to be able to get away once in a while.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. Back in 2000, I got to one of my farms, and the farmer’s wife had had a bad car accident. I was the first one to the farm, and the daughter was in the milk house just beside herself, trying to get chores done so she could go see her mom. Her brother had died a few years earlier from an accident and she had not had the opportunity to say goodbye to him, so she was afraid she wasn’t going to see her mom before she died. I just dropped hauling milk and said, “What’s left? Let’s get it done.” I helped the daughter finish her chores so she could get cleaned up and leave. The mom survived, and she was always so appreciative of what I had done to help. It made me happy as a milk hauler to be able to help. I later married that daughter. We started dating in late 2001, got engaged in 2002, and we were married in 2003.

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Justin Persha (right, pictured with his dad, Daniel)

Mayville, Wisconsin

What company do you drive for? Persha Trucking Inc.

What does a typical day look like for you? I start my day at about 12:30 a.m. I pick up milk from 11 farms one day and from 12 farms the next day. I haul 190,000 pounds of milk per day, which fills three loads. It’s a long day on the road, but I love it.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I’ve been doing this for 18 years and have driven just over 2 million miles. This includes when I used to haul Grade A raw product out of state. 

How did you become a milk hauler? My grandpa started this business in 1922, and I am the third generation. My dad, Daniel, hauls milk too. The fact that over a century ago his father started this with milk cans, and we’re still doing it today just at a larger scale, is amazing. This summer, it will be 104 years among the three of us hauling milk, and I think we are one of the longest-running in the area. It’s just something we get up and do every day. Farmers have to get up to milk their cows, and we have to get up to haul their milk so they can keep milking their cows.

What is your favorite season to haul? I like fall the best because of the cooler temperatures and how everything looks. Fall is a really nice time to be in the truck. When running milk up to Wausau, I get to see the northern trees changing colors, and I enjoy the scenery. But I do enjoy winter, too. I’m kind of different in that I like the challenge of hauling milk in the snow. You’ll never see me upset hauling milk in a blizzard. It breaks up the boredom and adds a little bit of pepper to my day.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? I love hauling milk and seeing my farm families every day. We have had some of our farms for more than 90 years. Everybody is like family who you haul for. I enjoy seeing people all day and talking. I also like driving big trucks. I have wanted to do this job since I was a little kid riding along with my dad. It’s rewarding. The best thing about my job is being able to haul side by side with my dad every day. The most challenging part is getting in and out of certain plants quickly. As a hauler, you’re already dealing with long days, people on the roads and the weather, and then you get to certain dairies where you’re waiting for room to unload or for a silo to wash. We’re very blessed with where we haul and who we haul for. I don’t take these companies for granted. It’s nice to be treated like a human being when you’re out there. Some of the big companies don’t care about the drivers anymore. They forget about the little guy out here doing all the work. You might have to wait 4-5 hours, but they don’t care. However, the main companies we haul for don’t like to make us wait. They value the driver’s time and the job the driver is doing. We take care of them, and they take care of us.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. In March 2025, I got hit by a guy fleeing the cops who was doing 120 mph. He hit my trailer when I was a mile from the plant. The collision ripped open the back of the trailer, and I lost 65,000 pounds of milk. The cops came and arrested the guy, who had multiple felonies involving guns, drugs and money. My trailer had $70,000 worth of damage. We got it rebuilt in four months, but it stunk for me because I was out of a trailer for a while. I used a rental and had to run an extra load per day because it was too small.

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Kyle Leis

Coon Valley, Wisconsin

What company do you drive for? I drive for Tim Neubauer Trucking LLC.

What does a typical day look like for you? I haul for Westby Cooperative Creamery. One day I pick up at 12 stops, the next day I pick up 14 stops. I haul around 90,000-95,000 pounds of milk across two loads. I deliver a third load to Westby, which sells it to AMPI in Blair, Wisconsin. I usually spend about 10 hours a day on the road.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? This is my third year hauling milk. I graduated from high school in 2023 and started hauling milk right away. I put on about 100,000 miles a year. So in all, I have driven about 300,000-350,000 miles since I started.

