Carroll Rotary 1/24/22 Meeting Minutes
Meeting called to order by Chris at 12:10pm on 1/24/22 at Family Table Restaurant
Attendees: Catti, Chris, Phil, Bob F., Hubert, John, Ann, Kim, Steve, Ron and Adam
Brag Bucks:
- Adam celebrating his 43rd birthday on 1/28/22
- Bob is selling Super Bowl Squares for the Breda Legion
- $100/square
- Phil talked about Sauk Trail ride on May 14th
- Wants our club to get involved as there will be many volunteer opportunities
Speaker update:
- 3/21/22 – Stephanie Hausman and Gene Meiners with the Carroll County Supervisors will come and provide an update
- Added to calendar on our home page
Jeff Greteman with Windstar was our guest speaker today. Here are some facts he shared with us:
- His parents started with Town & Country Travel
- 1995 they started with 1 bus and now have approximately 160 revenue units (buses (large/small), vans, etc)
- 11 locations across the U.S.
- Primarily do charter work
- Windstar Express is the freight line that they operate – fairly new
- Regulated by DOT – drivers must log 8 hours of downtime every day
- Busiest days are Friday/Saturday
- Offer frequency bonuses to drivers (PT drives 15 days or more, FT drivers 25 days or more)
- Pay is hourly and per diem
- Buses are built in Belgium (family-owned company)
- Windstar is ranked 12th in the nation in size
- Work with local bankers mostly
- Operate primarily 1 model of the bus
- Mileage can get up to 1 million per bus before they get rid of
- Strict maintenance schedule to get the most out of the mileage
- Total employees across their business chain is approximately 400
- 240 drivers (100 FT, 140 PT)
- 30 diesel mechanics
- 30 cleaners (done primarily at night)
- 30 office employees
- Provided shuttles for:
- Military troops to and from training
- Super Bowl in MN 2 years ago
- Ryder Cup for last 5 years
- PGA Tours
- National Educators Conference
- College athletics
- 22-24 school contracts
- Republican/Democratic Party National Conventions
- NFR Rodeo in Vegas
- Offer some employment shuttles for IA, SD, NE, NV
- COVID impact:
- Ran 2% of their normal schedule
- Furloughed a lot of their employees
- Had 280 drivers going into COVID
- Now office staff and mechanics are driving to fulfill the contracts that they have
- Sub-contract with Megabus (largest contract had at time) that required 6 buses to provide transportation from LA to Las Vegas daily; when COVID hit it dropped to 1 bus
No meeting 1/31…. We will meet at Kerps on 2/3 (Thursday) at 5pm for a social meeting, spouses welcome.
Meeting adjourned at 12:58pm by Chris.
See you all next week – Catti