Michaela Clement: When Trucking Becomes Family

Spend enough time in trucking and the people you work with can start to feel a whole lot less like coworkers and a whole lot more like family. Michaela Clement of CHEP USA works on the safety side of transportation, but somewhere along the way she also became part mother, part sister, part friend, part therapist and the person drivers know they can plop down in front of and tell about their day. In this We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition, host Lindsay Lawler sits down with Michaela to talk about the life behind the job, including finding her way in trucking, raising children as a single mom for many years and building a career in an industry that helped her create a good life for her family. And somewhere along the way, the community that helped support Michaela became a community she now helps support right back. The drivers walking into her office aren’t numbers, trucks or compliance issues. They’re human beings. Sometimes they need help solving a problem. Sometimes they need someone to listen. And sometimes they apparently just need to pull up a chair and tell Michaela what happened that day. It’s a conversation about being a woman in trucking, raising a family, building a career and the unexpected relationships that can turn an industry into a community and a community into family. And maybe that’s why people keep pulling up a chair. Filmed live at the Texas Trucking Association Annual Conference in San Antonio as part of the We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition.

Sometimes you sit down for an interview, hit record and realize pretty quickly that the best thing you can do is just listen. That’s what happened when Wynne Breeden Sr. of K.L. Breeden & Sons sat down with host Lindsay Lawler for this We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition. Wynne started telling the story of his family, and with it came generations of Texas history, trucking history and the story of a company that began long before him. He talks about how K.L. Breeden & Sons got its start, how he and his brother continued building on what came before them, and the twists, turns and opportunities that somehow kept landing them exactly where they needed to be. But the company is only part of the story. This is also a conversation about family, roots and what it means to spend a lifetime building something that another generation can carry forward. Wynne’s children are now part of the business, and later that evening, Lindsay got to meet the family and watch Wynne and his wife out on the dance floor together. After hearing him tell the story of where it all began, there was something pretty wonderful about getting to see what all those years of building had ultimately created. A business. A family. A life. And another generation ready to keep the story going. Filmed live at the Texas Trucking Association Annual Conference in San Antonio as part of the We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition.

Evan Shelley didn’t grow up dreaming about truck parking. The Kentucky native who loved to golf, found his way into commercial real estate, started learning how property worked, bought a building and eventually noticed something that would change the trajectory of his career: there was unused space sitting there, and truck drivers desperately needed places to park. One thing led to another, and that empty space eventually became the seed of Truck Parking Club, a marketplace connecting truck drivers looking for safe, reliable parking with property owners who have space available. In this We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition, host Lindsay Lawler sits down with Evan Shelley, CEO of Truck Parking Club, to hear how all those dots connected. And Evan is fascinating beyond the company he built. Still in his 30s, he has the kind of mind that seems to be perpetually in motion. He works. He thinks. He notices. And when he sees an opportunity, he has a hard time leaving it alone. His story didn’t unfold according to some perfectly drawn business plan. He found his way into one world, learned everything he could from it, saw something other people weren’t necessarily seeing and kept going. Somewhere between Kentucky, commercial real estate and an empty lot, Truck Parking Club was born. Filmed live at the Texas Trucking Association Annual Conference in San Antonio as part of the We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition.

What happens when your dad is also your boss, your employees are also your family, and the people you spend all day building a company with are the same people you’re making dinner plans with that night?In this We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition, host Lindsay Lawler sits down with Sean Leone, President & CEO of Sunburst Truck Lines; his daughter, Brittney Leffert, Sales Manager; and his son-in-law, Eric Barker, Senior Director of Operations, for a conversation about what it really looks like when trucking and family become completely intertwined.Sean shares how his own family history in trucking eventually led him to build Sunburst, while Brittney offers the perspective of growing up, coming into the business and learning when the man behind the desk is Dad and when he’s the boss. Eric’s path was different: after serving in the military, he married into the family and eventually found another kind of family and purpose inside Sunburst.They talk about the realities of working together, the relationship between sales and operations, raising the next generation around the business, and what it takes to build a company where family, drivers, employees and relationships still matter.Because at Sunburst, “family business” doesn’t seem to end when everybody leaves the office. It’s dinner, holidays, grandbabies, trucking, Texas and a whole lot of life lived together.When the Family Business Is Trucking: The Sunburst Truck Lines StoryFilmed live at the Texas Trucking Association Annual Conference in San Antonio as part of the We Should Write: Texas Trucking Edition.https://sunburstusa.comhttps://weshouldwrite.com

