Truckload Authority - Spring 2017

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O F F I C I A L P U B L I C A T I O N o f t h e T r u c k l o a d C a r r i e r s A s s o c i a t i o n
spring 2017
Enterprise
and Ingenuity
From driver to CEO, TCA Chairman
Rob Penner has done it all
Page | 6
ELD COUNTDOWN
Mandate coming December 18
despite legal wrangling
Page | 16
THE FOURTH OPTION
Seeking unexpected strategies
to build a successful business
Page | 18
WRITING THE SHIP
Using a pen to guide the
economy to safe harbor

Spring | TCA 2017
President’s Purview
An energetic buzz in the air
C an you hear that? That buzz? That’s the sound of an association energized by the
members who make all that we do possible. It’s the kind of energy that motivates every staff
member to give the extra effort to help propel us forward. It’s palpable every day when I walk
through our office. The post-convention buzz is strong.
As we sit down in Alexandria to digest all that occurred during our week in Nashville, one
phrase seems to be coming up again and again: “Best TCA annual convention ever.” Having
been here 15 months, I vetted this with our officers, and they agreed with that sentiment. It’s
a testament to the team we have formed here and the clear direction that we are implementing
to develop this association into what it deserves to be.
Nowhere was the energy and clarity of the future more evident than in the Board of
Directors’ meeting. When American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear
stepped up to the podium and delivered his impassioned speech about our two organizations
sharing a voice with a combined message in the ear of the new administration and the
necessity of having the story of trucking heard and understood by policy-makers, it was clear
for all to see that the partnership between ATA and TCA is as strong as it’s ever been.
Together we will form a solid team to find a common voice and to tackle all of the issues
facing the trucking industry head-on.
John Lyboldt
President
Truckload Carriers Association
jlyboldt@truckload.org
To provide truckload its voice, at the meeting I detailed to the board our plans for our new
Government Affairs team. I expressed to the board that it is essential for Capitol Hill to know
who truckload is and to understand our perspectives on relevant issues so that the truckload
agenda can advance. To do this, TCA must have a proactive solution.
Accordingly, TCA officers recommended that TCA invoice its existing members a voluntary
fee equating to 20 percent of their annual dues. The enthusiastic response we received
for this plan was overwhelming — our members clearly understand the importance of these
efforts and appear more than willing to contribute.
The key for us now is not to let this buzz fade away, but rather to harness this energy
and expand it into every facet of this association to deliver the unrivaled experience that
our members have learned to expect from us. I hope you enjoy the sound of that buzzing,
because at TCA it’s not going away any time soon.
Safe trucking to you all,
John Lyboldt
PRESIDENT’S PICKS
Capitol Recap
See updates on heavier trucks, Safety
Fitness Determination, F4A and more.
Page 10
Bowled Over
FTR’s Eric Starks fires up
delegates with optimistic outlook.
Page 17
Inside Out with Crystal Gitchell
Get an inside look at TCA’s horsebackriding
government affairs manager.
Page 32
TCA 2017
www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority

T H E R O A D M A P
SPRING 2017
PRESIDENT’S PURVIEW
An Energetic Buzz in the Air by John Lyboldt | 3
LEGISLATIVE LOOK-IN
ELD Countdown | 6
Capitol Recap | 10
TRACKING THE TRENDS SPONSORED BY SKYBITZ
Finally, Trucking is Sexy | 13
The Fourth Option | 16
Bowled Over| 17
NATIONAL NEWS MAKER SPONSORED BY THE TRUCKER NEWS ORG.
Writing the Ship with Rich Karlgaard | 18
A CHAT WITH THE CHAIRMAN SPONSORED BY MCLEOD SOFTWARE
Enterprise and Ingenuity with Rob Penner | 24
MEMBER MAILROOM
Who Should Attend TCA’s Safety & Security Division Meeting? | 30
TALKING TCA
Inside Out with Crystal Gitchell | 32
Top Drivers | 36
Best Fleets | 37
Safest Fleets | 38
Highway Angel | 39
Welcome to Nashville | 40
Small Talk | 42
Mark Your Calendar | 46
PhoFax: (703) 836-6610
PRESIDENT
John Lyboldt
jlyboldt@truckload.org
VICE PRESIDENT – DEVELOPMENT
Debbie Sparks
dsparks@truckload.org
DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION
Ron Goode
rgoode@truckload.org
VICE PRESIDENT + PUBLISHER
Ed Leader
edl@thetrucker.com
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
Rob Penner, President & CEO
Bison Transport
SECOND VICE CHAIR
Josh Kaburick
CEO
EarlL.HendersonTruckingCompany
SECRETARY
James Ward
President & CEO
D.M. Bowman, Inc.
ASSOCIATION VP TO ATA
Bill Reed Jr., Chairman & CEO
Skyline Transportation
AT-LARGE OFFICER
Dave Williams, Executive VP
Knight Transportatoin
AT-LARGE OFFICER
Mike Eggleton, Jr., Vice President
Raider Express, Inc.
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
William (Bill) Giroux
wgiroux@truckload.org
VICE PRESIDENT - GOV’T AFFAIRS
Dave Heller
dheller@truckload.org
FIRST VICE CHAIR
Dan Doran, President
Doran Logistics, LLC
TREASURER
Dennis Dellinger
President
Cargo Transporters, Inc.
IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR
Russell Stubbs
Chairman
FFE Holdings Corp.
AT-LARGE OFFICER
John Elliott, CEO
Load One, LLC
AT-LARGE OFFICER
Roy Cox, President
Best Logistics Group
publication are not necessarily those of TCA.
In exclusive partnership with:
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PRODUCTION MGR. + ART DIRECTOR
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EDITOR
Lyndon Finney
editor@thetrucker.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Dorothy Cox
dlcox@thetrucker.com
STAFF WRITER
Jack Whitsett
jack.whitsett@trucker.com
“Truckload Authority always is WELCOME and RELEVANT in
my mailbox. Not only does it give me VALUABLE INSIGHT
into truckload but it also focuses on TCA members that are
LEADERS in our industry. It’s definitely on my READING LIST
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VICE PRESIDENT OF SALES, CFI
2014-2015 CHAIRMAN, TRUCKLOAD CARRIERS ASSOCIATION
TRUCKING’S MOST ENTERTAINING
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prohibited.
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and editorial materials are accepted and published by Truckload Authority and its exclusive partner,
Trucker Publications, on the representation that the advertiser, its advertising company and/
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Such entities
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Cover photos courtesy:
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Additional magazine photography:
Crystal Gitchell: P. 34
Rich Karlgaard: P. 18, 22, 23
TCA: P. 3, 16, 17, 20, 26, 33, 35, 36,
37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45
The Trucker News Org: P. 7, 8, 13, 14
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Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

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Spring | TCA 2017
Legislative Look-In
ELD COUNTDOWN
By Dorothy Cox
As the countdown gets closer to liftoff December 18, the date when the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration launch complex will see its mandated ELD craft
officially take off from the launching pad, there continue to be cries of “Houston, we
have a problem.”
It may be too late to un-punch that button, but the Owner-Operator Independent
Drivers Association (OOIDA) April 11 filed a petition asking the United States Supreme
Court to review its case on the electronic logging mandate following the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit’s ruling against the association.
OOIDA says in the filing that FMCSA failed to meet legal thresholds that would
allow it to sidestep search and seizure protections in the Fourth Amendment.
OOIDA President and CEO Jim Johnston told the group’s Land Line magazine,
however, that the Supreme Court accepts only a very small percentage of cases
presented to it, and that one of their primary criteria for hearing cases is to maintain
consistency between the various courts around the country.
Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

