Back in 1986, Mark Cole was a 23-year-old farm boy who says he simply was "intrigued by trucks," so he bought one, a 1972 conventional of another make, and set out to make his career in trucking.
    His plan was to haul grain from the farms in his Rochester, N.Y., home area to the big cities on the East Coast. On his first trip out, the truck's motor blew. Then the driver seat fell through the rusted floorboards. Once he finally got to one of his early destinations, a gritty terminal in downtown Philadelphia, he found the dock closed for the night, so he fashioned himself a pup tent supported by bungee cords hooked to the tarp rails underneath his dump trailer. He didn't sleep much, though. The sounds of thieves stripping a car 20 feet away from his makeshift camp kept him awake that night.
    But if there's anything life on the farm teaches a young man, it's persistence, and Cole has plenty of it. Because those humble beginnings, which might have sent another man searching for a new career, actually became the seed for M & T Trucking, a remarkably diverse 74-truck, 112-trailer operation headquartered in a shining new facility near Pavilion, N.Y.
    Cole has hardly done it on his own. His wife of 18 years, Tracie, has been a true partner in the growth of the company that includes clearing a major financial hurdle and the development of an all-Peterbilt fleet, a collection of conventionals now led by the Peterbilt Model 389 along with a Model 367.
    "It's really very basic," says Tracie of the company's success. "Our philosophy is that we always tell customers, 'Yes, we can do it.'"
    Of course, there are times we look at each other after that and say, 'How the heck are we going to do that?'" adds Mark. "But we always found a way. Service and dependability will get you everywhere in this business."

Service and dependability
    The principles of service and dependability apply acorss the board for the Coles and the variety of services they provdie. Despite the rocky start, grain and feed hauling proved to be the foundation for M & T Trucking, as they capitalized on every working opportunity they saw and slowly grew the business. But the seasonal nature of agricultural hauling threw further hurdles in the Coles’ path.
    “We’d be rich in the summer and starve in the winter,” says Mark. “We’d come out of winter $200,000 in debt and it would take till August to get even again. Our accountant told us to sell our trucks — we had 10 or 12 at the time — because we weren’t going to make it. I remember one night talking to Tracie, wondering what we’re going to do. We just had to go f ind consistent work.”
    Mark soon found work with a trash-hauling contractor who leased owner-operators. His commitment to service and dependability — along with the fact that he was bringng a quality Peterbilt truck to the job — raised his profile with the company, and soon he owned seven refuse trucks and supplied their drivers.
    That company was eventually outbid for the local municipality's refuse services, but Mark maintained a relationship with the new provider, who recognized the value of M & T's service commitment and invited the company to help service the account. Today, M & T puts up to 40 trucks daily on refuse runs and moves more than 6000 tons of trash a day, working for three local contract holders.
    The steady trash business evens out the peaks and valleys of the feed business, and dispatchers David Fladie and Hal Mann are often able to apply resources, both human and equipment, from one business unit to the other. Meanwhile, the company also runs a lowboy division for the transport of heavy equipment. Vegetables and fertilizer, transported by dump or tank trailers, are also a large part of the business. And their Peterbilt Model 367, fitted with a 34,000-pound crane primarily for the pickup and delivery of generator sets, further diversifies the company.
    "We're not trying to make one of these areas bigger than any other," says Tracie. "We're just trying to keep everything on an even keel."

Fleet growth
    The fleet, meanwhile, continues to grow. M & T bought its first new trucks in 1995 from Hunter Peterbilt in Eau Claire, Pa. All his trucks purchased since then have been Peterbilts. The dealership soon became not only a partner for the Coles, but a model for success.
    "You walk in there and everybody's happy," says Cole. "I decided I wanted to run a business like that."
    Keeping everybody happy in trucking can be a challenge, but the all-Peterbilt fleet helps. All are equipped with Cat power and about 40 percent have Unibilt 63-inch sleepers for the vegetable runs as far away as North Carolina.
    "We don't have a problem keeping drivers," says Mark. "We don't even advertise when we need them -- we get them by word of mouth. We buy new high-quality equipment, we update it, and we put extra money into it. That makes a difference to drivers."
    Tracie, who first made the case for Peterbilts "because they had the name," is also adamant that the trucks are consistent in appearance and image. She pushed for a consistent color scheme from the beginning because it gave the impression that the company was successful and running a lot of trucks. Mark went along with the logic but didn't fully believe it until he was met by a business acquaintance one day.
    "He says, 'I saw your trucks. You must be running 100 of them.' I think we had four at the time."
    The Coles may be up to 100 trucks soon enough, as long as customers continue to appreciate their service and dependability mantra.
    "There was a while we weren't going to get any bigger than five trucks," says Mark. "Then it was 10, then it was 20, then it was 50, and now I don't know. We have terrific people here today and that makes it much easier to grow this business. Plus we have outstanding partners, such as the people at our Peterbilt dealership. Surround yourself with good people and good equipment, and good things will happen."