How did you become a milk hauler? I’m a fourth-generation milk hauler. My great-grandfather started hauling in 1958. I was also a third-generation dairy farmer. I dairy farmed with my uncle and grandpa until 2021, when my uncle passed away from the coronavirus pandemic and we sold the cows. Hauling milk is what I want to do. I like working outside and I like working a lot of days. Since I started hauling for Westby, I know a lot of the farmers that I grew up with. They are friends of mine and I just really like it. Tim (Neubauer) paid for my commercial driver's license and he was looking for a driver about the time I graduated from high school. I went to CDL school for two days and started hauling milk a week later. I wanted to be a dairy farmer, but some things happened, and I really couldn’t. Being a milk hauler is the next best thing, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

What is your favorite season to haul? My favorite season to haul milk is the summer or fall. I like talking to farmers about making hay and crops. I have a friend whom I help on his farm during crop season. I also don’t like the cold weather or driving in the snow, but we deal with it.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? My favorite aspect is picking up farms that I have known forever. Cody Clements is my neighbor; he used to pick up our milk and now I pick his up. That really brings me a lot of joy because I pick up one of my best friends’ milk and he used to pick ours up. It is also getting to know these farms and having a personal relationship with them. That makes me feel good. There are days I might be the only person they might talk to during the day, so it really makes me feel good to know that they can go out of their way to talk to me and they like talking to me. The most challenging part is winter driving when it snows. It just makes everything go a lot slower.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. Last March, I took a load up to Mullins Cheese in Mosinee, Wisconsin. That is the furthest north I’ve been in the state. I took my second load out of Westby to Mullins, and seeing a plant that advanced and fast moving, was cool. It is a very nice facility, and from my knowledge, I am the only Neubauer driver who has gone up there since they built the new plant. It was pretty cool to see something that advanced. To see how far it has come since my great-grandpa started hauling canned milk in 1958 to where it is now is really cool.

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Jake Kolodzienski

Beldenville, Wisconsin

What company do you drive for? I drive for Terry Leckel Trucking out of Spooner, Wisconsin. Jason Leckel is the owner. I haul into Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery.

What does a typical day look like for you? I am usually gone by 1 a.m. and back home by 5 p.m., depending on the weather. I am hauling three loads a day, from 15 farms I pick up. The truck holds 54,500 pounds, and right now my loads are all full, around 53,500-54,000 pounds.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? My dad hauled milk, so I grew up helping him. I have been driving for 28 years now. I got my commercial driver’s license when I turned 18. I have never kept track or tried to figure out how many miles I have driven, but I know it is a lot. I am driving 340 miles a day now. But my dad’s route was not as long, so I know I did not put on the miles when I worked for him that I do now.

How did you become a milk hauler? I was basically born into it. My dad had a route into Ellsworth for 25 years. I used to ride around with him and help him measure sticks, take samples and do other tasks. When I graduated from high school I hauled milk for him full time until I started milking cows. When I was a kid I knew I wanted to milk cows, so I did that for a while and hauled milk part time, until my wife and kids took over most of the milking and I went back to hauling full time. We sold the cows a few years ago.

What is your favorite season to haul? I cannot say I really have a favorite season — I enjoy them all except for the ice and bad roads in the winter. This winter is getting really old with all this ice. I think the last two years we have had rain in December. I would much rather deal with snow than ice.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? My favorite part of the job is visiting the farmers, getting to know them and their families and watching their kids grow up. The most challenging thing is driving on the icy roads. There are a lot of things you do not have control over, like other drivers.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. I have had a couple of memorable experiences that stick out. One was when I was a kid, 10 or 11 years old, riding with my dad. We had had a snowstorm, so I went with him, figuring school would be closed. There was a hill we did not make it up and we came down backwards. It was scary; the buzzer for the air brakes was going off because they were low on air. He kept it on the road and we did not go in the ditch. I also remember riding with a different hauler from Ellsworth when I was a kid, one Easter Sunday. I was running the hose for him and I opened the hose port for one place up by Baldwin. They had stuck a rabbit — a real rabbit — in there right before I opened it. I jumped back; it scared me to death. I looked up, and there the two of them were, looking out the window, just laughing and laughing. They thought it was the funniest thing ever. It sure was not what I expected when I opened the hose port. There are some farmers who always like to play tricks and jokes. You develop a relationship with them.

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Doug Dickison

Evansville, Wisconsin

What company do you drive for? Strunz Milk Transport, LLC.

