Editorial: Raising Trucking’s Profile

There was an unmistakable message that was delivered loud and clear at this year’s Management Conference & Exhibition: It’s time to raise the profile of the trucking industry with politicians and with the public.

From the beginning of the four-day get-together to the final press conference last week, there was much talk in Orlando, Fla., of why the industry’s profile needs a boost — and how to do it.

ATA President Bill Graves set the tone with his opening “State of the Industry” speech, in which he told the assembly that the industry needs to rethink how it doles out its political support and contributions.

“Political change is under way, and many of the traditional alliances the business community has had within the Republican Party are necessarily going to need to be re-evaluated,” Graves said.

He said the industry needs to pay more attention to the support politicians provide to the industry’s positions than to the political party they belong to, in light of recent developments on Capitol Hill, including the 16-day partial shutdown of the federal government beginning Oct. 1.

A little later, ATA announced the early stages of a new image campaign under the slogan, “Trucking Moves America Forward.”

The federation is looking to raise $1 million a year for the first five years of the new program, which is designed “to effectively relay the essential nature of the trucking industry to the nation’s economy and the everyday lives of all Americans,” in the words of John Conkin, president of ACT 1.

The new campaign will do a better job of reaching out to the public, “and through them, elected officials,” said Michael Card, ATA’s former chairman.

Card’s successor, Philip Byrd Sr., said he was prepared to be direct in his approach to advancing the industry’s goals in Washington, particularly regarding highway funding.

“Every elected official in Washington knows that needs to be done. They just don’t know how to do it and get re-elected, and that’s a tragedy,” Byrd said. ATA’s image campaign will help them find the way, he added.

Meanwhile, at a press conference connected to MC&E, the new head of Daimler Trucks, Wolfgang Bernhard, threw his company’s support directly behind two of ATA’s political goals: removing the federal excise tax on new truck purchases and raising the federal fuel tax to support infrastructure repair.

All of these developments could well mark the beginning a new politically active stance by trucking and its partners. And not a moment too soon.