ADDISON — Eight years ago, the largest truck Don Daseke had ever been in was a pickup. He didn’t know the difference between an 18-wheeler and a flatbed — and he didn’t care.

He does now.

Since 2008, Daseke (pronounced dass-key) has purchased nine privately owned specialty trucking companies spread from the Pacific Northwest to Charleston, S.C.

Addison-based Daseke Inc. owns the largest fleet of open-deck, heavy hauling equipment in the country. These aren’t the 18-wheelers you see headed for Target or Wal-Mart. The company’s 3,000 tractors and 6,500 open-deck trailers haul such gargantuan cargo as Triton submarines, Boeing aircraft wings and wind turbine blades.

One of Daseke’s companies, Lone Star Transportation in Fort Worth, recently moved an acidizer for a refinery in South Texas that was 25 feet wide and 23½ feet tall and weighed 390,000 pounds.

Read more here.