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APRIL/MAY | TCA 2018
Talking TCA
Tripp Lott | Membership coordinator
BY klint lowry
Look at the typical resumé of a 23-year-old and there usually
isn’t much to see. And if you read between the lines — what few
there are — in most cases you will be left with the impression of
a grown-up in training wheels, someone who at most has taken
the first mundane steps along a tenuously committed career path
and is self-consciously trying to make an impression that they are
experienced beyond their years.
The work history of the Truckload Carriers Association’s newest
addition, membership coordinator Tripp Lott, is a more intriguing
read. Being less than a year out of college, you can’t expect a world
of experience in the corporate recruiter sense of the term, but his
brief odyssey through the working world has netted him a quirkily
eclectic collection of experiences. Put together they suggest
someone with enthusiasm, adaptability and self-confidence. It also
demonstrates what a can-do attitude can do for a young man.
At 23, Lott brings a wide range of skills to the table. He could
even build the table if need be.
It’s an old-fashioned sounding concept, but in a lot of ways, he’s
an old-fashioned kind of guy who had an old-fashioned upbringing.
Lott was born and raised in Douglasville, Georgia, about 20 miles
west of Atlanta. But his home in the exurbs had a touch of the
frontier. “I grew up on 25 acres of creeks and lakes and woods
and all that,” he said, and his parents demonstrated a modern-day
version of pioneer spirit.
“Being a jack-of-all-trades is kind of a family trademark, as is
hard work,” he said. His mother, Linda, worked in recycling. His
father, Chuck, was a blacksmith for some time. Later, he ran a
sawmill. These days, he custom-builds hot rods.
Tripp is named after his grandfather. His legal name is Charles
Lott III — “the third,” he points out, as in “triple,” hence his dayto-day
name Tripp.
Along with the name, it was apparent from an early age Tripp
had inherited his parents’ busy hands. He built forts and he liked to
take things apart and try to put them back together.
To help him channel his tactile energy, his parents started him
in Cub Scouts. He stuck with scouting throughout his childhood,
achieving Eagle Scout status when he was 17.
For his Eagle Scout final project, Tripp built a bridge.
“There was a drainage ditch in front of the playground at the
church that I was going to,” he said. Every Sunday the kids would
get out of church and run to the playground. If it had rained within
a week, the ditch would have standing water in it and the kids
would have to go around or try to jump it. So he built a footbridge.
Lott said when he tells that story people imagine him out there
with a hammer and saw singlehandedly erecting this entire bridge.
But Eagle Scout projects are about organizing and team leadership
as much as anything, he said.
When he was in middle school, his father started showing
him how to fix cars. He also taught him blacksmithing and
woodworking, which he especially took to.
Lott started college at Georgia Southern University in 2013.
A year later, he transferred to Jacksonville State University in
Jacksonville, Alabama.
His sister, Hannah, was about to graduate from Jacksonville
State. Their parents had bought a house for her to live in just off
campus, but now she was done with it.
Free housing was too good to pass up, Lott said. And there was
another advantage. Lott had lived in a dorm at Georgia Southern.
“I’d never been in a situation where I didn’t have a place that I
could go and work on something or tinker or take something apart.
“I remember sitting in my dorm room at Georgia Southern and
talking with my dad on the phone and saying, ‘I think I want to start
a woodworking business.’”
The house in Jacksonville had an old gazebo in the backyard.
With a little creative carpentry and wiring he renovated it into a
workshop. “From my sophomore year to my senior year, I was a
fulltime woodworker,” he said.
His father had taught him how to build furniture. Once you have
the basic woodworking skills, he said, it’s easy to branch off, so he
challenged himself by trying his hand at building guitars.
“I don’t have any special tools or special knowledge,” he said. “I
just wanted to build a guitar and just kind of took it step by step.”
Guitar-making is a painstaking process. Every step is absolutely
critical, he said. There’s a lot of precision work that goes into
making a guitar, he added. “The woodworking would probably be
the most challenging. That’s my favorite part of it. I obsess over
making sure everything is well done. I’m not going to go to the
trouble of making a guitar and skip a step. You can’t. It really forces
your hand to be patient and measure out what you’re doing and
not rush.
“You can’t rush a guitar. If you do it’ll just end up being garbage
— like the first guitar I made.”
28 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org Tca TCA 2018 2018