It is a distinct honor to be able to represent America’s motor carriers and the employees and independent contractors working on behalf of those companies.   I have appreciated the leadership that has been provided by Barbara Windsor, Tommy Hodges and all the fine chairmen who have preceded them.

When we gathered in Phoenix last year, I said I was hopeful that, like the mythical bird the city was named for, our industry was preparing to rise from the ashes of the deep recession we’d just fought through and that, when we came together in Grapevine, as with many things in Texas, things would be “bigger and better” for our industry.

This will be a busy week for the leaders of the nation’s trucking industry who will be meeting at American Trucking Associations’ annual Management Conference & Exhibition.

Rob Abbott, American Trucking Associations’ vice president of safety policy, has been named to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s motor carrier safety advisory committee, FMCSA said Friday.

American Trucking Associations said it has hired Caroline Decker as its new vice president of legislative affairs.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The outlook for brokerage firms is mostly positive, despite compressed margins and inflationary cost pressures, industry officials and analysts said.

SAN DIEGO — An industry consensus appears to be emerging in support of electronic logging devices to monitor driver hours but not truck performance, as the Truckload Carriers Association endorsed that technology last week and American Trucking Associations moved in the same direction.

Gary Salisbury, president and CEO of Fikes Truck Line, Hope, Ark., was elected chairman of the Truckload Carriers Association for 2011-2012 at TCA’s annual meeting in San Diego.