TCA Chairman Kretsinger to Set His Focus on Helping Fleets Prep for New Regulations

This story appears in the March. 11 print edition of Transport Topics.

LAS VEGAS — Lawyer-turned-trucker Tom Kretsinger, the new chairman of the Truckload Carriers Association, last week staked out an ambitious goal: Prepare the industry for new federal health care, disability and discrimination standards that are complex and sometimes contradictory.

“Anyone who has heard a presentation on the Affordable Care Act knows how complicated this is,” he said, speaking to Transport Topics last week during the group’s annual convention here. “It’s a big, hairy deal. You are seeing volumes of regulations coming from this very long bill. It’s going to be a necessity to understand it. There are a lot of consequences. People who get this wrong could even have their business model jeopardized.

“Very few people understand this law now, except insurance companies and maybe a few attorneys,” said Kretsinger, president and chief operating officer at American Central Transport, a 300-truck dry van fleet based in Liberty, Mo.

His father, Thomas Sr., founded the company in 1981, turning from practicing trucking law to running a carrier right after the industry was deregulated. Thomas Jr. spent 17 years practicing business and government law before switching careers and joining American Central Transport in 1998.

Another focus, he said, was to educate truckers on federal regulations relating to disability and discrimination that don’t seem to match up with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration standards.

One of those regulations involves driver health. Obese drivers as defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation may be able to claim disability in the view of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Another is threats of an EEOC action if a driver’s body mass index is tested.

“So many regulations are being produced that it gets to the point where it is impossible for a businessman to make a decision,” Kretsinger said, estimating that 25,000 new federal rules are issued annually.

In his own business, Kretsinger said he found trucking required a new approach.

He compared lawyers with warriors who don’t rely heavily on others’ skills and abilities. Truckers, on the other hand, have to be very adaptable and rely on the skills and abilities of others to succeed.

“Lawyers are trained to be adversarial and risk averse,” he explained. “In business, you can’t get anywhere without taking some risk.”

Trucking, he said, required a two-year learning curve, dramatized in a single realization he described as “an eye-opener,” when he signed a promissory note for 100 tractors for a seven-figure amount.

A different kind of realization came nine years later.

He was trying to tell drivers how to operate trucks better to improve fuel economy in 2008, when fuel prices hit record levels. During his talk, owner-operator Karl Lauer stopped him and said, “Let’s get the keys.”

Kretsinger, who doesn’t have a CDL, said that, after two hours, he found out firsthand about the demands of driving a truck, including fine points such as backing, braking and shifting.

“I learned a lot,” he said. “Even an educated guy can’t always remember what gear the truck is in.”

American Central Transport’s leader also tries to carry over those lessons.

“One thing I tell owner-operators is we are vested in their success,”

he said. “We make money the same way they do — running miles safely and legally. Bad things for them are the same for us. If freight is slow

in one area, that hurts us both. I tell our owner-operators, the only difference between you and me is that I have more trucks.”

As chairman of TCA, he doesn’t want to change the focus of his predecessors, Robert Low of Prime Inc. and Gary Salisbury of Fikes Truck Line, who emphasized health, wellness and the overall image of trucking.

“My predecessors have done some wonderful things,” Kretsinger said. “One goal of mine is to continue and build on their efforts. It is important to have continuity in what we are trying to do.

“What we need is to get members involved and to do some strategic planning,” he said. “How will we look in three years, and how can we best define what we do so that we can be effective with our partners such as ATA in a positive and productive way?”

Low, who still plays basketball almost every day with employees at the Springfield, Mo.-based headquarters, underlined his health commitment on March 4, during his last comments before Kretsinger took over.

“Our drivers are not very healthy — they are dying prematurely. It is not what we want. It is not the right thing to do,” Low said. “We owe it to them. Start a fitness and wellness program inside your company. Start something to get your folks up and moving, like a walking path. It doesn’t have to be fancy or expensive.”