LEAD 4093 Module 5 Capstone Final Report, Presentation and Reflection Example

From Seventy-Four Percent to a Plan Leadership Approved: Final Capstone Report, Presentation and Reflection

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD4093: Capstone in Administration and Leadership

Module 5 Assignment

Instructor Name

May 3, 2027

Introduction

With this paper the capstone ends, and so does my bachelor's program in business administration and leadership. Over four modules I studied one problem at Cedar Valley Freight, the composite family-run truckload firm whose dispatch office I lead in eastern Iowa: three of every four drivers leaving each year while margins shrank. The final paper has three parts. An executive summary condenses the report for the company's leaders. A description of the presentation explains how it was built, what questions it drew and what leadership decided. A reflection considers what the capstone and the program as a whole changed in how I work.

Executive Summary: The Problem and Evidence

In 2026, about 170 of Cedar Valley's 230 drivers left, at an estimated cost of $9,000 each, while the operating ratio rose to 98 percent. Labor economics research suggests that heavy churn is a feature of long-distance truckload jobs rather than proof that drivers cannot be found (Burks & Monaco, 2019). The company's own records agreed. Fewer than one in four dedicated-route drivers quit in a year, against almost nine in ten on one-way regional freight. In exit notes, nights away from home topped the list of complaints, followed by unpredictable pay and treatment by dispatch. Outside forces, a weak freight market, rising insurance and hours-of-service rules that strand drivers far from home, made the one-way business both the least profitable and the hardest on drivers.

Executive Summary: Options and Recommendation

Four options were rated on six criteria: cutting costs within the current model, shifting toward dedicated and home-daily work, selling to a larger carrier and shrinking into brokerage. Only the shift scored well on both turnover and margins and fit the company's values. The recommendation is to raise dedicated work from about 30 to 60 percent of the fleet by 2029, rebuild remaining freight into relay lanes that end at home terminals, pay drivers a weekly guarantee plus activity pay with a first-year no-loss promise and shrink the fleet by about 20 tractors through attrition alone. One-time costs are about $560,000, plus trailer financing. By 2029 the plan aims to keep more than half of each year's drivers and to bring costs to about 93 cents per revenue dollar, with six monthly measures and named owners.

Building the Presentation

The presentation had to persuade an owner-led team that had heard many improvement ideas before. I built twelve slides around one chart: turnover by route type, showing the 24 and 89 percent rates side by side. The first three slides stated the problem in dollars and in drivers. The next three showed what drivers said and what the outside forces meant. Two slides compared the four options on one page each. Three slides covered the recommendation, the pay guarantee and the costs. The last slide asked for one decision: approval of Phase 1. I rehearsed twice with the human resources coordinator and cut the talk from thirty minutes to twenty. Every number on the slides matched the written report exactly, because a single mismatch would have invited doubt about the rest.

Questions and the Decision

I presented on April 29 to the president, chief financial officer, safety director and sales director. The chief financial officer asked the hardest question: what happens to the projections if one dedicated customer leaves in the second year? I answered with the 25 percent revenue cap and the notice clauses, but admitted that the projection would slip by about a year. The safety director asked whether relay lanes would raise accident risk through more trailer swaps; I did not have data and promised to find it. The president asked whether drivers would believe the pay promise. After discussion, leadership approved Phase 1, the two customer expansions, one relay pilot instead of two and the software upgrade, and asked for the pay guarantee to return with the chief financial officer's review in June.

What the Decision Means

Approval of one relay pilot instead of two was a fair response to uncertainty, and it means the turnover target may be reached later than planned. The deferral of the pay guarantee worries me more, because the driver interviews showed that predictable pay is the second reason drivers leave and that trust in any change depends on it. I will bring the chief financial officer a revised cost estimate limited to drivers who move to dedicated routes, which lowers the first-year cost from about $210,000 to about $120,000. The capstone has become a working plan, with my role shifting from analyst to the person coordinating its first phase.

Reflection: Learning From Experience

Learning, in Kolb's model, moves around a loop: something happens to you, you look back at it, you form an idea that explains it and you try that idea out (Kolb, 1984). The capstone followed that cycle more closely than any earlier course. My experience in dispatch told me that drivers left over home time, but I had never tested that belief. Looking at the data by route type was the reflective step; it confirmed my belief but also showed that new drivers on one-way routes, not drivers in general, were the problem. Turnover research and the options framework gave me concepts to explain it. Phase 1 is the experiment. I also learned that my first instinct, to propose better pay alone, would have missed the larger issue of how routes are built.

Reflection: Growth Across the Program

The capstone drew on nearly every course. Strategic planning gave me the tools to rank outside forces instead of listing them. Finance taught me to project an operating ratio by segment, which persuaded the chief financial officer more than any argument about drivers. The ethics course made me treat the pay change, the cameras and the fleet reduction as questions of fairness before they became complaints. Human resources coursework shaped the pay design. Communication coursework, which I once considered the least practical, determined whether anyone would listen. Skilled professionals, one classic account argues, think about what they are doing while they are doing it and adjust on the spot (Schön, 1983). During the questions on April 29, I found myself doing that, admitting what I did not know instead of defending every number.

What I Would Do Differently

Three things would improve the capstone. I would have gathered safety data on relay operations before the presentation, since the safety director's question exposed a gap. I would have involved the chief financial officer earlier, so the pay guarantee was reviewed before being presented. And I would have interviewed more drivers who had already left, since the twelve interviews were with current drivers, who may be more positive than those who went elsewhere. These lessons will shape how I run the Phase 1 pilot and how I approach the next problem I am asked to solve. I would also have tested the presentation on a driver, since the people most affected by the plan were the only audience I never rehearsed with.

Conclusion

The capstone began with a statistic and ended with an approved first phase. Its central finding, that drivers leave the routes that keep them away from home and that those same routes earn the least, gave the company a strategy that serves both its people and its finances. The program gave me the tools to see that and to explain it. The next test is whether the plan works on the road.

References

Burks, S. V., & Monaco, K. (2019). Is the U.S. labor market for truck drivers broken? Monthly Labor Review. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2019.5

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice Hall.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.