While other truckers are cutting the fat from everything from truckstop meals to equipment specs, owner-operator Steve Treasure of Boise, Idaho, appears to live and drive in a different age.

His custom-painted 2000 Kenworth AeroCab Aerodyne W900L with a 600-hp Cat C-16, assorted bells and whistles is a familiar and enviable sight on Interstate 84 between Boise and Ogden, Utah. But how, when diesel has topped $1.70, does Treasure afford a truck of such grandeur pulling a glistening Rocky Mountain doubles tanker?

He responds that the truck - and the job that has made it possible - are products of pursuing a five-step business plan he developed during a decade of driving for others. Ten years of driving and visiting with equipment dealers, bankers, insurance agents, attorneys, employers and other drivers supplied the elements of a plan that is simple and thus has been easy for him to remember and follow. When Treasure ordered his first new truck several years ago, it confirmed that the plan worked the way he had hoped. He's confident it can work as well for others.

STEP 1: Find Your Niche

Treasure's first step was to find his owner-operator niche - a job that would satisfy his major long-term objectives: Drive in the Northwest for firms that need and appreciate quality service. He didn't know what his niche would be or how long his search would take. "But," he recalls, "I knew that when I found it, there would be no doubts."

STEP 2: Patience and Analysis

Analyzing his personal traits - his strengths and weaknesses - was Step 2. For Treasure, a naturally gregarious hard-worker, this came down to exercising patience and curbing a temptation to spend. "I was in another room when patience was handed out," he chuckles. He realized that although he is competent at driving and maintaining a rig, he knew little of the business side of trucking. Gaining that knowledge, and waiting for his niche to materialize, was a heavy drain on his limited serving of moderation.

STEP 3: The Financial Plan

A workable financial plan - what Treasure calls the "dollars-and-common-cents" phase - became his Step 3. In developing it, he went to battle with himself over choosing needs over wants and in separating financial reality from dreams. "I spent months and went through reams of paper studying different combinations of income and expense. Being broke made this very difficult, but very important."

His plan leaned heavily on information from equipment dealers, lenders, insurers and other truckers. His study compared buying "cheap new" against "very good used." He also projected potential fixed and operating costs with different trucks, routes and schedules, and the amount and timing of cash flow needed to meet them.

Then came time to act. With $5,000 of borrowed money and the help of a known and trusted dealer, he shopped for a used truck - one that could handle the 106,000-pound GCW allowed in Idaho and adjacent western states. He bought a 5-year-old '84 Pete with a 425 Cat and 500,000 miles.

He recounts that he and the salesman "went through its maintenance records with a fine-tooth comb to verify that this was as cherry as a used truck could be." Treasure points out that assessing used trucks today is easier because many have electronic diesels whose electronic control modules (ECMs) can be downloaded, revealing the operating history of the engine and other components. Now the owner of a tractor, he drove under contract hauling others' trailers. He worked for a variety of large and small firms, and finally for a company hauling meat products from Nampa, Idaho, to Salt Lake City. The return trip was a backhaul of sacked food-grade flour for Fresca Mexican Food's Boise, Idaho, tortilla plant.

His positive attitude and reliability attracted the attention a plant manager who told him the plant was thinking of buying flour in bulk to reduce handling costs. Treasure realized this would end the backhaul, but it would also mean Fresca would need a tanker rig and an experienced driver.

"I knew the route, the loading and unloading schedules, liked the people and had an excellent 2-year reliability record," he notes. He asked to be considered as a contractor for the bulk haul, committing to buying Rocky Mountain doubles pneumatic tankers, if he got the job. They struck a deal that satisfied his business plan. Ten years after he started driving and dreaming of being on his own, Steve Treasure had found his niche.

STEP 4: Manage Temptation

Controlling the urge to spend beyond his skimpy budget was Step 4, and it was as difficult as exercising patience. Looking back, he sees that if he had failed this step, he would have been out of business within a year. When working as a hired driver, his $500 weekly paycheck had given him little in the way of temptation. But as an O/O, with four-figure weekly paychecks, temptations sprouted like weeds.

"This probably happens to most new owner-operators," he speculates. "Suddenly there's all this money. But when you match those checks to your financial plan, you find that most of that money has already been spent. The harsh fact is that an owner-operator starting out probably has less free money at $3,000 a week than when he brought home $500 a week as a hired driver."

Treasure believes many independent operators stumble because they spend too much too soon on too many non-essentials: fancy cabs with TVs and stereos, new pickups and boats, etc. "If you don't manage your debt and temptations, they will manage you."

Another common pitfall for O/Os is using high-interest credit cards rather than a stash of cash for emergencies. "After listening to the miseries of drivers trying to pay off high interest card debt, I didn't even want to own one of the things," he concludes. Instead, he followed his plan to moonlight and scrimp to quickly build a $5,000 emergency fund.

STEP 5: Work Hard, Smart

Working happily and hard comes as easily for Treasure as enthusiasm, friendships and the joys of spending. He made work ethic Step 5, in part because he saw so much evidence that lack of hard, intelligent work caused the downfall of many O/Os. "I learned from observation that those with a positive work ethic were usually the most happy as owner-operators. They seemed to gravitate to the best employers. My view is if you want to get ahead, you work your —s off, and that's what I've done."

From the outset, he hustled extra work: lumping, driving shuttles, extra hauls. "Until I had my $5,000 cash cushion and paid off my debts, I worked non-stop. And then I kept it up to get money for a newer truck."