Graves Receives NITL’s McCullough Award; Bergant Honored With IANA’s Silver Kingpin
This story appears in the Nov. 19 print edition of Transport Topics.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Industry service awards were presented to American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves and retired J.B. Hunt Intermodal President Paul Bergant last week during the National Industrial Transportation League’s TransComp and the Intermodal Association of North America’s Expo.
Graves was recognized at the meetings here with the McCullough Award, presented by NITL and Distribution magazine, while Bergant received the intermodal group’s Silver Kingpin Award.
Graves, who could not attend the meeting because of a scheduling conflict, said in a video shown at the conference that he “was very surprised and very flattered. I have always had a great appreciation of the value of the relationship between truckers and the shipping community.”
Randy Clifford, CEO of Ventura Transfer, Long Beach, Calif., accepted the award on Graves’ behalf, saying, “Governor Graves is a remarkable man. He works with everyone with finesse and class. He has a knack for putting people together.”
Michael Levans, editorial director of Logistics Management, a co-sponsor of the NITL award, said “at this time of hyper-partisanship, it seems quite fitting that Governor Graves is being honored.”
Levans praised Graves’ “dignified and steady leadership” and his role as “a listener and a calming voice.”
Bergant retired last year as president of J.B. Hunt Intermodal, the largest and most profitable unit of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.
He headed Hunt’s intermodal business for more than 20 years after it was created by an agreement between J.B. Hunt, the trucking company’s founder, and Michael Haverty, then the president of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad.
Bergant “quickly saw how new intermodal partnerships could be created that are truck-like,” said David Manning, president of carrier Tennessee Express and chairman of IANA. “Paul is always mindful of the needs of the shippers.”
“At first, it was difficult to get [truck] competitors to change,” Bergant said after accepting the award. “When they did, it gave the [intermodal] industry credibility.”
Bruce Carlton, NITL president, said last week that he’s pessimistic about the prospects of a rapid resolution to the long-standing question of transportation funding because Congress can’t tackle that issue until the so-called “fiscal cliff” is addressed.
“I don’t think the line items [such as transportation] will be resolved until the fiscal cliff is resolved,” Carlton said at the shipper group’s meeting on Nov. 12, referring to the prospect of mandatory budget cuts and elimination of income tax and payroll tax cuts when the new year begins.
“There is just no time for Congress to make all the decisions needed,” Carlton said. “There is time for them to draft a framework to decide what the federal government will spend its money on. Then they can return and work out the details.”
The shipper group executive, a former U.S. Department of Transportation official, also sounded some notes of optimism.
Fixing the tax and spending situation “is a big job, and we are capable of doing it. We all have our fingers crossed that the adults will sit at the table.”
“The prospect of failure is so intimidating that the motivation is there to make a fix,” said Carlton. “Congress and the administration have been kicking the can down the road for several years.”
Carlton also said, “I think everybody woke up on Wednesday [after the election] and said, ‘We’ve been attacking each other for two years. Let’s take a few months and get things done. Then we can go back to attacking each other.”
The uncertainty related to fiscal issues in Washington that were created by previous Washington budget deals also extends to shippers, said Matt Ehlinger, the new chairman of NITL. Ehlinger said he spoke on behalf of NITL and not in his capacity as assistant vice president of corporate transportation for NCH, which makes industrial maintenance products.
“We are not looking forward to the domino effect,” if funding issues aren’t addressed, Ehlinger said. “Think about what it would do; it will be just plain disruptive. There is no way to plan for [the consequences] efficiently.”
Carlton also reiterated his support for a fuel tax as the “single most-efficient” system to support transportation funding, as long as the money raised is 100% devoted to transportation. League officials surveyed members two years ago, and they supported a fuel tax increase of 30 cents per gallon or more.
At the same time, he said, the funding issue is “a long way from resolution” and is hampered by the fact that Congress hasn’t been willing to increase the tax for two decades.