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That doesn’t bode well for their chances.
OOIDA spokesperson Norita Taylor told Truckload Authority
the rule doesn’t address harassment sufficiently because
“drivers have to self-report having been coerced into violating
Hours of Service after the fact and have to provide proof,”
and that in previous listening sessions on the rule at least one
large truckload carrier testified that HOS corrections “can be
made by the office,” something more than a few truckers have
complained about anecdotally.
Meanwhile, other trucking stakeholders hope the ELD
launch and landing will be successful.
After all, there have been numerous test flights: Many carriers
wanted to get ahead of the game and have already been
using electronic logging devices before official liftoff.
In fact, a little over two years ago there were reportedly
less than 15 ELDs listed on FMCSA’s approved list; today there
are around 40 that have met FMCSA spec’s and they take up
four pages on the agency’s website.
Of course in trucking, there’s always someone who wants
to get around the rules. The final regulation exempts drivers
of vehicles before model year 2000 and one owner-operator
said recently he was offered $80,000 for his 1999 Kenworth
549 and that he turned it down because he likes his truck and
more importantly, it can’t be retrofitted with electronic logs.
Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst with ACT Research,
said the trucker was foolish to turn down the
$80,000.
“We have seen used truck valuations for 1998, 1999 and
2000 model years rising for about six to eight months now.
Somebody should be thinking ahead. Now’s the time to buy
1999 and 2000 models and flip them in December.”
Vieth said drivers who are using paper logs and getting
in extra miles by running illegally are adding capacity to the
freight system and as a result, “rates suffer because some are
cheating. If everybody’s legal it takes capacity out and rates
go up. We think [ELDs will] take 3.5 to 4 percent capacity off
the road.”
He said that by 2018 manufacturing should be doing better
and the driver shortage, which has been somewhat in abeyance,
will “rear its ugly head” again. But if there’s a shortage,
“drivers will be paid more,” he noted.
Every driver wants more pay, but they seem to either hate
or love ELDs. The lovers say ELDs free up time they used to
spend filling in and updating paper logs and they keep the dispatchers
from trying to force them to drive when they’re over
their hours. Others say their carrier’s back office resets the
time and still forces them to drive over their legal hours limit.
Drivers also protest that ELDs force them to stop and look
for parking sooner in the day, giving them less time rolling.
But Truckload Carriers Association Vice President of Government
Affairs David Heller pointed out that the ELD is just a
tool. Those drivers “don’t have an ELD problem; they have an
Hours of Service problem. Eleven hours is 11 hours period,” he
said, whether or not an ELD is being used. “Noncompliance is
what got us to ELDs” in the first place.
When the idea of ELDs first came up, it was just about
tracking drivers’ hours. Now a plethora of other functions have
been added, from automated fuel tax collection to generating
driver vehicle inspection reports, to making driver load assignments
to coaching drivers new to ELDs on how to use them.
A grandfather clause gives carriers with ELDs that don’t
comply two years (December 2019) to upgrade.
There are ELDs to be had for a relative song, $200 for a
one-time investment, up to $2,000 or more for a system with
all the bells and whistles.
Norm Ellis, president of EROAD, said there are definite advantages
to going with a company that has a proven track
record, adding that the company’s engineers have taken the
knowledge gleaned “from nearly two decades of providing
highly reliable data trusted by trucking companies and government
agencies” to build compliant ELDs that are both easy
to use and handle “a variety of tax, operational and compliance
needs.”
ELD apps are gaining in popularity because of the ease of
linking them up with a driver’s smartphone, iPad or tablet, and
because they’re more economical to bring to market.
For example, the ONE20 F-ELD is a plug-and-play device
that wirelessly pairs with a driver’s smartphone or tablet. Once
the ELD is purchased and installed, drivers can download the
free Android- and iOS- compatible app to establish HOS and
driver-vehicle inspection report (DVIR) preferences. The ELD
device attaches to the truck through a J1939 or J1708 cable.
Drivers can manage the application and have full control of the
reporting, according to the makers.
John Verdon, head of partnerships for KeepTruckin, established
in 2013, said more than 350,000 drivers use the Keep-
Truckin app and that the devices are compliant with FMCSA
spec’s.
The free app is able to function as a fully editable ELD on its
own, he said, adding that it’s also compatible
with the KeepTruckin ELD, a hardware
device that connects with the diagnostic
port or engine control module.
Most of the devices connect to the driver’s
smartphone by means of Bluetooth or
Wi-Fi. But the buyer needs to make sure
the BYOD or Bring Your Own Device includes
a dedicated data plan with the cellular
provider because many don’t.
But at the rate technology is moving,
even these could be outdated pretty
soon.
As TCA’s new Chairman Rob Penner,
President and CEO of Canada-based Bison
Transport, said at the recent convention,
trucking is seeing more rapid changes
than ever before in the industry’s history.
But as trucking always seems to do, it’s
taking those changes in stride.
As to whether the ELD mandate got it
right regarding harassment and other issues,
time will tell, Heller said, but “we
owe it to our partner (FMCSA) to work
with them and get it right. ELDs are here
to stay; we might as well work with the
agency in partnership as opposed to complaining.”
What ELDs will do, he said, is provide
irrefutable data on a lack of flexibility in
HOS, the lack of safe parking spaces and
the long-standing detention problem. It
will be there in black and white.
ELDs “will generate data like this industry
has never seen before and it will
be reliable, not some pencil scratches on
a piece of paper,” he said. “It will highlight
problems with operations and with shippers
and highlight it with definitive data.
The [ELD] technology will show waiting
time at shippers and receivers that is
egregious.”
“The endgame is what we do with all
this data.”
Another study, he said, is certainly
not the answer. “The problem is that if
we do the same things the same way
we’ll get the same results. The agency
has another study on detention
and that’s not action. There need to
be positive steps taken.”
Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

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CapItol recap
A review of important news coming out of our nation’s capital.
By Lyndon Finney and Dorothy Cox
ELDs/SPEED LIMITERS
The controversy over electronic logging devices
and speed limiters has been keeping courier services busy
as proponents and opponents flood the U.S. Department
of Transportation and Capitol Hill with arguments in support
of their respective stances.
The latest salvo is a letter sent to Transportation
Secretary Elaine Chao by the Trucking Alliance, which
represents some of the nation’s largest carriers, refuting
arguments against ELDs and speed limiters put forth in
a March 21 letter to Chao that was signed by 17 transportation-related
organizations. The most prominent of those
was the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association,
which is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a
lower court ruling in a case filed by OOIDA that upheld the
ELD mandate.
The letter signed by the 17 organizations said the ELD
mandate and proposed speed limiter rule would collectively
cost $2.845 billion to implement without providing “any
meaningful safety or economic value to our members or
the American public.”
The 17 groups said ELDs would impose a $2 billion
burden on the industry and speed limiters an $845 million
burden.
The Truckload Carriers Association supports the mandatory
use of ELDs and believes Class 7 and Class 8
trucks should be governed at a speed not to exceed 65
mph.
Pointing to President Donald Trump’s January 30 executive
order “Reducing Regulation and Controlling Regulatory
Costs,” the 17 organizations said both regulations
meet the cost threshold included in the administration’s
interim guidance to be considered significant regulations
under the executive order.
Trump’s order requires the elimination of two existing
regulations for each newly proposed federal rulemaking.
“Because the [ELD] technology is primarily used to
manage large fleets of vehicles and is incapable of automatically
recording changes in a driver’s duty status, this
mandate comes with no economic or safety value for our
members or the wide range of customers who rely on truck
transportation,” the March 21 letter said. “Meanwhile, the
small number of large corporations that benefit from the
utilization of ELDs are already using the technology to
monitor their productivity. In light of these factors, implementation
of the mandate will force our members to bear
all the $2 billion in costs associated with the installation of
these devices, imposing wholly unnecessary financial and
compliance burdens on American businesses of all sizes.”
The Trucking Alliance letter encourages Chao to support
what it called safety reforms, including ELDs and
speed limiters.
“Recent arguments by a few transportation and business
groups that urged you to delay these safety reforms are not
only self-serving to these groups, but would be counterproductive
to the DOT’s mission,” the Alliance’s letter said.
The Alliance listed four arguments for ELDs.
• They would save lives.
• They will improve a truck driver’s quality of life.
• They are not over-regulation, and
• They will improve efficiencies throughout the U.S.
supply chain
The Alliance’s letter said the organization “strongly
believes that excessive large truck speeds are critical factors
in the severity of injuries and fatalities in large truck
accidents.”
It supports a 65-mph speed limit for large trucks.
The speed limiter rule is currently in the Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking status and is jointly supported by the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
F4A
For now, at least, it’s all quiet on the regulatory front
for F4A, but not necessarily so on the litigation front.
The belief is that language correcting F4A “is going to
get into one of the appropriations bills,” said David Heller,
TCA’s vice president of government affairs. “The problem
is what can be done and what can’t be done. As we creep
closer to the end of this month (the current appropriations
Continuing Resolution expires April 28), there’s probably
going to be another Continuing Resolution and an F4A fix
likely won’t be part of it. So it comes down to whether it’s
included in a CR or FY2018 appropriations bill.”
There is a strong need for any fix to include retroactive
language that would prevent lawsuits being filed based on
previous issues.
TCA’s 2017-2018 Chairman Rob Penner, president
and COO of Bison Transport, pointed to the F4A issue in
an interview the day after his inauguration.
“I think without question F4A is a big deal for us because
that impacts the most important resource we have,
our people,” Penner said. “We can’t allow individual states
to create huge inefficiencies and create these real barriers
to interstate commerce. We simply can’t have different
employment laws, rest breaks, things that hurt our drivers
and the ability for us to effectively use them. We have to
get that off the table.”
hair testing
Buoyed by a request to the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration from six large carriers for an exemption
to allow hair analysis in lieu of urine testing for
pre-employment testing, the hair testing debate seems to
be creeping into anything and everything.
“It all goes back to that exemption requested by the six
carriers,” said David Heller, vice president of government
affairs at TCA. “While I applaud their aggressiveness in trying
to get a rule or guidance that would benefit them, inevitably
we do have to advocate for an industry-beneficial approach.
We have to get a fix for the industry as a whole.”
TCA supports “and/or” language that would allow
carriers to use both hair and/or urine for their drug testing
protocols.
“Technology has changed. We are at the precipice
of being able to determine more and more instances
of drug and alcohol abuse than ever before and our
carrier members are pretty proactive in that approach,”
Heller said. “As hair testing makes stronger inroads, it
is inevitably going to be a bigger issue.”
The larger carriers have tried hair testing and have
had success because they are identifying a larger
number of prospective drivers who’ve had a history of
drug use.
So it won’t be long, Heller believes, that the midsized
carriers will try it and then small carriers will try it.
“You can use hair testing, be more accurate and get a
better picture of the driver,” Heller said.
Support for hair testing also came from the Trucking
Alliance, a lobbying organization comprising eight
large motor carriers.
Its members have used hair testing to screen out
prospective employees that likely would have passed
a urinalysis, the Alliance said.
Maverick USA has reported that 108 people who
applied for employment as truck drivers passed the
urine exam but failed their hair tests.
J.B. Hunt Transport has voluntarily conducted hair
tests on commercial driver applicants for 10 years.
Since then, more than 4,700 J.B. Hunt driver applicants
passed their uranalysis but the hair exam identified
them as drug users.
The Alliance noted that of the more than 600,000
U.S. trucking companies and private fleets, fewer
than 100 are estimated to utilize hair tests in their
pre-employment protocols.
In addition to the exemption request, the American
Trucking Associations has asked the federal Health and
Human Services agency to quickly release guidelines for
using hair samples in mandatory drug testing.
In a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary
Tom Price, ATA President and CEO Chris Spear called
for HHS’ “swift action” to “ … issue scientific and technical
guidelines for hair testing as a method of detecting the
use of controlled substances … as mandated in the Fixing
America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act.”
larger trucks
Don’t tap the keg just yet. Following a letter by
rail and safety groups to lawmakers protesting any efforts
to get heavier trucks approved, the Truckload Carriers
Association has sent a second and weightier letter to the
leadership of the Senate and House Appropriations committees
protesting efforts by Anheuser-Busch and others
to rally support for heavier trucks on Capitol Hill.
10 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

