In it for the long haul: Covington enjoys challenge of grain hauling

     Sure, there are stressful times.

     Like when equipment problems emerge. Or when he has to move large amounts of grain in a short window of time.

     But Tony Covington of Covington Trucking wouldn’t have it any other way.

     “What I like about it is, at the end of the day if I’ve put 400 miles on my truck, it’s not just sitting in the seat driving 400 miles. I’m in and out, interactive with the producer,” Covington said.

     “I’m not in an office cubicle, or on a factory floor, I’m not penned up inside. You’re not confined to the same daily routine, where you see the same people and do the same job. We’ve got to have those people; it’s just not for me.

     “I grew up on the farm, where you could go to this place and go to that place.”

     Covington, a graduate of Monticello High School, grew up on a farm west of Monticello in northeast Linn County, and is still part of the family operation there today, with his father Dan and brother Adam.

     But most of his work time is spent hauling grain, primarily to the ADM corn processing plant in Cedar Rapids, or Big River United Energy, the ethanol plant in Dyersville.

     Covington bought his truck in 2005, and operates the company by himself.

     “I’m a single owner-operator,” Covington said.

     “In January 2006 I started hauling grain, and implemented that into our own farm operation. There’s some benefits to hauling corn directly to a terminal. That’s where it started.”

     He had worked at Swiss Valley (now Innovative Ag Services) for five years, and then drove for a milk company.

     “I was tired of sitting behind a windshield and being gone all the time,” Covington said. “I wanted to get active and involved with the farming. I bought my own truck, and now (my schedule is) a little more flexible, being at home in the spring and fall during our busy times on the farm, and have something else to do the rest of the year.”

     He still sits behind a windshield for much of the day, but it’s different.

     “The hauling part of it is repetitive, but I meet different people every week, I see different customers throughout the month, and I’m in and out of the truck,” Covington said.

     The business is not without its tricky times.

     “You’ve really got to be cut out for it,” he said. “Things go south, breakdowns and things like that. There have been a lot of people who tried and decided maybe it wasn’t for them.”

     The busy times of year, primarily in October and November, can be stressful as well, he said.

     “When markets rally, everybody in eastern Iowa wants to unload some, and it creates more of a line down there (at the processing plant),” he said. “You can get real close to being behind the eight ball trying to get those bushels covered.

     “Every year’s different. There’s years where I can’t get away from the grain hopper, like we’ve seen in the last few years, where we’ve had record production. Record production equals lots of bushels to haul.”

     He said he can get three, sometimes four, loads a day hauled to ADM, depending on the plant’s hours that day and how long the line is.

     Where he delivers, he said, “depends on what they’re bidding.

     “Every penny counts, especially with the tight margins that we’ve looked at here in the last year or two,” he said.

     Covington said he is fortunate to have good customers, and good help when he needs it.

     “I’m fortunate enough that my customers are real easy to work with,” he said. “If something goes south, whether it’s a breakdown or something like that, I’m still trying to find them a solution to get their grain moved.

     “I have one truck, and a handful of compadres that own trucks that I work with back and forth. If I need their help to try and get some bushels covered, and they’re available, they’ll help me.”

     He also gets help from his fiancée, Heather Swain, who will drive him where he needs to go in the event his truck is in the shop.

     “She’s a big help from that standpoint, just being there when I need a ride,” Covington said. “And if I’m having a bad day, she tries to ease the pain.”

     During slow times for grain hauling, Covington does some work for Stone City Iron and Metal.

     “I move scrap metal for them,” he said. “I bought a flat bed quite a few years back. It’s nice to have the flexibility of hooking onto that if things get a little slow in the grain world.”

     Mostly, though, the grain hauling keeps him busy enough.

     “Sometimes it’s tough, but I want to keep this,” Covington said. “It’s something that I enjoy doing and it’s something that I incorporate into our farm operation too.”