Transportation, a heavy hauler founded in 1927. It’s operated as a wholly owned subsidiary and is the family of companies’ third separate entity, along with Crete Carrier and Shaffer. Tonn Ostergard, the company’s CEO for


the past 25 years, said Acklie helped create a culture based on putting people first. “We’ve always had a philosophy to do the


right thing and be ethical and treat people with respect,” Ostergard said. “Certainly, we treat our drivers just as well as we would any other person, any other customer. I mean, you treat everybody the same with that dignity and respect that they deserve, and I think that just helps set the tone for the culture of the company. ... “It’s a culture that you create that


everybody embraces. Duane would be the first to say that it’s everybody that has to embrace that, so he and all of us set the example that we try to follow.” Acklie, 83, took an unlikely path to


becoming a trucking executive. Born in 1931 on a leased farm in Madison County to parents Bill and Irene Acklie, he spent his childhood


feeding cattle and hogs and cultivating and harvesting corn. He was his parents’ only child. Bill farmed about 900 acres of corn, soybeans and small grains and fed about 500 head of cattle a year along with hogs. After first using horses, he bought his first tractor – no tires, just steel wheels – in 1937, and later bought the county’s first combine, a six-foot John Deere. “Tose were the dirty thirties, and


everybody worked like hell,” Acklie remembers. Tat was the life Acklie was preparing to


lead when he was working on the combine one day shortly after graduating high school. It had broken down on a day when the temperature probably was more than 100 degrees, and he crawled inside from the back to fix it. While he was there, his father approached saying, “Son, there’s somebody out here to see you.” A coach from Norfolk Junior College, now Northeast Junior College, had seen him play pulling guard for Madison High School and wanted to offer him a partial scholarship. “Tat day, being all covered with dust and


everything inside the combine and hot as all get out, I thought that was a great idea, so I went


to junior college,” he said. Acklie played junior college football, and


while he didn’t make the first team, he did contribute. More importantly, the experience led him to the University of Nebraska and the University of Nebraska College of Law, which he attended planning to use his education on the farm. Law school was stressful because exams occurred only at the end of the year, so he never knew where he stood. Still, he made the honor roll and worked part-time as a state Deputy Sheriff. Prior to beginning his senior year in law


school, he and Phyllis were married. Tey had grown up in the same hometown but attended different high schools and were a few years apart. Tey were married in 1954. Acklie had enrolled in the University of


Nebraska’s ROTC program and had become an Army officer. He graduated from law school and then practiced law for about five months when he was called to active duty. His training was in the military police, but he had the opportunity to apply for counterintelligence and went to school in Baltimore and then


Continues


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NEBRASKA TRUCKER — ISSUE 4, 2015 — www.nebtrucking.com


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