It is believed that legislation to increase truck weight to 91,000 pounds on six axles
would be either part of a Continuing Resolution, in some type of an FY2017 appropriations
act, or included in the FY 2018 appropriations.
An actual proposal to increase national truck weight limits to 91,000 pounds was rejected
on a bipartisan House vote in November 2015.
TCA’s letter put a pencil to paper on the costs, calculating that a small carrier with
100 trucks and an estimated 300 trailers would have to invest between $900,000 and
$1.5 million to retrofit its fleet since the modifications would mean retrofitting trailers for a
third axle, making trailer reinforcements and engine improvements to accommodate the
increased weight, upgrading to wider brake drums and oversize brakes, plus the extra
rolling resistance caused by the extra axle, the expense of buying higher-rated tires, and
the added fuel consumption that it would take.
“As a leading brewer and shipper, Anheuser-Busch is very interested in ways to ship
safer, smarter and better,” James Sembrot, Anheuser Busch’s senior director of logistics
strategy told Truckload Authority.
Sembrot led the company’s efforts on Capitol Hill.
“We want to see modern gross vehicle truck weight limits in the U.S. to help make our
roads safer, improve infrastructure sustainability and lower carbon emissions,” Sembrot
said. “The federal government has not modernized its Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW) limits
on federal interstate highways since 1982. Since that time, the transportation industry
has invested in deploying numerous truck safety-related technologies such as roll stability
control, lane departure, blind spot and forward collision warning systems.”
Supporters of heavier trucks are — at minimum — pushing for lawmakers to create a
pilot program for “a limited number of states” to allow six-axle trucks carrying up to 91,000
pounds on roads in participating states.
Sembrot said a pilot program would lend more data to policymakers than was available
when the Department of Transportation issued a report in 2015 recommending that
no change be made in the size and weight of heavy-duty trucks.
“While this change in operation attempts to improve trucking productivity on our highways,”
wrote TCA, “it clearly would only benefit a minority of carriers while forcing the
rest of the industry either to divert critical resources into these new configurations or risk
becoming obsolete. …”
TCA President and CEO John Lyboldt said that carriers wouldn’t be able to recoup the
cost of converting existing trailers or purchasing new ones because they couldn’t increase
rates enough to offset the retrofit expense.
TCA Vice President of Government Affairs David Heller said TCA will continue to stay
abreast of the issue and continues to support a policy of no increase in size and weight.
negotiated rulemaking
Everyone is aware of the time the Entry Level Driver Training Advisory Committee
spent negotiating the Entry Level Driver Training rulemaking only to have the Office of
Management and Budget order one of the key tenants of the regulation — the minimum
30-hours behind-the-wheel requirement — stripped from the final rule.
In the future, negotiated rulemakings may be used more and more, Jon Dierberger,
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Field Administrator for the Mid-South region,
has indicated.
“Negotiated rulemakings represent a compromise in hopes that we can finally move
the needle on issues that basically have been around forever,” said TCA Vice President of
Government Affairs David Heller, who based what he sees as the willingness of industry
stakeholders to be involved in other negotiated rulemakings on what happened with the
driver training rule. “For instance, let’s look at the very important issue of Hours of Service.
If we started to have a negotiated rulemaking to affect that regulation, hopefully we
could come out with every party being somewhat satisfied if the negotiation results in a
compromise. The driver training rule continues to be an issue because they strayed from
the consensus and recommendations the ELDTAC came up with, which means this rule
is going to stay around and those that were not pacified by the compromise most likely
will litigate it.”
TCA officials believe another problem ripe for negotiated rulemaking is detention time,
which the Department of Transportation and FMCSA keep kicking down the road, issuing
report after report, another of which is due out sometime this spring.
“We can issue all the reports we want to say detention time is excessive, but until
we get a rulemaking this is useless,” Heller said. “The FMCSA has a report from 2001,
there was a General Office Accounting report in 2011 plus a 2014 report from FMCSA, all
showing that detention time is a nightmare issue. And now, all we are getting is another
report saying the same thing — detention time is a problem. Why not start fixing the problem
instead of just telling people about it?”
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TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 11

crawl, he believes.
“J.B. Hunt said in a recent white paper that on a good day their drivers average — and
this is on a good day — 6.5 hours of drive time,” Heller said. “Could you imagine how
productivity in this industry would be if we actually drove? There are detention fees that
have been put in place but that doesn’t do the job.”
Trip planning is hard enough without drivers having to worry about detention time,
Heller says.
He painted this scenario:
Before even leaving on the route, the driver develops an aggressive trip plan and
knows the end location and at what time that will occur — if there is no unexpected
weather or congestion delays of course.
The driver can also plan for time spent at a shipper or receiver and can even plan time
well enough to know the parking location that evening.
“But if once you get to that shipper or receiver and you’re detained for longer than average,
the driver can find themselves scrambling to readjust the schedule,” Heller said.
Aforementioned reports say the accepted detention time is two hours, but note that
the industry average is 3.4 hours.
“Think about how that affects you as a driver,” Heller said. “You are now losing time
because you can’t make that extra hour and a half drive to that parking spot you previously
planned for. You know you have to hunt and peck for a new parking place somewhere that
is useable to you, on top of finding showers and other facilities you planned to use that
night. And it does have an effect on parking, because the site where you originally planned
to park is no longer viable unless the driver is going to operate out of compliance.”
ELDs won’t cut off the engine, they will show if the driver is over hours.
ELDs could also help solve the problem, Heller believes.
“The ELD tracks latitude and longitude and guess what’s going to be highlighted
— the egregious violators of detention time — so once FMCSA highlights this information
they are going to see where these drivers are held up,” he said.
But the bigger question is what are they going to do about it?
“MAP 21 gave the agency police power over shippers, receivers and forwarders, but
instead of doing something concrete, these regulators have a habit of issuing reports just
to justify their means,” he concluded.
safety fitness determination
After reviewing public comments, including a letter to Transportation Secretary
Elaine Chao from 62 national and regional organizations of motor carriers asking for
withdrawal of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Carrier Safety Fitness Determination,
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has done just that.
The new methodology would have determined when a motor carrier is not fit to operate
commercial motor vehicles in or affecting interstate commerce based on the carrier’s
on-road safety data; an investigation; or a combination of on-road safety data and investigation
information.
The SFD rulemaking has been universally criticized by the trucking industry, including
the Truckload Carriers Association.
The rulemaking would have eliminated the current three ratings of satisfactory, conditional
and unsatisfactory.
Instead, FMCSA proposed only one rating of “unfit.”
“The agency has said OK, before we proceed with this we have to fix the problems
at hand,” said TCA Vice President of Government Affairs David Heller. “You can’t use
bad data to paint a picture for a rule that would affect only 15 percent of this industry.
It’s a vast industry and 15 percent is about 75,000 carriers, but that still leaves between
400,000-450,000 carriers that wouldn’t have any rating whatsoever and the wide assumption
would be that they are fit for operation when that’s not necessarily the case.”
The only fix is to get a safety measurement system that works for everyone, TCA
believes.
“We all know the problems of CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) and those
problems have to be fixed. The issue is that those problems are vast. For instance, can
you ever correct a geographical bias? CSA created ‘CSA aggressive states,’ Indiana being
one of those states. Indiana is aggressive in pulling over trucks and inspecting them.
They really stick to their game whereas other states don’t necessarily have that type of
program in place. Tons of trucks run through Indiana, tons of trucks don’t run through
South Dakota. So, if you are a regional operator and not getting exposed to inspections,
that’s a problem because you’re running the same miles, you are just doing it in a regional
capacity and not getting inspected as much.
“We need a program that rates everyone and by everyone, I mean all carriers on the
road, not just the selected few that happen to get inspected. That becomes the biggest
and foremost problem with a safety rating system.”
12 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org