What does a typical day look like for you? A typical day is about 13 hours long. I leave at 3 a.m. and get home between 3:30 and 4 p.m. I pick up milk at about 15 farms every day and haul about 180,000 pounds of milk per day, which equals four loads. All my milk goes to Wenger’s Springbrook Cheese Inc. in Davis, Illinois. Five years ago, I got certified in Illinois to unload and test loads of milk coming into the cheese plant.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I started in 1984 and have been hauling for 42 years. In that time, I’ve driven roughly 2 million miles.

How did you become a milk hauler? One of my best friends hauled milk, and his dad also hauled milk. I rode with them a few times and thought it was a fun job. I  also worked on a dairy farm throughout high school and was familiar with the industry. Back when I was a kid going to church, there was a milkman who would go past the church early in the morning. I would listen to his milk truck go by and thought it sounded so cool. So, I guess this was something I wanted to do long before I ever started it.

What is your favorite season to haul? There really isn’t a favorite season for me. I don’t really dislike winter; I just dislike the snow and ice. Otherwise, it really doesn’t matter. I enjoy seeing the changes in the seasons.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? I love talking to the farmers. I’m a farmer, too — I farm a little bit on the side, growing crops, mainly hay for horses. I enjoy being able to pick farmers’ brains if I have issues. And I just like the social aspect of talking with them. The most challenging part of my job is dealing with the weather. It doesn’t matter if it’s a snowstorm or a thunderstorm; if you lose power — even in the summertime — it still makes for a long day if I have to circle around and come back to a farm because they don’t have power when I’m there.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. I met my wife, Laurie, while doing this job. She was picking up milk samples, and I was delivering milk to Zims Cheese in Juda. Our first date was in the milk truck. She rode along on the route with me. I asked her to marry me in the milk truck, too. We’ll be married 30 years this February.

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Lee Bender

Loyal, Wisconsin

What company do you drive for? I am independent, and haul into Mullins Cheese. I own my own truck. I have one other driver who helps me out a couple of days a month, and I have a nephew who is old enough now and helps me when he can.

What does a typical day look like for you? We leave the shop at 2:30 a.m. every morning. We are in the plant before 6 a.m. every day with the first load. Until July, I had three loads a day, every day. I had some farmers quit, so now I am down to two loads one day, picking up 12 farms, and three loads from 21 farms, the next. Five years ago, I had 28 stops one day and 25 the other, when I was full. The cheese plant is full, though; I have not picked up any new milk in three years. My truck holds 56,000 pounds of milk. If things do not change with the milk prices coming up, I am afraid I will lose some more milk. I know how hard it is; we used to milk cows, too. I would haul the first load of milk, milk and feed cows really quickly and then haul two more loads.

How many years have you been hauling and how many miles have you driven? I have owned my own truck for 15 years. The guy I was driving for on the weekends was retiring and I thought I would give it a whirl. So, for more than 20 years of my life, it has been my full-time job. For another 20 years, I did it part time on the weekends when I had off. I have never thought about how many miles I have driven — it has to be way over a million. I have been putting in about 80,000 a year.

How did you become a milk hauler? My first job, right out of high school was hauling milk. I worked at Lynn Dairy. They needed somebody to drive on weekends, so I got my bulk license and decided driving milk truck sure beat working in the cheese factory on a 100-degree summer day. It is a lot nicer being on the road. You get to see things and you get to talk to people. Your day goes a lot faster; it is like farming — no two days are ever the same.

What is your favorite season to haul? Fall is definitely my favorite season to haul milk. The temperatures are cooling off and by then the side roads should be decent. I travel a lot of unpaved roads, and in the winter and spring they are always bad. In fall the roads are good and it is cool. You can enjoy the fall colors and watch everything that is happening in the fields during harvest. I get to see a lot of country.

What is your favorite aspect about your job and the most challenging part of your job? The people and the countryside I get to see, and the variation in my days are definitely my most favorite aspects. You really become friends with the farmers and you watch their families grow up. The most challenging is bad roads. This year has been especially challenging with all the ice we have had. I always keep lime in the truck, too.

Tell us about the most unique experience you have had hauling milk. Each day is unique in its own way. I guess when I pull out of a farm and I know that I might be the last one that will ever pull out of there with milk, I kind of look back and I think of all the hours that have been put in there, all the generations that have been there. Thinking that I might be taking the last load of milk from there, ever, that kind of chokes you up. There are 12 stops I can take you to right now, all nice farms, that have been sitting empty for five years, and there will probably never be another cow in those barns again. Doing this for more than 40 years, I have watched generations of families grow up.