Riding With King of Safe Drivers

Minnetonka native, Charlie Ostlund has driven a semi-truck for 18 years, logged two million miles, and he’s never had an accident.

That’s just one of the reasons that Ostlund was recently named Minnesota’s Top Truck Driver 2010 by the Minnesota Trucker’s Association.

Minnetonka Patch wanted to get to know this interesting resident—beyond just his recent award. So up into the passenger seat of his big- rig we climbed, spending a few hours with him as he handled his multi-ton vehicle through the highways and streets of Minneapolis’ western suburbs.

Ostlund, is an interesting---if not remarkable---guy. It’s impossible to ignore his obvious intelligence.  And as it turns out, he’s a graduate of the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

So how did it wind up in a truck instead of a corner office? While in college, he worked part time for UPS.

“I really liked it and they are a great company to work for and we are well paid with very good benefits,” he says while navigating the International truck with the semi-trailer in back, down Douglas Drive.

And Ostlund has been driving for UPS ever since—29 years and counting.

“They do a good job of taking care of and training us,” he says.

Ostlund now drives his semi exclusively in the metro area. In simple terms his duties include gathering large quantities of packages in his UPS semi and getting them to one of three UPS Twin Cities hubs, on that day, it was the Maple Grove location.

This is the newest of UPS’s area hubs and it is a testimony to advanced technology and innovation-- filled with a myriad of conveyor belts, loading and unloading docks, laser detectors and bar codes. Very few people are visible in a gigantic facility in which robotic automation rules. Packages---many like those that arrive at households all over the world---zip along, get read and get on or off one truck to be dispersed to airplanes or the “big browns” that drive through local neighborhoods.

Ostlund, already a truck driving super star, knows this part of the business equally as well and can take a visitor through the maze and explain all of the details.

Back on the road, the man with the enviable safe driving record, espouses what it takes to be a good and safe driver and what UPS does to make sure its drivers and trucks are as safe as possible.

“Bad driving almost always involves being inattentive, which is especially more commonplace these days with cell phones and texting,” he said. “Speeding and failure to correctly yield are the other two factors.”

Ostlund, like all UPS drivers, goes through annual training and tests and has to meet a set of high standards the company expects when it comes to all aspects of driving.

It is also interesting to note that he has never had a violation as a private driver except for “a couple of parking tickets.”

He also has given back to the community. He is a former Minnetonka firefighter and member of the ski patrol at Highland Hills in Bloomington. Through all this, he and his wife, Denise, who works for the City of Minnetonka, have three kids in, or just out of, college.

After going through a walk-around safety check at the Maple Grove hub, he climbs back into his cab and deftly backed into a empty trailer he was to take to pickup goods at a UPS customer site. An audible and slightly jolting thud rang out as the cab and trailer connected. To Ostlund this was good

“Always want to make sure it won’t fall off,” he says with a smile.