DIY leadership skillbuilding: Tyler Neumann's grounded approach to innovation

Great leaders know how to delegate. But when it comes to building up your own managerial skillset, as the old saying goes, “If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself.”

No one else is going to care more about which rung of the ladder you end up on, or how fast you get there. Both are dependent on how much effort you’re willing to put into career development and unlocking your leadership potential.

Keeping with that spirit, we are focusing on several leaders in the fleet maintenance sector who have climbed up to the C-suite by pulling on their own bootstraps and using methods available to everyone. 

Tyler Neumann, Director of Corporate Maintenance
Foodliner & Quest Liner

Tyler Neumman has been around trucks his whole life, with his dad, Kyle Neumann, working as a diesel tech since the ’80s, and his grandfather a truck driver. But he wanted to soar, so when he went to college, he majored in aviation and minored in entrepreneurship.

He accrued about 500 hours of flight time and was ready to find a spot at an airline. What he didn’t account for was all the military pilots coming home from Afghanistan and returning to civilian life at the same time. Their resumes boasted 3,000 hours of military-certified flight hours, so the twentysomething from Dubuque, Iowa, went to work in a factory.

In 2010, he got an entry-level dispatcher job at the McCoy Group, where his dad worked, and after a year, he was asked to manage the terminal for the company’s new hazmat subsidiary, Quest Liner.

The former flyboy wanted to gain the respect of the drivers, so one of the first things he did was get his Class A CDL.

“It was always good to be able to show them I can drive,” he noted.

He also thoroughly read the NTTC Bulk HAZMAT compliance guide.

“I’ve got Post-it notes through that thing, left and right,” Neumann remarked.
A solid resource turned out to be the company COO, Carl Recher, a fleet veteran with over two decades of HAZMAT experience at the time, who mentored the young manager.

Neumann admitted that in his attempt to soak up knowledge, he “probably bugged [his bosses] more after hours than [he] should have,” but his current title as corporate maintenance director for Foodliner and Quest Liner shows that time paid off.

While Neumann was working his way up, his father was as well. Kyle is currently the bulk food and hazmat fleets’ VP of maintenance, and has worked with Heil, MAC, Polar and STE to innovate food-grade trailer parts such as the Critter Stopper valve to keep animals from entering the tank, as well as Hendrickson to conceive of the TireMAXX Pro-LB, which adjusts trailer tire pressure based on load weight, helping reduce uneven tire wear.

“Growing up and seeing my father go up the ladder, and seeing what that entails, instilled in me a sense to always want to be better,” Neumann said, adding his mother was equally influential.

The leadership takeaway here is not “have awesome parents,” but to seek out any mentor who does things the right way and, like Neumann, learn as much from them as possible.
Neumann has followed in his dad’s footsteps by initiating a beta test with Aperia last year, installing the company’s TPMS sensors to gather data from all tire positions, with Halo inflation devices placed on the tractor’s wheel-ends. The Halo app alerts the maintenance team to psi issues based on severity.

A big benefit is that the devices connect to the valve stem and don’t require tire dismounting, saving in-house and roadside techs time. And because the gateway can be placed on the frame as opposed to wired in the cab, the device is easier to install and gets better cell reception.

He said the fleet’s tire spend dropped 32% YOY, with emergency roadside service costs decreasing by over 250%. In his analysis, he removed accidents and curbing events where the device was not a factor.

Outside of the family and company, Neumann has grown by seeking advice at tradeshows such as the American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition and TMC’s Annual Meeting.

“Some of us are out there as competitors, but at the same time, we all bounce ideas off of each other,” he said. When he knows another fleet (not in direct competition) has experimented with a new product or technology, he’ll send them an email. “And every time, everyone’s always willing to tell us if it worked out well or didn’t.”