On the road again

GREY EAGLE, Minn. — All Joe Arnzen has ever wanted to do is drive a milk truck, something he has been doing for more than 50 years.

“This is what makes me happy,” Arnzen said. “That’s why I’m still doing it. I am so bored when I have a day off.”

Arnzen owns his own trucking company based out of Grey Eagle. He took over the business from his dad, who started driving a milk truck in 1946. Arnzen has also been a member of the Grey Eagle fire department for the past 49 years and is in his fourth term as mayor of Grey Eagle.

“Driving milk truck and being on the fire department was all I ever thought about,” Arnzen said.

Having been in the industry for more than five decades, Arnzen has built strong relationships with his farmers.

“I’ve been with my farmers for so long now, I just (feel) like part of the family,” Arnzen said. “I get wedding and graduation party invitations all the time, but I can’t go because I have to haul milk.”

Seven years ago, he was working with 110 farmers and hauling 400,000 pounds of milk a day using five trucks. Today, Arnzen hauls milk from 20 farms using three trucks.

“It used to be so easy to figure out a route (because) there were so many farms,” Arnzen said. “If one wasn’t done milking yet, I just drive down the road to the next farm and came back. Now, it’s 20 or 30 miles between stops.”

Arnzen’s dad started hauling milk in cans for the Grey Eagle Cooperative Creamery until it was bought out by Associated Milk Producers Inc. which is where Arnzen still hauls milk.

“I would ride along as a kid (with Dad),” Arnzen said. “It was fun. Farmers would come out and talk. That’s what I love, the conversation.”

As soon as Arnzen could drive, he started hauling milk with his dad.

“Dad would get me out of school to haul milk,” Arnzen said. “All I wanted to do was drive milk truck.”

Other opportunities were presented to Arnzen, but he chose to continue to haul milk.

“Back in high school, I got a letter from the University of Minnesota to play football for them,” Arnzen said. “I turned it down to haul milk.”

Arnzen graduated from high school in 1974 and the day after graduation, he started working full time for his dad.

“Years ago, when I got home I (would) stay in the shed and work on trucks until midnight then go to bed and get up at 6 to start over again,” Arnzen said. “My mom told me, ‘All you do is look for problems to fix on those trucks,’ and I said ‘No, I’m trying to stop problems from happening on the road.’”

Much has changed in the last 50 years. Arnzen said the trucks are bigger and more reliable and so are the roads. His first trucks were 200 horsepower and held 2,000 gallons. Today they are 475 horsepower and hold 6,000 gallons.

“In 1979, I bought my first brand new truck and my dad didn’t like that idea,” Arnzen said. “I said ‘If I’m working here, I want to do it my way.’ I bought another one in 1980. The used ones were good trucks, but you were constantly repairing them.”

Today, Arnzen said he routinely gets more than a million miles on a truck before he gets rid of it.

Being out on the road, Arnzen has driven through all sorts of weather conditions.

“I’ve driven home counting mailboxes and highline poles,” Arnzen said. “Driving in the rain is the worst. I actually love winter driving.”

While the scenery is his favorite aspect of logging so many miles he said, there are other benefits of the job.

“I just love to drive truck and talk to farmers,” Arnzen said. “I’ll stand by the truck and talk to the farmer for half an hour if they want to talk.”

Arnzen said he will support dairy farmers the way he knows best, by driving a truck.

“I’m working for the farmer,” Arnzen said. “I am worried that if I quit tomorrow nobody else will pick up milk for these dairy farmers. If it wasn’t for the dairy farmer, none of us would have a job. It was the little family farms that started all these milk plants.”