Hildebrand
& Sons Trucking, Inc.
Construction Trucking Has Been in the Families
Blood for Almost 60 Years
Few in the construction
trucking industry, especially in the Monterey area of California’s
central coast, have not heard of Hildebrand & Sons Trucking, Inc.
A trucking company steeped in history and tradition dating back to
the 1940’s. Today, second, third and even fourth generations
of Hildebrand family members are hard at work making sure those traditions
are carried on. But success wasn’t quick or easy.
The story began in a small southeast corner of mid-America Nebraska
called Pawnee County. Dorothea “Dottie” Hildebrand was from
Pawnee City and Jim Hildebrand was from Dubois.
Top to Bottom: Morya Gularte, Laila Ybarra,
Roni Williams, Mike Sakamoto, Ray Lollar, Dorothea “Dottie”
Hildebrand and Kelvin Hildebrand |
Teaching school in 1938 during America’s
worst economic period, the Depression and Dust Bowl, Dottie and Jim,
an out of work farmer, decided Christmas morning that year that living
in Nebraska was not the life they wanted. They took Dottie’s
last teaching paycheck and headed to California. She was 19 and he
was 24.
Dorothea, recalling that trip, remembered driving to California in
their 1932 Chrysler, just about out of gas and money in Nevada, “we
hit a coyote and traded the hide for a tank of gas,” said Dottie.
“Believe it or not, about a year later on a trip to Wyoming,
the same situation occurred, trading the coyote’s hide for a
tank of gas,” laughed Dorothea, as she thought about the many
interesting stories of her life during those years.
Hoping to start a new life in California, they landed in San Jose
on late December of 1938, after a farm hand along the way told Jim
that there was work in the lettuce fields of San Jose. Traveling there
to look for work, they later discovered that there were no lettuce
fields in San Jose.
In January of 1939, Dottie and her husband headed to Salinas, with
$7.50 in their pockets. It was still the Depression and Salinas had
little work for men at that time, so Dorothea went to work as a waitress
at the Rockers Café. A few months later, Jim took a job working
at General Box, a crate manufacturer used for fruit and vegetable
handling and storage.
Ray Lollar, Hildebrand’s first
employee and Dorothea Hildebrand, Co-Founder of Hildebrand
and Sons Trk.
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By 1941, Jim working through odd jobs,
started to drive for the Greyhound Bus Company, three months later
he landed a job driving a bobtail dump truck for a company called
Granite Construction. While working there he formed a relationship
with the founders of that company, Walter and John Wilkinson. Thus,
began Jim’s first contacts and experiences involving the construction
transportation industry. As fate or maybe luck would have it, while
sitting in the quarry one day eating his lunch, a bucket-load of
decomposed granite fell from a crane and crushed the cab of his
company truck. He slid into a corner of the truck floor and was
pinned up against the door, the corners of the cab where crunched.
The truck was “only” about five years old when the incident
happened and was considered a loss. “Insurance wasn’t
something anyone had back then,” recalled Dottie.
Jim wanted to salvage the truck from the company for $500 because
of the motor was still in good shape. Dorothea called her mother
for some money to purchase the totaled truck and with the loan they
“got more then they asked for” - their first dump truck.
With what was left-over from the loan, they purchased a fairly new
cab from the junkyard, Jim bought a salvaged 1942 Chevy and put
the salvaged motor in it, the total investment was about $650 and
a lot of Jim’s own time.
In the late 1940’s, word got around the area that a man in
Coalinga was selling his trucking operation. Unfortunately, the
trucks were nothing but junk, due to the fact that parts where hard,
if not impossible, to get during World War II, but it was an opportunity
that the ambitious couple were looking for. So Dottie, Jim and their
brother-in law Glenn Gooden, all went to the bank and borrowed $10,000
to purchase the six trucks. “Five of the trucks had to be towed
over the, Pacheco Pass now known as Highway 156. “Only one
of them made it on its own,” recalled Dottie. “We had
to borrow another $5,000 to get them running right,” she added.
