Rhonda Rowe picked up the family trucking business outside of Detroit from her father and now works with her children, but she considers all of her employees family, too. That's why the climbing costs to keep her trucks running weighs so heavily on her.
"Just to know that you have a company that carries your name, and it is taking care of other families, it just makes you feel really good," Rowe said.
But the bills keep coming: $5,600 per month in insurance for the trucks. Payroll can run around $30,000, another $6,000 to $8,000 on fuel, and that's all before any of the trucks need maintenance.
Rowe's son Laron has been driving for 12 years. He says when a truck goes in for repairs, the company pays twice: For the fix, and for the time it's off the road.
"Every day. It's always something to be fixed or maintained. Always something to troubleshoot," he said.
Even a small fix can run hundreds or thousands of dollars, and what happens in Washington can add to those bills.
"I didn't realize how much politics can affect this industry," Laron said.
"Everything that's going on in Washington, the tariffs, all of that affects us. The price of fuel, the price of groceries, everything," Rhonda Rowe said.
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"We're waiting on materials to come from overseas and depending on what country it's coming from and what the government has going on with them, it could hold everything up," Laron said. "Like if anything is coming through the Strait of Hormuz right now? Not coming, or it's going to be a delay."
But even as jobs become harder to come by, Rowe says she'll continue to take the financial hit to shield her people from a pay cut. And while she waits for Washington to offer some relief, she says she relies on something else.
"Prayer and faith has helped me to meet what I have to meet every month," she said.
