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Tripp Lott and his father, Chuck Lott, attend
a meeting at Campbellton Lodge No. 76 in
Campbellton, Georgia, where Freemasons
have met since 1848. The walls of the
building have bullet holes from the Civil War.
Tripp Lott used some heart pine boards
from a house that was being refurbished
to build this dining table and bench
for the house’s owner.
At Jacksonville State, Lott decided to major in
business management. It was an ideal setup. “I was
able to apply business tactics in real time, which aided
in my understanding and made my education a lot more
valuable to me.”
Management was a versatile major, and at this
point, Lott had already been compiling his unusual
assortment of employment experiences.
In his senior year of high school, he had had a bad
case of senioritis. The school had an internship program
that would allow him to spend half his day off-campus,
and that sounded good to him.
His dad had been a patient at a physical therapy
clinic and became friends with the owner. “We walked
in one day, and I introduced myself. I said, ‘hey, I’d like
to intern for you.’ We sat down, had a brief conversation
and I started pretty much the next day.”
Lott spent his entire senior year at the clinic, taking
people through their exercises. “I was a full physical
therapy technician, essentially. We were doing 10-hour
shifts and you’d be on your feet the whole time. That
taught me a lesson — you don’t have to be splitting
firewood to be exhausted at the end of the day.”
When high school ended so did the internship. He
got a summer job at Woodruff Scout Reservation. The
camp, in northern Georgia, hosts 800 to 1,000 scouts a
week. Lott applied to be a lifeguard, “even though I had
no business being a lifeguard. I had no experience, but
they were kind enough to give me a shot.”
He wound up working there four consecutive
summers, working various jobs. On his resumé, he lists
“whitewater guide” as his job title, because he said, it’s
the last thing he did there.
He hadn’t even planned to go back the fourth year,
but the camp called him after the whitewater rafting
instructor broke his leg, asking if he’d be willing to give
it a shot.
“Again, one of those things I had no business
doing,” he said. But, seeing as he had been a lifeguard,
the camp director trusted he could handle it.
“I said, ‘sure, that sounds like fun.’” The next day he
was a river guide.
“Certainly, that was the most stressful job I’d ever
had, making sure 11-year-olds stay in the boat.”
Shortly after that, Lott got what many college
students would consider a dream job, interning at the
Back Forty Beer Company, in Gadsden, Alabama, after
what might have been the easiest job interview ever.
“I met the guy, shook his hand and said, ‘I’d like to
be your intern,’” Lott said, the same approach he used
with the physical therapist. “We had a brief interview
with the president and the hiring manager. We got
through with the interview and the president said,
‘All right, well, I’m going to show you around. That’s
enough of the interview.’”
As the president took him around, he kept
introducing Lott as the new intern. He remembered
thinking, ‘Wait, does that mean I got the job?’”
Lott likes to say he was Back Forty Beer Company’s
“Swiss Army knife intern,” because he did everything.
“I pride myself on being one of those who just
rolls up his sleeves up and gets in and does what’s
necessary,” he said. He did a lot of marketing work, he
worked on the bottling line, he helped load trucks, and
he even did a bit of brewing.
The head brewer there was the hardest working
person he ever met, he said. Some days she would get
there at 4:30 a.m. and wouldn’t leave 11 p.m., brewing
Q & A With Tripp Lott
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: Douglasville, Georgia,
October 21, 1994
MY TRADEMARK EXPRESSION IS: Poorly-timed laughter
MOST HUMBLING EXPERIENCE: A two-week backpacking
trip in New Mexico
PEOPLE SAY I REMIND THEM OF: Chris Pratt
I HAVE A PHOBIA OF: Idleness
MY GUILTY PLEASURE: Ice cream
THE PEOPLE I’D INVITE TO MY FANTASY DINNER
PARTY: Theodore Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, Jack London,
Nick Saban, Stevie Nicks, and Paul Newman
MY GREATEST PROBLEM AS A PROFESSIONAL IS:
Budgeting my time
I WOULD NEVER WEAR: Flip-flops
A GOAL I HAVE YET TO ACHIEVE: I have always wanted
to build a house.
THE LAST BOOK I READ: “Extreme Ownership” by Jocko
Willink and Leif Babin
LAST MOVIE I SAW: “The Square,” by Ruben Östlund
MY FAVORITE SONG: “A Change is Gonna Come” by Sam
Cooke
IF I’VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT WOULD BE:
Do your best and let the rest go.
THE THING ABOUT MY OFFICE IS: There’s always a good
selection of hot sauce on my desk.
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Creative
30 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2018