Some people have a way of making you feel better about life just by being around them. Brent Hutto is one of those people. In this Texas Trucking edition of We Should Write, Lindsay Lawler sits down with Brent Hutto, Chief Relationship Officer for Truck Parking Club, for a conversation about why relationships really are currency, not just in business, but in life. Truck Parking Club connects truck drivers searching for safe, reliable parking with property owners who have space to offer, tackling one of the trucking industry’s biggest everyday challenges through a pretty simple idea: creating more places for drivers to park.  Brent shares the lessons he learned from a professional football-playing father and a tiny but larger-than-life mother, the joy he finds in raising and homeschooling his family, and the choices he makes to create a life built around connection, balance and happiness. There are plenty of trucking conversations in this series, but this one is really about how to live. Brent has a way of turning life lessons into one-liners you want to write down, and somewhere along the way, it becomes pretty clear why someone decided his job title should literally have the word “relationship” in it.

Texas trucking is built to move things, but its real story is about the people who have kept it moving for generations.In this special Texas Trucking edition of We Should Write, Lindsay Lawler sits down with John Esparza, President & CEO of the Texas Trucking Association (TXTA), to talk legacy, leadership and helping guide one of Texas’ most essential industries into its next generation.John reflects on the people and families who make up the fabric of Texas trucking, the importance of learning from the leaders who came before him, and why he still “plays in the sandbox” with heads of other state trucking associations, sharing ideas and learning from one another.The conversation also reaches beyond trucking, into Texas itself, the writers who have captured its spirit, and the stories worth carrying forward.At its heart, it’s a conversation about an industry built by people, and the responsibility of leaving it stronger for whoever comes next.Learn more here:https://www.texastrucking.com

Andrew Mitch turned down grad school to make sad country songs in Nashville, and 'All in My Head' proved the instinct right. Lindsay and Andrew talk about writing through fear, being a gay Christian in country music, the difference between the church and God, and why your most healing song might be the one you almost deleted. Plus: two live performances, including an unreleased exclusive.

This week on We Should Write, Lindsay sits down with Jennifer Moorman for a conversation that feels a little like stepping into one of Jennifer’s novels: warm, wonder-filled, and quietly transformative. A USA Today bestselling author of multiple books including The Charmed Library, The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds, The Magic All Around, and the beloved Mystic Water series, Jennifer is also a former senior editor at HarperCollins, a contributor to outlets including People, Parade, and Writer’s Digest, and a writer for the Strawberry Shortcake series. Together, Lindsay and Jennifer explore “the magic house,” the healing power of words, and the idea that life can feel heavy or magical depending on the lens we choose. They talk about creativity, intuition, storytelling, gratitude, and the small everyday moments that quietly shape who we become. It’s a soulful, funny, deeply human conversation about wonder, writing, and learning to see the extraordinary hidden inside ordinary life.

This week on We Should Write, Lindsay sits down with award-winning Indigenous singer, songwriter, and powerhouse vocalist Crystal Shawanda. From singing at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge as a teenager to becoming the first Indigenous artist to win a Juno Award for Blues Album of the Year, Crystal has never stopped carving her own path. But what stood out most in this conversation was her honesty about how writing and creative expression led her to a version of herself she didn’t necessarily see coming, one that showed her what mattered most, helped her clarify her priorities, and ultimately helped her build the life she truly wanted. A life with her husband, her daughter, and music at the center, all without losing who she is in the process. This one is about finding your voice, trusting your gut, and realizing the life you want may be hiding inside the words you write.

What does it actually take to get someone to tell the truth? In this episode of We Should Write, I sit down with Brad Beeler—former U.S. Secret Service Special Agent, polygraph examiner, and author of Tell Me Everything. After 25 years in the Secret Service, protecting President George H. W. Bush and conducting more criminal polygraphs than anyone in the agency’s history, Brad has built a career on one thing: getting people to open up. He’s trained FBI, CIA, and intelligence professionals around the world on how to read people, build trust, and uncover the truth—even in the highest-stakes situations. But this conversation goes way beyond lie detectors. We get into the psychology of why we lie (and why we don’t), the subtle ways we edit ourselves in everyday life, and how words like “I’m sorry” can lose meaning when we don’t actually mean them. We talk about why we confess things to hairdressers, bartenders, and Uber drivers, what alcohol really does to honesty, and whether telling a “better story” is ever the same as telling the truth. We also explore something deeper—how our perception and lived experience shape the stories we tell. Is there such a thing as objective truth, or are we all just telling the version our nervous system can live with? This one is part psychology, part storytelling, and part real-life human behavior—told through the lens of someone who’s spent decades sitting across from people with everything to hide.