Spring | TCA 2017
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Tracking The Trends
By Dorothy Cox
Finally. After all these years, there’s a “sexy” component
to trucking and transportation.
That would be autonomous vehicles.
The trouble is that the public’s “Hollywood” perception of big,
sleek, powerful trucks without drivers — with the promise of ending
accidents, drunken driving and all manner of ills — bears no
resemblance to current reality. That’s according to panelists discussing
autonomous and automated vehicles during the 79th Annual
Truckload Carriers Association Convention.
“I think one of the big issues is that the Hollywood glamor compared
with the reality … is that we’re really in the infancy of this
thing,” said Ohio Trucking Association President and CEO Thomas
Balzer. “But the belief by the media and the belief by the general
public is that tomorrow there’s going to be trucks without drivers
on the road.
“[But] when you take a look at the Otto beer truck [with the
driver in the sleeper] that did the delivery from Fort Collins, Colorado,
to Colorado Springs … they actually ran that course like a
thousand times before they did that one run. … And every time
you’re using Google Maps or whatever, they’re collecting that
data to map this. We’re still a long way away from that Hollywood
reality of what everybody talks about when we talk about autonomous
vehicles.”
Mike Cammisa, vice president of safety policy and connectivity
for the American Trucking Associations, agreed. “People are envisioning
that all of a sudden we’re going to see not just one driverless
truck but driverless trucks all over the roads and the reality
is we’re not that close at this point.”
And, the trip from automated trucks — in some form or another
already on the road — to completely driverless, isn’t likely to be a
logical or predictable sequence of events.
Indeed, autonomous startups are proliferating like mushrooms
after a rain and they’re all different. Especially, it seems, in California.
Otto rival Embark, based in San Mateo, California, and
currently conducting its driverless technology in Nevada, unveiled
its prototype the to the public February 24.
The dust had hardly settled from Embark’s announcement when
Starsky Robotics of San Francisco entered the fray in early March
— this time with what the company said is a way to keep the
trucker behind the wheel — just not in the cab.
Say what?
The final mile of the run is achieved — at this point in tests
— by taking drivers out of the cab entirely and putting them in a
place where they remotely operate the truck to its final delivery
destination.
Think of it as a truck simulator but using a real vehicle, said
Starsky Robotics co-founder Stefan Seltz-Axmacher. The driver is
still at the wheel and working the pedals. The remote driver is in
control of the truck at all times, he said, and can bring the CMV
to a stop if need be.
Panelist Kary Schaefer, general manager, marketing and strategy
for Daimler Trucks North America and also an engineer, interestingly
enough predicted that Level 5 or completely automated
vehicles may be seen first “in a private yard,” adding that she has
seen automated ground vehicles in operation at the Port of Long
Beach that are basically “taking containers from the ship to the
cranes and loading them. So they have a little fleet of these …
running around.”
However, she said, “driverless doesn’t mean peopleless. There
is a control room somewhere where somebody’s operating these
and programing them and maintaining them and ensuring that
the environment they’re operating in is properly maintained.”
And she described where the safety side of the technology is
going: “There’s side object detection, side object warning and
braking, fusing camera systems and radar systems together to
better detect not just cars and other metal objects but pedestrians
and animals. There are also areas of development that are
happening [with] improvement in sensors, use of LiDAR (Light
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 13

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Detection and Ranging) and other kinds of sensor systems. Ultrasonic
radar systems are also in development … .”
Panelists said that as far as the truckload industry is concerned,
it’s hard to predict when fully autonomous vehicles will be widespread
or if they would be, and that it depends on the costs and
benefits to the industry and on so many other things, not to mention
the infrastructure to support them. The technology, they said, is
coming along in bits and pieces, adding that it could be another 50
years before fully autonomous trucks are commonplace. Or sooner.
What about insurance for these vehicles? How will things change
not just for drivers and carriers, but for shippers? Is it feasible, for
example, for different trucks with very different loads and configurations
to platoon together? How will vehicle maintenance change?
Panel members brought up these and other knotty problems,
not the least of which is the fact that there’s “no overall strategy”
to oversee or guide the development of the technology, said Balzer.
“There’s no national body that’s saying ‘this is what needs to
be done.’ So you have this patchwork and in transportation we’ve
been trying for years to make transportation a sexy topic. We’ve
never been able to get it and now we’ve got autonomous vehicles
and everyone’s jumping on the train and we’ve got legislators who
can’t even turn on their own laptop wanting to be a leader in technological
advancements and they’re dropping all these bills.”
“It’s developing a lot of different ways in a lot of different places,”
agreed Cammisa, “and right now it’s a little bit early for people
to know how to regulate automation and the states are concerned
that tomorrow there’s going to be a fleet of automated trucks on
their roads so they’re trying to prepare for that. We’re seeing activity
at the state [level] and it’s a challenge.”
Yet, many stakeholders say the idea is not to bury autonomous
technology in government red tape, but to encourage the creative,
entrepreneurial spirit.
“My thing,” said Balzer, “has always been is when was the last
time we regulated ourselves in innovation? We need to open up the
door, not to regulate it” to death.
“From a state perspective [in Ohio], we are trying to find our
strategy so that we don’t have that patchwork of regulations that
goes on in all these different states. As state executives [the question]
is how we come up with an overall approach to make sure we
don’t stifle innovation with a variety of regulatory environments.”
With platooning, for example, he said the narrower following distance
between trucks is against the law in some states.
Panel moderator Rob Penner, Bison Transport president and CEO
and TCA Chairman, said, “We still believe these are all driver-assist
technologies” but how does the technology assist the driver in
understanding how the trailer and its equipment come into play?
“There’s no end of challenges,” he said, “in the entire vehicle configuration.
Not just the front end.”
He also noted that drivers are constantly asking him when he
thinks they will be put out of a job by autonomous vehicles.
And in a question-and-answer session following the panel discussion
Sherri Garner Brumbaugh, president and CEO of Garner
Transportation, brought up the shipping component.
“It appears our shipping community is absent from this discussion,”
she said. “What are the effects on the shipping community,
especially platooning” when different loads are coming in from different
fleets?
Balzer said there’s been some discussion in his home state of
Ohio about whether fatigue is better or worse for the second driver
in a platoon.
“A driver who is used to giving himself or herself a huge amount
of buffer zone between that truck in front of them is now going to
close that gap to 30 feet at 65 mph with a little tiny camera that’s
going to show them what’s in front of them. Are they going to be
more fatigued because they’re freaking out because they’re this far
away from another truck or are they going to be less fatigued because
they have so much trust in the technology?
“And that’s a huge hurdle for drivers, especially very safe drivers.
… We have trained them for many years [that] you are the
safety vehicle; you are the person who drives that safety piece
and you need to be alert to all the other vehicles around you. Now
we’re going to expect them to trust technology to be that safety
component. There’s a huge acceptance level that we’re going to
have to go through in that piece” of the puzzle.
Schaefer pointed out that while everyone is getting on the
“bandwagon” to remove drivers from the equation, “I think the focus
for the industry and where we need to be looking is not how do
you remove the driver but how do you get a driver in the vehicle
and how do you move goods from point A to point B as safely, as
efficiently and as reliably as possible? That really needs to be the
aim.”
With automation, she said, “the biggest challenge is to try and
understand what level of alertness … that the driver needs to have
during a driving task … . That involvement between the vehicle and
driver is the most difficult piece of research and one of the biggest
hurdles from a manufacturing perspective to overcome. How
do you emulate decision-making through a machine? That’s what
everybody is chasing, artificial intelligence, machine learning. But
that’s really complicated when you think about all the intricacies of
a driving task that you go through every day.
“Think about driving behaviors in California versus Oregon,
where I’m from. In Oregon, we’re going to wave people through;
we’re going to let you in; we’re going to be nice. In California, it’s
not like that. How do you teach a machine to do that?”
Those comments were met with laughter all around, but Balzer
added that “for this group today, I think the focus on autonomous
vehicles is about safety and efficiencies and [that] the technologies
we have available to us today and in the future are going to enhance
our safety and reduce the driver’s fatigue at some point.”
No one can say for sure when that point will be or how it will
come about.
So, autonomous trucks are sexy. But not easy.
But what about the complexity we call trucking has ever been
easy?
14 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

