MCE Exhibitors Showcase Latest Trucking Products, Technologies
More than 180 manufacturers, suppliers and service providers, including about 25 new vendors, set up displays and booths and demonstrated their products to trucking executives in the exhibit hall at American Trucking Associations’ annual event, held this year at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
ATA Chairman Dan England, his successor, Mike Card, who later became the new chairman on Wednesday, and ATA President Bill Graves opened the exhibit hall with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
England said the various services and products on display “tell us what the future is going to be in this industry.”
Two long-time MCE attendees noted the growing number of technology companies present in the exhibition area, including providers of back-office software, in-cab communications, navigation and asset tracking.
Barry Pottle, president of Pottle’s Transportation, Bangor, Maine, said he first attended MCE in about 1988.
“Back then it was all trucks and trailers, suspensions and transmissions and engines,” he said. “Today when you’re in there, there’s just so much technology.”
With all the technology options available to fleets today, “you really need to figure out what’s best for your company,” Pottle said. “That’s what’s good about coming to these conventions; you’re able to walk around, talk to everybody and get a feel what’s best for you.”
Shepard Dunn, president of Best Way Express, Vincennes, Ind., also said the exhibit hall has become more of a technology showcase than it was when he first attended in about 1994.
“There so much stuff you can do now that absolutely floors me,” he said.
Tom McLeod, CEO of McLeod Software, said traffic in the exhibit hall seemed to be higher this year.
“I know there are some company owners who don’t come to the exhibit, but they’re missing a big opportunity to see a whole lot at once,” said McLeod, whose Birmingham, Ala., company makes transportation management software.
Having walked the floor beyond his own booth, McLeod said “there are a lot of new players in mobile communications this year. There’s an amazing amount of activity in that sector.”
