Opinion: A New Future for Trucking

By Mike Card

Chairman

American Trucking Associations

This Opinion piece appears in the Oct. 15 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Each year, American Trucking Associations elects a new chairman of the board to lead the organization for a year, and this year, I have been blessed and humbled by this honor.

In many regards I have been training for this position almost my entire life. My dad, Richard Card, was a truck driver and an owner-operator. He taught me trucking from the ground up, washing and working on his truck during the short times he was at home. Then I got in on the ground floor and built up the company he started. He always taught me you have to give back as much as you get in this life. I have been fortunate to have been given a lot, and I think it is only right that I give back.

ATA was the first trucking association we joined after we started the company — Combined Transport Inc., Central Point, Ore. Dad was always involved with one association or another and was at one time the president of the West Coast Truckers Association. He testified at Capitol Hill during trucking deregulation. I definitely wanted to follow in his footsteps, and ATA was the place I wanted to do it. I participated in many committees and task forces and even got to be chairman of the Highway Policy Committee and the Insurance Task Force.

I have always loved ATA and the people involved with it, even when I disagreed with a policy or direction. ATA is a great place to have open and honest discussions and debates. The key thing is that, as truckers, we need to speak with one voice, with a united purpose, on the same team. I am proud to be part of one of the greatest, most challenging and exciting industries in America.

While I am extremely honored to be a member of our industry, I don’t always believe we garner the respect we deserve from the news media, the general public and our political leaders. The image of our drivers and our companies needs a makeover. There has been some tremendous work done by ATA in the past with America’s Road Team, the Share the Road program and the Image Truck — to name a few initiatives.

We need to do a better job of sharing the outstanding stories of safety, heroism and simply overcoming great odds just to survive in trucking. The people and families of trucking are the quintessential small business, self-made success stories — the fulfillment of the American dream.

To that end, one of my first actions as chairman will be to bring together some of our industry’s gifted communicators, in partnership with the Allied Committee for the Trucking Industry, to help tell those stories. The Allied Committee for the Trucking Industry, commonly referred to as ACT I, was established to build goodwill between its member companies and the motor carrier industry by jointly sponsoring social functions usually held in conjunction with major meetings of ATA and its various conferences and councils, as well as other industry organizations.

In today’s increasingly digital world, we as an industry need to do a better job of sharing our story, using all media outlets from social avenues like Twitter and Facebook and online video to more traditional outlets like radio, TV and print. What we say and how we say it can have an effect, not just on our industry’s image but on important public policy debates.

The future is challenging on many fronts, including increased regulations, environmental rules, qualified truck driver shortages, fuel prices and economic stagnation. We need leadership now to face these issues, but we also need to be planning for what’s coming down the road. That’s why I am instituting a Future Leaders program at ATA. Our generation is getting older, and we need more young people learning the skills necessary to be our leaders of the future.

To whom much is given, much is expected. To my dad and the industry that has taught me so much, I seek to return more than I was given. Please join me in your support of the trucking industry and of our efforts for a stronger United States.

The author is president of Combined Transport Inc., Central Point, Ore. Founded in 1980, the company operates in the 48 contiguous states and parts of Canada as a specialized and heavy-haul carrier and logistics company with three divisions: glass, heavy haul — including wind towers — and general flatbed and specialized commodities.