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The
FOURTH
OPTION
By Jack Whitsett
“Thinking outside the box” is an understatement —
and a cliché if used to describe the modus operandi of
Kaihan Krippendorff, the closing speaker at the recent
Truckload Carriers Association’s Annual Convention.
A business speaker and strategic advisor whose
mother hails from Bangladesh and his father from Germany,
Krippendorff brings a “holistic, global perspective
to his topics of business strategy, strategic thinking,
and innovation.”
He challenged TCA members to find a “fourth option”
to force a “two-front battle,” and generally to seek
unexpected and counterintuitive strategies to build a
successful business.
The fourth option refers to U.S. Olympic high jumper
Dick Fosbury, who turned his sport upside down at the
1968 Mexico City Olympics by eschewing traditional
jumping methods for the “Fosbury Flop,” in which the
athlete slithers backwards over the bar rather than
leaping forward. Krippendorff said, “It’s not the technology
that’s going to determine the winner, it’s the
concept that emerges around the technology. Are you
going to keep going over forward, or are you going to
embrace the new concepts that are going to enable you
to go over backward?
“You’re introducing something that forces people to
choose between ‘this is the way that it’s always been
done, or maybe it’s time for a new approach.’”
The two-front battle concept is critical to Krippen-
“Increasingly, companies are waking up to the realization that when you focus on shareholder
value it actually kills shareholder value, because it creates resistance to your growth.
A smarter market strategy is one that maximizes shareholder value by also benefitting other
stakeholders.”
— Kaihan Krippendorff
dorf’s strategies. Companies — trucking or otherwise — should define
themselves by what they do best, not what their industry is,
he stated. They should challenge competitors to fight a two-front
battle, in which the competitor must fight not only the battle of the
industry, but the battle chosen by the challenging company.
Confused? Look at Urban Outfitters, Krippendorff said, a trendy
clothing and apartment furnishings retailer that focuses only on college
students 18-25.
“Because they are different they can charge more,” he said. “The
Gap won’t copy them,” because they (The Gap) won’t get rid of
all the customers who don’t fit the Urban Outfitters’ core demographic.
In addition, Urban Outfitters carries used items and small quantities
of items that are entirely too inefficient to bring to the market
for The Gap and other traditional retailers.
“Urban Outfitters is inefficient, but everyone else is efficient,”
Krippendorff said. “Because they are different they can charge
more. The Gap won’t copy them because the cost of doing that is
higher than the cost of not doing that.”
So Urban Outfitters, while losing the traditional battleground to
competitors, has created a second front, defined by their talents
and their narrow customer base, where they can defeat larger and
wealthier opponents, Krippendorff said.
“Winning companies today don’t define themselves by their industry.
They force their competitors onto two fronts. We’re not defined
by our industry. We’re defined by our capabilities. What are
you great at? And how can you use that to force your competitors
onto a two-front battle?”
A winning idea gaining increasing acceptance is an old one: Be
good.
“Increasingly, companies are waking up to the realization that
when you focus on shareholder value it actually kills shareholder
value, because it creates resistance to your growth. A smarter market
strategy is one that maximizes shareholder value by also benefitting
other stakeholders. If your growth helps the community,
employees, customers, the government, then that is the ultimate
strategy because everyone wants you to win. It’s like playing football
and there’s no one on the other side of the field. There’s less
shame on growing because the more you grow the more good you
do.”
Places to seek fourth options or new battlegrounds are new pricing
structures, new products and services, new promotional strategies,
new distribution channels, new types of core customers, new
processes, and new physical experiences, he added.
Krippendorf encouraged the audience of truckers to think years
down the road.
“If you think out 10 years you could have a pretty clear picture
of what your industry will look like,” he said. “Then I’d like you to
think, ‘what could you do now to move out there early?’
“Move early to the battleground. Wayne Gretsky skated to where
the puck would be, not where it was. Forty percent of the population
is within 20 miles of an Amazon distribution center. In 2012 it
was 5 percent.”
Krippendorff said the fourth option can be generated by efforts to
“coordinate the uncoordinated.”
“Walmart was the first to build stores clustered around distribution
centers” instead of strictly by individual locations, he said.
“Their cost of distribution is lower” than competitors as a result.
Another case of coordinating the uncoordinated happened at
McDonald’s, where the fast food chain hired people, often stay-athome
mothers, to take drive-through orders from home, fulfilling
the chain’s needs and offering work to those whose schedules would
otherwise keep them from working.
“Take a clue from Albert Einstein,” Krippendorf concluded, “who
said, ‘It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems
longer than other people.’”
16 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

Bowled
Over
By Jack Whitsett
Eric Starks met attendees Tuesday morning at the TCA annual
convention as a bowling ball meets 10 standing pins. Anyone who
started the meeting dozing was quickly and loudly woken, first by
Starks’ high-volume, fast-paced delivery, then by his candid, upbeat
economic assessment.
“Things are starting to pick up,” Starks, CEO and chairman of
FTR Intel, said. “That’s a good sign.” Most of what he had to say
referred back, sometimes cautiously, to those sentences, though
he backed up every claim with sound economic science and reasoning.
Sound business decisions
Starks stressed the importance of viewing multiple pieces of information
in order to make sound business decisions.
“Do you just look at one piece of data to make a decision? The answer
is probably not, and if you do, you’re deluding yourself,” Starks
said. “If you’ve been watching the pitcher long enough, you kind of
have an idea of what the pitch is going to look like.”
Starks counseled decision makers in the trucking industry to look
first at manufacturing.
“Manufacturing is the bread and butter of transportation,” he said,
pointing to some critical indices, starting with the ISM (Institute for
Supply Management) index. The ISM is released early each month
and surveys manufacturers on whether their sales are expanding or
contracting.
“Anytime we’re above that dotted line of 50, it suggests that manufacturing
is expanding,” Starks said. “If it’s below it is contracting.
Recently, that number is noticeably above 50. It doesn’t usually drop
off right away. Manufacturing is growing and it is likely to continue
to grow.”
Depending on limited information can leave a business blind with
regard to the future, Starks added.
“Manufacturing was flat for basically two years, and recently it’s
turned,” he said. “Two years of flat economy is very difficult to plan
in.”
Starks saw encouraging signs as well as difficulties in job and
wage growth.
“In a 2 percent [GDP growth] economy, job growth in a 200,000-
plus range suggests that the economy can continue to be self-sustainable,”
he said.
“We’re starting to see [wages] creeping up. And as people get paid
more they spend more.
“We are getting close to full employment.”
Good news, but “You don’t have the ability to go out and hire another
person,” he said. “It’s becoming more and more difficult.”
Political turmoil
The political turmoil during and since the November presidential
election has kept some business leaders from committing to needed
spending, Starks said. The attacks on trade agreements such as the
Trans-Pacific Partnership, which President Donald Trump cancelled almost
before his inaugural parade finished, and the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are examples.
“If we get into a trade war, every analysis that we have done suggests
that, best case, the U.S. is not going to change, but the likely
scenario is we’re worse off and that the global economy is worse off,”
Starks said.
“If you don’t have a growing global economy you don’t have an
export market. Canada and Mexico are our best trading partners.
Why would you want to blow up that agreement? Those things could
be a huge problem.”
The lack of progress on fixing U.S. infrastructure is disappointing
as well, Starks said.
“Things are starting to pick up. That’s a good sign.”
— FTR Intel CEO and Chairman Eric Starks
“I’m really kind of shocked that the current administration did not
start with this,” he said. “I’m getting less and less confident that they
can come up with an infrastructure spending bill.
“It’s a very bipartisan concept. What’s not bipartisan is how to pay
for it. If they actually spend money on real infrastructure rather than
on services,” that’s good.
Inventory, jobs and loads
Better news appears when discussing the stubborn inventory problem
suffered by manufacturing and the retail sector the past couple
of years, an issue of prime importance for the trucking industry.
Inventory-to-sales ratio is finally dropping, Starks said.
“What we find is the higher this number is the less pressure we see
in the transportation sector,” he said. “Lower levels stimulate transportation
growth” due to tighter capacity.
“If interest rates are really low your cost of holding inventory is
absolutely nothing,” Starks said. “Manufacturing inventory is about
right. Retail is a little bit bloated.”
“Right now the consumer is doing relatively well,” Starks said,
“automotive also.” He added that consumer confidence was up and
economic growth is speeding up.
“The average number of loads is starting to go up consistently,” he
said. “Loads are accelerating in the dry van market.”
“A couple of things in the reefer market: We are seeing the food
safety issue. It is changing how shippers view transportation. Pharmaceutical
and medical want to ship everything in a temperaturecontrolled
environment.
“Roughly about 30 percent of that market is temperature-controlled.
They want to go 100 percent. So there’s not enough equipment
out there. We are seeing strong demand for new equipment
within that market but loads are going up too.
“In flatbed, one of the big changes is we are seeing some increase
in base demand but we’re also seeing more fracking. They’re starting
to move more pipe.”
As expected, Starks said, new government regulations and the
technology they entail are driving trucking costs and rates up.
“Drivers are harder to come by,” he said. “By the end of 2017
there is significant compression” as ELDs (electronic logging devices)
become mandatory for the majority of truckers. I think that is pretty
much a done deal.”
“We likely will see additional pressure on rates,” Starks said. “We
believe in the next eight months there is a significant upside to rates.
“We finally have some clear information that things are looking
better, but those political risks are still there.”
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 17