Through the years, Hildebrand & Sons Trucking, Inc. grew with
the help of many, including its employees. There were a number of
long-time employees there and one in particular, Ray Lollar who
also had an interesting story. He was eighteen when he was hired,
a self-proclaimed trucking nut. He started on September of 1950
and retired on September of 1999 – “49 years of mostly
fun,” he laughing said.
Jim Hildebrand’s fleet when Ray first started consisted of
only a couple of Chevy’s and Ford bobtail. “When I started
working for the company, I was fortunate to get the best truck and
that was pretty much how things went while working over the years,”
he recalled.
Ray Lollar and friend, these trucks were
used
from 1946-1956 |
The company started out hauling millings
to Kaiser Natividad out of Salinas and back hauled Dolomite to a
plant in the Navel yard in Vallejo. This was Dorothea’s only
time she really drove. Dottie drove the bobtail dumps during the
nights and Jim during the day. Dorothea explained, “we had
a two-way haul and I could not get in the Navy docs in Vallejo,
so I had to wait at the gate while Jim went in, dumped and loaded
up and then we would come home.”
For years, their dining room table was their office where daughter
Morya helped sort tags. “Morya learned the trucking business
when she was young, she was smart and responsible even when she
was very young,” said Dottie.
In 1950, Hildebrand & Sons Trucking bought two brand new Ford
F800 10-wheelers, “we had to work for Granite for nothing for
a half-a-day to prove they weren’t too big to turn around,”
Dottie said. “They just knew those trucks were too big to work
safely – fortunately they were wrong” “Nobody was
used to dumping out of a 10-wheeler back than, sometimes inexperienced
drivers overloaded the Barber Green paving machines,” she added.
The expansion of the fleet soon followed the 10-wheelers in 1951
with the purchase of brand new 3-axel tractors, and semi-bottom
and end dumps. Hildebrand bought Granite Rock’s equipment and
contracted most of the companies interplant hauling. With no yard,
drivers mostly back than would drive their trucks home and park
them. “Zoning didn’t really exist back then,” explained
Dottie.
Hildebrand & Sons Trucking, Inc. was soon on its way to bigger
projects from hauling sandblasting materials for the Golden Gate
Bridge in the late 50’s to major highway construction along
the 101. Along with Granite Rock’s interplant hauling, the
company also grew as other companies like Granite Construction grew.
Many things changed over the years and now the company has primarily
close ties with Granite Construction although things are always
changing.
Ray and Co-worker in late 1959-1960 |
In 1971, our son Jimmy took over the daily
management of the business. During Jimmy’s leadership of the
company, he expanded the company, especially the end dump business.
Both Jim and Jimmy had untimely passing and the reigns fell reluctantly
into the hands of Morya who has run the company for the last thirty
years. While, Dottie, is still the matriarch of the family and parent
company, daughter Morya Gularte continues to manage the daily office
operations and coordinates the activities of the business, as she
has done since the late 1970’s. While modest about her role
with the company, everyone who knows and works with the company
knows that Morya has been the primary managing force behind it for
almost 30-years.
Now serving Salinas Valley for almost 60 years, Hildebrand and Sons
Trucking Inc. and related family company’s continue to provide
its customers with reliable, courteous service at competitive rates.
The Hildebrand family members combined companies fleets have grown
to 84 sets of bottom dumps, 55 transfers, 15 end dumps, 60 power
units, 30 drivers and six office personnel. Continuing the family
legacy, a fourth generation of Hildebrand family members works part
time in the company’s repair shop during the summer time -
a lasting family tradition that began over 60 years ago.
Today, along with running Hildebrand & Sons Trucking, Inc.,
Morya also owns and operates Morya Gularte Trucking or (MGT) from
which she offers material hauling for contractors requiring minority
(WBE) sub-contractors. Morya’s older brother, Jimmy’s
sons Kelvin (Kelvin Hildebrand Inc.) and Theron (Theron Hildebrand
Trucking), have also established related trucking businesses, expanding
the sand and gravel transportation fleet and giving the parent company
access to state-wide operations.
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