"Then Big Jim Barker of OTL phoned me up and said it was about time to think about sorting out the North. He believed the only way to survive in transport was to network from one end of the country to the other and provide a service for everyone in between. One of Big Jim's philosophies was to put people before profit,'' Tex said.
The company is now owned by Rodney Dow and Carolyn Christian, the late Big Jim's nephew and niece, who were trained by their uncle.
Tex said cattle weren't "just going down the road" anymore.
"We pick up and deliver cattle all over New Zealand and our network covers from top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island,'' he said.
Sally said she enjoys the banter between truckies, farmers and stock agents.
"Some of them are absolutely hilarious. We have a lot of laughs,'' she said.
Tex is well known for his sense of humour, but underlying his wit is a dedicated businessman who is intent on creating a smooth operation for his clients.
The latest technology of the M2X Transport Management System allows everyone in the group to keep a real-time view of what is happening all the time.
Tex and Sally, and the other OTL Group branch managers around New Zealand, can all be logged in and see where all the trucks are, right down to a pinpoint on a Google map which updates with a new position every 10 seconds.
"Everyone floats around and it's our job to assign them to jobs to create a schedule for each day.
"There might be a truck that's come up from Te Kuiti and I'll put together a load for the truckie to take back down south,'' Tex said.
The system shows the size of the truck, the maximum load it can carry and the name of the driver.
They calculate the weight of each load and make sure the configuration will work.
It also shows the time of the journey so that drivers are not allocated work they cannot complete within the legal limit for operating hours.
Truckies can log in to their tablets to get their schedule and the system allows them to zoom in using Google maps on each address so they can see where the yards are.
"We don't have anyone getting lost any more. The rough maps are gone! It's brilliant,'' Tex said.
Tex and Sally pride themselves on providing good notes on jobs to help the drivers who might not be familiar with an area.
"Our local knowledge comes in handy so we can highlight any tricky jobs. Some farms are really remote with difficult access so we can warn the drivers that it would be better to drop off their trailer nearby so they will have better traction to get to some places,'' he said.
The closure of the Mangamuka Gorge south of Kaitaia has been a challenge with trucks having to do a lot of extra travelling.
Each full truck and trailer is carrying at least $75,000 worth of cattle so the truckies are well trained to deal with their precious cargo.
The accuracy of the system allows Tex and Sally to ring farmers with the truck's arrival time, which means they can be on hand to help with loading the truck.
"Farmers love it as they don't have to wait around at the yards when they are busy.''
However, not everyone is up with the latest technology.
Sally said a lot of clients like to use texts but some are "old school" and prefer a phone call.
Some of the older stock agents manage a bit of a mashup.
They write out their clients' orders on a notebook and take a photo of the page with their phone camera before texting it to Tex and Sally.
"Their notes wouldn't make sense to most people but we've been dealing with them for so long we can decipher it,'' Tex said.
Bookings are already coming in for Moving Day on June 1 when a huge number of dairy herds are moved to their new farms as sharemilkers take up new positions.
"Some are going from Northland right down south and we'll organise all the trucks that will take them all the way.''
The couple love their work and say they are "living their dream".