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WRITING THE SHIP
Forbes’ Rich Karlgaard uses pen to guide economy to safe harbor
By Lyndon Finney
You begin with a Bismarck baby, who learned the art of reading.
Throw in a sports-enthusiast whose dilemma was that he wasn’t very good in athletics until he found a niche in
distance running. That quickly became a passion — even in the cold North Dakota winters — prompting him to get a
subscription to Sports Illustrated whereupon he became infatuated with the style of writers such as Frank DeFord and
Dan Jenkins.
Admitting his Stanford University degree was wasted on him because “he wasn’t ready,” he decided not to become
a lawyer because reading those law case books with their twisted language and the double and triple negatives just
“bored him to tears.”
Mix in a Stanford University graduate whose first jobs out of college were as a dishwasher and security guard, the
latter so he could work at night and have time to read serious literature by writers such as Saul Bellow, Henry Louis
Mencken and Tom Wolfe.
Fold in a young man who’d taken creative writing in college and was fortunate enough to get into the publishing
industry because he and a friend started a magazine on Silicon Valley business in the 1980s at the dawn of the desktop
revolution — when one could start a magazine for a lot less money. His goal was to make the magazine Upside one part
Sports Illustrated and one part Forbes.
Put all the ingredients into a career oven, bake for a while, take out this literary creation and meet Rich Karlgaard
(yes, two “A’s” in the last name, please), the smiling, intelligent, soft-spoken, friendly, and sometimes self-effacing editor-at-large
and global futurist at Forbes.
He was born in Bismarck on August 9, 1954, and lived there until he left for Stanford after attending Bismarck Junior
College (now Bismarck State College), where he had a track scholarship and competed in the 1974 National Junior College
indoor championships.
Athletics, if you haven’t guessed, was front and center in the Karlgaard household.
His dad Dick was a multi-sport athlete, physical education teacher and coach who eventually became athletic director
for Bismarck schools and was twice named National Athletic Director of the Year.
His brother Joe was the better athlete, Karlgaard says, winning the state 800-meter championship, and went on to
letter at Stanford for four years and today is Director of Athletics, Recreation & Lifetime Fitness at Rice University in
Houston.
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 19

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Wife and mother Pat supported the athletic ventures of Dick, Rich
and Joe as a homemaker.
Of his dad, Karlgaard said, “he loved his job and I think I learned
that more than anything from him.”
His primary interest during his secondary education years was
“well, just sports. I was not an interested student. I did not do [the]
student newspaper. I read, but it was not my textbooks. I read a
magazine that really changed my life when I got a subscription to
Sports Illustrated.”
How so, you ask?
“Well, because it was sports, but it was extremely well written
and introduced to me writers that were really good,” Karlgaard said,
“writers like Frank DeFord and Dan Jenkins, who covered both golf
and college football.”
He never took journalism in high school or college, just the creative
writing courses that led him and his friend to start Upside.
When he graduated high school, there was no way the family could
afford a school such as Stanford unless Karlgaard went to the local
junior college for two years.
His parents made him a deal.
He could go two years to Bismarck Junior College and he could attend
the last two years at any college that would accept him.
In junior college, his grades started to improve “and I had some
athletic accomplishments and they helped get me into Stanford. It
probably was easier to get in then than it is now. But, it was still a
stretch and somehow I convinced the admissions department to let
me in.”
Once he left Bismarck, he never intended to return.
“I look back with great fondness on North Dakota, but I felt it was
too parochial, that I wasn’t one of those people who would thrive if I
stayed around. There are people who thrive by staying around. They
become the future car dealers, or they are coaches or things like that.
They thrive in the community where they were born and raised. I felt
I needed to see things differently. My dad kind of cast a long shadow
in a relatively small town.”
After graduating Stanford, he thought he’d go a law school.
“That’s what people do when they have a liberal arts undergraduate
degree and they don’t know what they want to do,” Karlgaard
said with a smile. “Stanford offered an undergraduate class in constitutional
law and there was a movie in the ’70s that was called ‘The
Paper Chase.’ The student was from the University of Minnesota and
was at Harvard Law School and it was tough. John Houseman played
the law professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.”
Kingsfield went by the mantra: “Here’s a dime, now go call your
parents and tell them you are not going to be a lawyer,” Karlgaard
recalls.
“There was a professor at Stanford who was that kind of guy and
he gave an interview to the Stanford Daily saying ‘my job is not to
encourage people to becoming lawyers. The world has too many lawyers.
My job is to give them a real cold bath.”
The water was really cold for Karlgaard.
“My roommates went off to grad school. One goes to divinity
school, another to get a master’s in chemistry and I went off to do
minimum wage jobs while I was still trying to figure out what I wanted
to do.”
He ran the gamut.
“I was everything from a security guard to a dishwasher, and when
I was a security guard I would make sure that I would get office jobs
that ran from 5 p.m. when the receptionist went home. There was
no work to be done, you just made a round every hour. That’s when
I started reading, really becoming a serious reader, not just sports
writing but novels by Bellow,” who won the Nobel Prize for literature
in 1976.
He also discovered the works of Mencken, who’d been dead for
over 20 years and who had been a sensation as a political columnist
in the 1920s and 1930s.
“It was his love of the language; he could do things with the language
that were just astonishing to me. I also fell in love with Tom
Wolfe. His book, ‘The Right Stuff’ (about the pilots engaged in U.S.
postwar research with experimental rocket-powered, high-speed
aircraft as well as documenting the stories of the first Project Mercury
astronauts selected for the NASA space program), came out in
1979.”
“So, it was useful being a security guard sitting there after everybody
went home. I only had to make a round that would take me 10
minutes every hour. It was like, wow, reading, sitting there with my
gray shirt and goofy looking badge, but I got to read to my heart’s
content in a way that I never did in college.”
His first professional break came when he got a job as a technical
writer at a research institute.
That when he began to see “what I could do. I was editing papers
and ghost writing papers for Electric Power and Research Institute in
Palo Alto. After a couple of years of doing minimum wage stuff I was
regaining my self-respect. It was my first real job. I got to work with
engineers and scientists and that opened up whole new pathways in
my brain. I had never been with mathematicians, scientists and engineers
and so working on their papers was a real revelation.”
He married at age 29, and he and his wife were both working at
a bank.
“I was reading serious fiction and nonfiction in addition to sports
magazines and then I began reading political opinion and discovered
that I sort of leaned more toward the conservative side than the
liberal side and fell in love with publications like ‘National Review’
and ‘American Spectator.’ One of my wife’s colleagues at the bank,
Anthony B. Perkins, was on a similar journey. He’d gone from being
very liberal in his college days and running for student office to now
being more conservative.”
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They also campaigned for Ed Zschau, a Republican congressman
in Silicon Valley who was more of a libertarian conservative. Zschau
decided to run for Senate in 1986, won the Republican primary and
then narrowly lost to Alan Cranston.
“We developed a group of people, young adults who were interested
in politics mainly on the conservative side, and decided to develop
a civic organization which we named the Churchill Club,” an organization
dedicated to producing programs where “important people say
important things.”
Today the club has 7,500 members, holds about 30 events each
year and has heard former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
and innovators such as Bill Gates, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Netflix
founder and CEO Reed Hastings, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
“We put out a newsletter structured as a nonprofit and then decided
this is fun and is there something we could do to earn us money,”
Karlgaard recalled. “That’s when we decided to start Upside magazine.
We found that there was a hunger for people to know more
about Silicon Valley. Now you hear too much of it.”
Forbes looked into buying Upside but its finances were “kind of a
wreck. Steve Forbes called me at home and hired me to do the same
thing for Forbes.”
The year was 1992.
“We called it Forbes ASAP. It was a quarterly that became a bimonthly
and was poly bagged with regular issues of Forbes.”
The internet was just starting to get the traction and the Web a
couple of years after that.
Karlgaard had the ability to hire famous writers who had not written
about technology.
One of those was Tom Wolfe, his favorite from his days of reading
while working as a security guard.
“I said it is going to cost us an arm and a leg to get Tom. I wonder
if he would write us a 500-word piece for $5,000. He wrote back and
he agreed in his handwritten ornate declaration of independence handwriting
style and then a couple of months go by and Saturday in the
office and I hear this fax machine start up and 56 pages later [here]
comes this triple-spaced piece by Tom Wolfe. What was remarkable
about it is that you could talk to Tom and you could actually have a
conversation. You weren’t going to line edit any of his sentences. I
wasn’t stupid, I knew I was not going to improve his sentences.”
The length: 9,000 words.
Karlgaard still has the original manuscript.
Forbes ASAP was discontinued in 2002, but by 1998, Steve Forbes
had asked Karlgaard to become publisher of Forbes magazine but
with a different role than his predecessor.
“The previous publisher was more of a classic publisher in charge
of revenue and circulation,” Karlgaard said. “My role was writing a
column and being an ambassador for Forbes, helping the sales people
open doors. Now I have got the title of editor-at-large and global futurist,”
a role he fills from his home in California.
It was in this role that Karlgaard delivered the keynote address
at the 79th Annual Truckload Carriers Association Convention
March 27, where he talked about the lackluster 2 percent annual
economic growth since the end of the recession in 2009 and “bits”
and “atoms.”
Economic investment is out of balance, he said.
He quoted Peter Thiel, an American businessman, philanthropist,
political activist, author, PayPal cofounder and Facebook’s first professional
investor.
“The American economy is underperforming because it is out of
balance. There are too many ‘bits’ companies and not enough ‘atoms’
companies,” Thiel said.
Karlgaard said investment capital flows into “bits” companies
thanks to lower capital investment, lighter regulation and faster return-on-investment.
He pointed out examples of “bits” companies (Airbnb, Facebook,
Uber and Google) and “atoms” companies (Dana, Delphi, Cummins
and General Motors).
Rich Karlgaard is the author of two books including
“The Soft Edge: Where Great Companies Find Lasting Success.”
“One of the things that is causing this sub 2 percent growth economy
is a lack of non-residential, real estate investment,” Karlgaard
said. “We are not investing in the kind of plants and processes and
infrastructures that we should because the rates of return aren’t good
because they’re overburdened by over-regulation, and that is his thesis
and I happen to agree with that.”
The vast majority of Americans work for companies that make
things and move things, he said.
The slow economic growth has been costly, he added.
“The statistical end of the recession was in June 2009. We have
not had one 3-percent-growth year out of those eight and we have
averaged about 1.8 percent. If we had averaged this 3 percent growth
the economy would have been about $3 trillion larger.”
A nice share of that $3 trillion would have gone to trucking stakeholders,
given the importance of the industry’s standing in the U.S.
economy, Karlgaard said.
“Trucking is enormously important in the economy. We are a continental
nation, not a nation that is going to be linked together by
high-speed rail. Rail is an important part but there are parts of the
country that are so sparsely-populated and we have this wonderful
thing bequeathed to us by the Eisenhower administration called the
interstate highway system.
“Trucking is an artery in the functioning of the U.S. economy. It
is also one of those non college-educated jobs that still pays well. It
seems to me there are so many trends benefiting trucking. I think
22 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

