HOUSTON, Texas—Joe Pulido was busy when the call came in. And since the Pulido Transport owner didn’t recognize the number, he only partially listened to the exasperated voice on the other end—who he assumed was probably selling something—before saying he wasn’t interested and hanging up.
A few days later, Alex Suescun, chief financial officer for the growing tank truck carrier based in Northeast Houston, told Joe to expect a call from Laura Murillo, president and CEO of the Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, informing him he was named the organization’s 2019 Male Entrepreneur of the Year.
“I said, ‘Oh, I think I got that call already,” he chuckled.
Suescun ended up accepting the honor on Joe’s behalf. Joe was appreciative, but award ceremonies are outside his comfort zone, and the truck driver-turned-minority business owner prefers to focus his energy on expanding Pulido’s fleet, diversifying its services—and enjoying his prized 1969 Plymouth Road Runner whenever possible. And while Joe’s proud of his heritage, and Pulido’s Houston Minority Supplier Development Council certification, he’s determined to prevail based on the depth of Pulido’s services by leveraging his team’s unique product knowledge and market perspective.
“You can use your background as a tool, and it can be a differentiator, but at the end of the day, are we servicing our customers and adding real value?” he said. “That’s our main goal. And then, are we treating employees well?
“They play such an important role in our success.”
Value-driven operation
Joe and his three brothers grew up in trucking. Older brother Carlos taught him to drive a truck when he turned 18, and he went to work at their dad’s company pulling end-dump trailers with sand and gravel. He transitioned to owner-operator after another older brother, Pete, helped him buy his first truck in 1985; and he founded Pulido Trucking, Inc. in 1995, when he had the opportunity to purchase additional trucks and trailers and join Traylor Bros. on a four-year construction project to expand U.S. Highway 59.
The life-long trucker continued hauling sand and gravel, and waste in roll-off containers and vacuum trucks, until 2013. Then he connected with Lubrizol through a new employee and acquired his first tank trailer for lubricants. That led to spot loads with ExxonMobil, which invited Pulido to become a contract carrier in September 2014. So Joe and Suescun—a friend from church who previously worked at JP Morgan and joined the growing operation that year to help manage its finances—decided to sell off their environmental equipment, exit the more event-driven waste business, and pivot to steadier activity hauling refined products, now as Pulido Transport, exclusively in tankers, which is appropriate since Pulido translates to “finely polished.”
“We’re babies in this industry compared to the big guys, and it’s definitely more challenging to service customers,” Joe said. “But there’s just more opportunity for growth, and more consistency, especially with the customers we’re dealing with now, who we can depend on for steady load volumes.”
Pulido now is up to 30 trucks and 60 tank trailers, along with 30 drivers, 40 total employees, and two locations—the 3-acre headquarters on U.S. Highway 90, and a five-truck satellite operation in Beaumont. The for-hire carrier hauls lubricants, fuel additives, wax, and chemicals, including plasticizers and water treatment chemicals, for clients who value safety, on-time delivery, full transparency, and industry expertise.
“We’re not the most expensive option, but we’re not the cheapest,” Suescun said.
“So the rates we’re able to charge are predicated by our value proposition. We must deliver value for our customers.”
Marketable accountability
Peniel Lim is Pulido’s most valuable secret weapon.
The new vice president spent 14 years with Exxon in various roles, including supply chain management, before joining Pulido in 2022, so he brings a shipper’s perspective to the business; and with a doctorate in chemistry, he knows the materials better than most. “He is a great asset to our operation,” Joe said. “Occasionally, we’ll get a product we’re not familiar with, so we go to Peniel, and he breaks it down for us.”
Lim’s arrival preceded Pulido’s big push into chemicals in a profit-protecting portfolio diversification. “When I joined, one blue-chip customer supplied 34% of our revenue mix, and another provided 35%,” he said. “Now, chemicals account for more than 50% of revenue, and our two largest customers combine for less than 20%.” Under his direction, Pulido chases higher-margin specialized chemicals, like stabilizing agents for the oil industry. “Growth in lubes and wax is in the single-digit CAGR range,” he said. “Chemicals are growing much faster.”
To secure the best loads, they need to deliver the best service, which starts with relentless reliability. “One energy producer recently showed us the average on-time delivery and pickup percentages for all their carriers, and it’s 91%,” Lim relayed. “We’re at 95% on pickups—and 98% on deliveries.” And that performance is turning Pulido into a carrier of choice. “What we hear from customers is, for the strategic loads—the ones that really have to be picked up and dropped off on time—they call us,” Suescun said.
Bulk shippers also appreciate load visibility, and Pulido delivers with its transportation management system (TMS), as well as its Samsara cameras, electronic-logging devices, and GPS tracking. Using their Houston-based TMS provider’s comprehensive, web-based software, managers, dispatchers, and drivers—via an app on their phone—can double-click on a load for all relevant information, including vehicle identifiers, maintenance history, location, and delivery instructions. Pulido also shares Samsara tracking links with customers for real-time visibility. “They love it,” Suescun said.
