Culture, care…and Cummins

Pride in everything is everything at Scholz Bulk Haulage (SBH), a family business based in Wodonga, New South Wales, which is celebrating its 25^th anniversary in 2024.

SBH was established by brothers Wayne and Craig Scholz at Pleasant Hills, a small town in the Riverina district of NSW, in 1999. They actually purchased their first truck several years earlier, a 1979 Kenworth K125 and a 1984 McGrath flat-top trailer to cart hay. An Alcan tipper was also bought to haul lime, gypsum and grain to Melbourne.

Today, the company is owned and managed by Craig and wife Sharee and has since relocated to a base in Wodonga which is now home to 23 Kenworths and 52 trailers.

SBH specialises in bulk commodity work with A-double, B-double and truck-and-dog combinations hauling the likes of fertiliser, potatoes, grains for stock feed companies, and canola and monola seeds.

A 5000-tonne capacity bulk grain storage shed is located on the Scholz family farm at Pleasant Hills, allowing quick and efficient turnaround for farmers in the region. This grain is then sold to direct buyers in the Melbourne and Gippsland regions.

Immaculate fleet

Craig and Sharee’s passion for trucking is obvious in the premium equipment they operate – variants of the Kenworth-Cummins Inc. recipe – and the exceptional condition of their fleet.

A T908 adorned with distinctive graphics looks in showroom condition despite the fact it is 15 years old with more than three million kilometres on the clock.

The new flagship in the fleet is a Legend SAR, equipped – like all recently purchased SBH Kenworths are – with Icepak sleeper cab air conditioning, fridge, microwave oven, diesel heater and TV.

“We’re passionate about what we do here,” says Craig, when I visit Scholz HQ. “Culture is a big thing in our business. Everyone on our team is valued not only for what they do but for who they are.

“As the saying goes, we treat people the way we want to be treated.

“The boys look after the gear really well,” he adds with a definite tone of pride. “We’ll park a truck until we get the right driver and we do everything in our power to minimise risk.”

Cummins support

While the subject of decarbonisation is lined with questions, Craig says he is looking to the future positively as Cummins makes clear its plans for further advancements in internal combustion technology to meet increasingly stringent emissions standards.

The next-gen 15-litre Cummins, the X15D, also has Craig’s attention with its projected peak outputs of 660 hp and 2360 lb ft. “Our standard X15 rating is 600 hp and 2050 lb ft torque but we’d like more horsepower in some of our applications,” he states.

Cummins’ support is a key reason for the rock-solid relationship between the two companies.

“We bought our first Cummins, an N14-400, in the early 2000s to repower our 1979 Kenworth,” Craig recalls. “We decided to stick with Cummins because we thought the company would be around for a long time which looks certain to be the case.

“We’re also close to the Cummins branch in Wodonga and the service they provide is unmatched. Kaine Norman and his crew in the workshop do an incredible job.”

With the SBH business continuing to expand, Craig and Sharee thought it would be worthwhile to get a business coach involved to ensure their strategic planning is on the right pathway.

“As we are picking up more work with corporate clients, we want to make sure we are delivering the highest levels of certainty and satisfaction,” says Craig.

“We’ve built our business on communicating with our customers honestly and providing good old fashion quality service and loyalty.”

There’s obviously a lot of pride in what has been achieved at SBH, a business built on sensible goals and driven by a team of loyal employees who are acknowledged as being the key to success of this quietly achieving company.