the cost of fuel is going to be
low when you look at the U.S.
moving toward energy independence.
Just think, a lot of
that missing $3 trillion of economic
growth because we had
a 2 percent economy versus 3
percent. Trucking would have
gotten its share from that $3
trillion.”
Karlgaard believes the
long-term challenge for trucking
is finding drivers in what is
expected to become an everincreasing
field of autonomy in
one form or fashion.
“Will young people who
would otherwise become drivers
be afraid to be drivers because
they think it is all going
to go to robots or artificial
intelligence,” he asked. “That
is an interesting one. I am
not an expert on autonomous
trucks, but I am from Silicon
Valley and I know also that a
lot of money is going into this
area ... one of the things you
can do when you have a $69
billion market cap-to-revenue
ratio, which is the combined
cap of Facebook ($20 million), Aibnb ($18 million), Uber ($15 million)
and Google ($7 million). You have money to play around with
and Uber has got money to burn and to play around with so that will
be interesting.”
“The people in this industry know far more about the practical
realities of how autonomous trucks will roll out and the difficulties
of the last half mile when drivers are looking for a parking place.
For instance, on Interstate 94 from Minneapolis to Billings, Montana,
a lot of that can be handled by — let’s just call it autopilot — with
some degree of automation and that would be a boon to the driver
because they could rest. Maneuvering in and out of tricky parking
spaces is another matter, altogether. Eventually there will be a day
when autonomous driving can figure that out, but it may be further
out there.”
However, everyone is underestimating the regulatory issues and
the legal lawsuit liability surrounding autonomous trucks, he said.
“The largest publicly traded company in the truckload industry is
J.B. Hunt,” Karlgaard said. They have “$6 billion in revenue, market
value of $11 billion dollars. That’s a fat target for trial lawyers, especially
in Arkansas (where J.B. Hunt is headquartered) or Louisiana.
But think about it. If Apple or Google or these kinds of companies
get involved in autonomous trucks, there you are talking an order of
magnitude much larger. So, you don’t think that the trial lawyers are
licking their chops to be able to sue Apple or Google? And you don’t
think the public would be on their side if big old rich Apple or big old
rich Google causes a fatality because of some bug in their software?
I don’t think this is going to roll out as smoothly as some of the technology
futures think it will.
“Again, the people that I spoke to in the convention session, this
is not going to sneak up on anybody in the room. I think everybody
knows that the world will look different 15 years from now and maybe
even 10 years from now. But there are incremental steps and things
to be tested on the way. Trucking is not going away.”
Trucking’s not going away?
“No, no,” Karlgaard emphasized. “What would replace it, drones?
Give me a break. … Amazon drone delivery, well that is good if you
Rich Karlgaard enjoys a repast with his wive Marji.
want to deliver something like the footprint of a tape recorder. It is
just not going away. Long-haul rail is not going away; shipping is not
going away.”
Despite its slow growth, Karlgaard is bullish about the economy in
the next two to three years.
“We only grew 2 percent over the last eight years. … The demand
for greater is out there. If you invest in capital flowing more evenly
into a broad distribution of industries, then you get an upgrading of
things, an upgrading of plants and infrastructures and buildings and
houses and highways and stuff like that. So, I think there is room to
grow. I think we have shot ourselves in the foot and that is why we
have been growing at a pathetic rate.”
Upgrading would include doing something about the nation’s
transportation infrastructure. Are roads and bridges too far gone
to repair? What about building new roads and bridges? Is the U.S.
always going to be behind the proverbial “eight ball” and be unable
to catch up?
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Karlgaard said. “You are closer
to the industry and would know the numbers around that better. I
will tell you that a friend of mine did a piece about California Gov.
Jerry Brown’s $65 billion-dollar bullet train from Los Angeles to San
Francisco going through the central valley and for $65 billion you
could … get a heck of a lot of road repair — 2,000 miles of road
widening, 8,000 miles of road repair — a complete refurbishment and
expansion of our reservoirs. We are really in a good year for rain this
year and half of it is running off in the sea because we did not invest
in the reservoirs. And then a big major investment in desalinization
plants, which is going to serve the state better.”
No doubt reflecting on the need to invest in the appropriate “atoms,”
Karlgaard said, “One governor’s fantasy of a bullet train that
was conceived in an era when we thought gas prices were going to
the moon but now we see that they are not, versus roads, reservoirs
and desalinization plants that would do the state so much better. This
kind of thinking is going on all over the country.”
It’s safe to say the trucking industry would agree with a hearty
“amen.”
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 23

Spring | TCA 2017
A Chat With The Chairman
24 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

Sponsored by
Enterprise
and Ingenuity
Foreword and Interview by lyndon finney
He’s been driving a truck in Canada since he was 18 and what’s more he was driving in the United States before he was 20. He really didn’t want
to become a truck diver, but once he got behind the wheel, he fell in love with trucking. And, over the years, through enterprise and ingenuity, he’s
progressed through a career path that eventually led him to become president and CEO of Bison Transport of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. Last month,
Rob Penner became the second Canadian trucking executive to become chairman of the Truckload Carriers Association. In his first of six “chats” with
the chairman conducted at the conclusion of the 79th annual convention in Nashville, Tennessee, Rob talks about his early years in trucking, how he
has been part of building one of the most respected carriers in North America and plans for his chairmanship.
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 25