“They tell us, we know other carriers use Samsara, but they never send the links.”
Pulido further distinguishes itself through its thoroughly audited commitment to safety. The carrier is a certified American Chemistry Council Responsible Care Partner, and in the rare event of a service issue, conducting a full root-cause analysis—and then sharing it with customers—is part of the company’s culture.
“We deliver a higher level of accountability—for our customers and ourselves,” Joe said.
Driver-centric culture
Reliability on the road starts in the classroom.
Referrals still are the best way to find drivers, Suescun said, but Pulido also uses Tenstreet’s platform to find and recruit prospects, and order pre-employment screening reports, motor vehicle records, and background checks. The carrier prefers at least two years of commercial vehicle driving experience and one year of tanker experience. Promising candidates have phone interviews with operations manager Matt McFerren and safety and compliance manager Melissa Wyatt. If they’re satisfied, in-person meetings with every department, including Suescun and Lim, come next.
“Every driver sits down with every member of our team,” Suescun explained. “I want them to understand why the paperwork they submit is so critical, so they sit with payroll. I want them to know why invoices are important, so they sit with invoicing. Then they’re going to meet with me to learn what I communicate with customers, so they understand what we’re selling. And they’re also going to sit down with safety and compliance, operations, and the dispatch manager [Christie Vandiver].”
Managers also want to make sure new drivers fit in culturally, and understand the nature of the products they’re hauling.
“We tell our drivers they’re extremely important, because that plasticizer could be in your kid’s favorite toy they love to play with,” Lim said. “Quality is essential. What we do here every day affects everyone.”
Onboarding, which includes Infinit-I online safety training, typically takes 3-4 days. Then new drivers head out with a driver trainer for at least a week. “We don’t put pressure on drivers,” Joe said. “We tell them, it takes how long it takes. We want to make sure when they get in their own truck, they’re not thinking ‘Uh oh, I don’t know what I’m doing’ when they’re halfway to North Dakota.”
Maximized fleet value
To ensure employee satisfaction, Pulido provides above-market pay with matching 401K contributions up to 3% for company drivers, and flexible scheduling for owner-operators. It also shuns inward-facing cameras and speed limiters, and only buys distinctively styled Peterbilt trucks. “I’ve always loved Peterbilt, and the way I see things, if you’re going to have a fleet of trucks, it’s better to run one make,” Joe said.
Pulido recently expanded its fleet with 10 Peterbilt 579 sleepers, all sourced from Rush Truck Centers in Houston. To maximize value, the carrier only purchases late-model used trucks, which Joe says are significantly more affordable now than at their post-pandemic high. “We’ve been fortunate lately,” he said. “We’ve tapped into a leasing program Rush offers, and when those trucks come off their lease, they’re usually turned in at around 300,000 miles, which is pretty low for a used truck. And with the agreement we have with Rush, they’ll put new tires on and fix whatever we want them to fix.”
Advantage Truck and Trailer Repair, a third-party shop on site, is charged with keeping trucks running at least another 600,000 miles. “A good maintenance program makes all the difference,” Joe said. Pulido also tracks maintenance costs per mile to ensure it stays within industry standards.
The trailing fleet includes both leased and owned DOT 407 stainless-steel tank trailers from Tremcar and STE. Pulido runs insulated 7,000-gallon rear and center unloaders with ground-level vapor recovery and air-ride suspensions. It also has three four-compartment aluminum Polar Tank trailers. “With some of our newer customers, we’re seeing a lot of the same products, so we can top load those units, which is making our dispatchers far more efficient with trailer utilization,” Suescun said.
Tech-enabled expansion
Efficiency is essential—because Pulido isn’t done expanding.
The carrier plans to add more 10 trucks this year, including three in the first quarter, to take advantage of what it sees as improving market conditions under the Trump administration, which includes new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin. “But it’s hard to predict the future,” Lim said. “So we’ll react to what the data tells us.” Pulido also is considering new locations with input from Uber Freight, a valued partner that delivers occasional loads, and invaluable insights. “Their feedback gives us a good indication of where the freight market is going, and we can search there for new customers,” Suescun said.
Lim sees Uber Freight’s system playing an expanding role in trucking. He also believes the company’s ride-share technology eventually will work for bulk liquid transportation, along with electric and even autonomous trucks. “We need to be adaptive to technology, and quick to respond when the industry evolves,” he insisted.
That’s why Joe, who’s now 66 years old, sees his savvy leadership team as the future of Pulido Transport. “We want to be very smart about how we grow,” Joe said. “I don’t want us to lose focus on servicing our customers or making sure we hire the right drivers—and we have to add value for customers.”
