By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

OXFORD – There’s nothing pretentious about Floyd Thayer. He’s a straight-talking guy’s guy: dogs, Harleys, the outdoors and trucks.

The president of Ed Thayer Inc. and his dad have steered the company’s growth from one rig in 1974, when his dad, Ed, founded the company, to a fleet of 32 that hauls paper-mill products, bottled water and other freight from Maine to major East Coast cities, including Philadelphia and Baltimore.

The company also operates a Big Rig Shop that does truck repair, a side of the business which Thayer, a trained mechanic, started for the company.

The trucking business demands long hours. “I’m here a lot of the time,” Thayer said Friday at the company’s headquarters on Route 26. “I haven’t gotten rich and famous so I can be gone yet.”

But when he’s not at work, Thayer is firing up his Harley-Davidson Road King in the spring and his snowmobile in the winter, as well as fitting in hunting, fishing and jaunts to his camp in Errol, N.H.

And, he manages to head the town’s Board of Selectmen and help the oldest of his three sons build a house. “I would be out there all the time if I could,” he said, gesturing with his hand toward the outdoors.

At home, Thayer unwinds with his four-legged friend Lucky. The latest in a long line of canine companions, Lucky was adopted five years ago by Thayer and his wife, Paula, from the Greater Androscoggin Humane Society.

“I walked in and here was this mutt, and his name was Lucky and he was on death row,” he said, chuckling at the irony. “I figured if he comes home with me, he’ll be all right.”

Born in Lewiston, Thayer lived in several parts of the state including Falmouth, South Portland and Wiscasset. His dad, being in the trucking business, worked for a number of different companies before starting his own.

His parents are from Oxford, which he now calls home. “We did a full circle, I guess you’d say.”

His fleet logs about 5 million miles per year, making it no small feat that Ed Thayer Inc. recently won second place in a statewide safety contest sponsored by the Maine Truck Owners Association. The contest ranked trucking companies in Maine that log 3 to 6 million miles per year.

His rigs were involved in no major accidents last year. “Knock on wood, we’ve been very fortunate,” said Thayer. “And it’s because we have good people working for us.”

The industry has challenges beyond safety issues. High fuel prices strain profits, and Thayer said drivers and mechanics are hard to find despite good-paying jobs that are available in the industry.

“Nobody is getting into it anymore,” he said. “The average young person goes to school and sees their job working at a computer.”

And while politely declining to comment on politics, Thayer said Maine is a challenging business environment due to a high tax burden. He is hopeful that current efforts in Augusta to reduce business taxes will be successful.

In the meantime, he’s hoping for something else – some snow so he can ride his new snowmobile. “This isn’t winter,” he said.