Sponsored by Mcleod software
McLeodSoftware.com | 877.362.5363
Congratulations on becoming chairman of the Truckload Carriers
Association. What does it mean to you to be chairman?
For me, it is about the opportunity to continue to work together
and collaborate with real industry leaders. Together we have a
lot of experience within our businesses and it’s really special to be
able to work with others on behalf of our industry.
How did you become interested in the trucking industry?
I had a best friend who was interested in trucking; I wasn’t. He
happened to go to the local trucking company and apply for a job.
One of the owners said, “what about you” and I wrote down my
contact information, but I had no real interest in trucking [at that
point]. I have family that are in trucking as drivers and owner-operators
but that didn’t really interest me. My friend got impatient
and rather than wait for the carrier to train him, he went to the
big city to get his CDL. The day he started school the carrier actually
needed help and called me and brought me in sort of kicking
and screaming and yes, I got my CDL and started driving and I
loved it. It was a job where I felt like I could be a paid tourist.
Share with the readers of Truckload Authority your career path
that led you to become president and chief operating officer of Bison
Transport and chairman of TCA.
I drove a truck for about seven years, driving a combination
of long-haul and regional routes. I worked with the Wiebe family
who sold their business, Winkler Freightways, to the company
I work for today. They had an LTL operation called Echo Transport
that was buying up all the small-town carriers, consolidating
them and creating some efficiencies. That’s when I sort of got
involved in management. I controlled the dock, and we loaded
the trailers and set up the line-haul. Then I drove a truck at night.
Because of the efficiencies we were able to create, we sold that
company to a big regional LTL. My option was to go with the LTL
carrier or come over to Bison Transport. I opted to take the job at
Bison as a fulltime truck driver. I was only on the road for five or
six months. We had a very specific dedicated customer that I was
hired on for. We had 18 trucks on the road at the time. We had
36 drivers and half their trucks were parked because we didn’t
have any business, but nobody wanted the job that I took so the
reason I got hired into the company was because they didn’t have
anyone with interest in that route. It was pulling B trains, two
trailers hitting all the cities west to the West Coast through the
Rockies and back once a week.
How did you get into management?
The leader hired to consolidate the LTL companies that we sold
off, John Martin, went into manage the operations of Bison. We
were right at the front edge of deregulation and it was sink or
swim for our business. Half our trucks were parked and not even
plated. The drivers were all on a government assist program, one
week of work, one week off. When we set up the scheduled run
I created some efficiencies within the schedule. They had three
trucks running team through Western Canada once a week and I
quickly recognized, because I was trying to feed myself, that this
was not how I would have set up this run. So we had one driver
who went from Calgary to Vancouver twice a week and I went
roundtrip through every western city from Winnipeg to Alberta
and back twice a week, which created meaningful jobs for us and
efficiencies for the client. Wasn’t the best sales strategy but it
did create a sustainable model that we ran for many years after.
I got invited into dispatch because our job was to change everything
we were doing. We had one shipper that we did most of
our work for and we would take a load of newsprint into the U.S.
and come back empty. We would go down as far as St. George,
Utah, or Southern California or Dallas and our shippers thought
that was a problem, so our whole world had to change. We just
had a bunch of drivers who’d been there for a long time that had
no interest in the job. So I got invited into operations and started
working with the driver group and I’m happy to say we still have
many of those drivers still working for us today despite the fact
that we didn’t always see things the same way. But we were able
to build a good business together. I went from dispatch to planning
and customer service and managed to learn and grow from
there. We were growing at 30, 40, 50 percent a year, and we
got to oversee the whole business with no regard for titles. We
all just worked together to figure it out. I was really involved in
managing the drivers. We were going through aggressive growth
and change, yet I managed to maintain a good relationship with
our drivers because I understood what they did. We now have
1,400 tractors and 4,000 trailers at Bison. We also own a North
Dakota company called Britton Transport, which also does very
well, including safety performance, and a flatbed operation out
of Winnipeg called Searcy Trucking. I am still very close to our
driver program and I continue to learn a lot from our fleet of professional
drivers.
You have built Bison into one of the better-known companies in TCA.
You won the triple crown this year — Best Fleets to Drive For, Safest
Fleet and you had the Company Driver of the Year. That’s setting a
pretty high standard. You’ve won safest fleets for seven consecutive
years. How did you achieve such an honor and how do you maintain
it?
For us, the top tier of the “triple crown” is to see our driver recognized,
because that’s the fuel for other drivers. There are many
drivers who will come to us and say, “thank you for promoting
what WE do.” We have a driver advisory board that I still sit on
and we meet several times a year, getting feedback from drivers
and talking about where our business is going. We share ideas on
how to address our collective challenges and we listen to them
and seek their advice on how to move forward. We have an open
environment and we learn and that’s where it starts. We celebrate
26 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

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safest fleets not just with our drivers but also with our maintenance
staff, because we realize the tools we give our drivers to do
the job are important. We changed our training approach to not
just training, but focused skills development. At the same time
we rejoined TCA we got into simulation, and our drivers pushed
back pretty fast. “We all know how to drive,” they said. We told
them simulation was not going to teach them how to drive, but it
would enhance their driving skills. We told them they could take
on scenarios in the simulator “you don’t ever want to take on,
but this way nobody gets hurt. You’ll understand vehicle dynamics
better, you’ll understand driving conditions better, you’ll be a
better driver. Show us a business or a sport where the best of the
best don’t get a chance to practice and improve.” That’s really
the fuel behind our safety program. Our non driving staff have
also bought in 100 percent. They understand their job is to be a
resource to the driver and that the driver calls all the shots. The
driver has the right to decide. There’s no dispatcher or customer
service person telling a driver he needs to go. The driver says,
“I’m going” or “I’m not going.” All we expect from our drivers
when their schedule changes,
whether it’s due to fatigue, road
conditions or what have you, is
to immediately communicate to
us. The rest is on us to manage
with our customers. All of that
is really just foundational.
What is going to be your focus as
chairman?
I’d like to say our focus is
the needs of everyone rather
than the need of the individual
because we have really changed
our approach in the eight or so
years I’ve been involved in the
officers’ group. We look closely
at the environment in which we
operate today and we spend
time on what tomorrow will look
like. As an association, we are
trying to get out in front of people
and tell our story of who we
are and what we do for North
America and what we need to
be brought to the table. We feel
like we’ve been an afterthought
and not invited to the table. We
have to build our reputation
as knowledgeable, committed,
caring fleets and that we understand
the environments we are
in and if we work together with
lawmakers and regulators and other segments of the industry, we
can actually accomplish many great things.
During your address at the convention, you announced the formation
of a strategic task force charged with developing a TCA position
paper to address issues affecting productivity, profitability and the
movement of freight across North America.
Let me share an example used against us in the twin 33 discussion.
TCA policy is that we support the current regulations as
they stand today, making it very easy for people to dismiss us by
alleging “TCA is against improving efficiency and productivity.”
That is simply not the case. What we are concerned about is all of
the unintended consequences that are continually hitting us over
the head, which happens every time regulators and lawmakers
approach any topic with a singular view for our industry. There
are many ways to make our entire industry more efficient and
productive but no one wants to talk about it. No one is bringing
all stakeholders together and taking a holistic view of things. The
detention times, congestion and our failing infrastructure have
a lot more to do with our industry’s lack of efficiency and productivity
than making current equipment obsolete. The challenge
is that we always get drawn in to a simple debate about policy,
which is generally just a for or against statement. We never get
to share the reasons and justifications behind a policy. We are too
often left to draw our own conclusions. This white paper is going
to tell our members what we are for. We are for efficiency and
productivity, but we want a real strategy that includes all of us.
We want to craft a message we can all share proactively with our
elected officials, our customers and our suppliers consistently,
every chance we get. We want a seat at the table and we will not
accept being an afterthought. Truckload accounts for the vast
majority of trucking that occurs in North America and we need to
have our story heard.
What are the key issues facing trucking in 2017 and what might the
disruption be to having those key issues coming out in favor of the
truckload industry?
I think without question F4A
is a big deal for us because that
impacts the most important resource
we have, our people.
We can’t allow individual states
to create huge inefficiencies
and create these real barriers
to interstate commerce.
We simply can’t have different
employment laws, rest breaks,
things that hurt our drivers and
the ability for us to effectively
use them. We have to get that
off the table. Electronic logging
devices (ELDs) have the potential
to be a disrupter if fleets
don’t understand the need and
the necessity to move forward.
We think about efficiencies and
productivity as truckers. Well,
ELDs are foundational to truly
understanding where waste is
in your system. At Bison, we
look at ELD data and we can
demonstrate to our drivers
that (a) we’re collectively using
our time quite wisely, but also
we see all the waste. We see
the waste at the shippers. We
now have meaningful data and
as painful as it is for a driver
to now have no opportunity to
maneuver the 14-hour window
… for us, this is the opportunity to show the shippers [the problems]
without question. If we are the only carrier logging wasteful
time and no other carrier ever has that, we’re crying wolf
and it’s not an issue for the shipping community or the receiving
community. Now we are uniformly tracking productivity and efficiency
as an industry and showing what we need to spend our
time fixing, and if we can’t fix it, we need to get paid for it so
we can pay our people properly. We know those are the two big
things coming at us right now.
How would you summarize the 2017 convention?
In my view the buzz — and this is my 12th year in a row
I’ve been here — and the positive energy and vibration that we
feel has a lot do to with TCA staff. John Lyboldt, the staff and
the membership are all going in the same direction. The strong
message delivered by TCA President John Lyboldt and American
Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear on collaborating
to get meaningful things done was a very positive step.
28 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

There are a lot of conversations about not wanting to be stepping
on their toes. The analogy we talked about in the officers’ group
is that ATA is a very strong and respected organization and they
look after matters that affect all of us. But they have limited ability
to go after targets that only affect some of us. An association
is an investment, so members want to make sure all the dollars
they invest in this organization is going for what they want. But
they also recognize that if you want something that only a small
segment of your association wants that you might have to go
outside of that to get what you want done. And that’s the reality
of business. There are no two of us who compete in exactly
the same way, so when you hear the message of John and Chris
about how they want to work together and how the ATA supports
us advocating for our needs as well as their efforts, that is not
something that we’ve heard in a very long time. We all get along
when nothing’s happening, but we have a lot of things happening
everywhere in all segments of trucking and for us to have built
that trust and relationship and understanding that we need to
work together is great, but we also have to get our own needs
met.
What excites you most about the year ahead?
Momentum ... . There are a lot of people excited about the
direction of TCA and the strength of its staff and their resolve and
ability to get things done. Our job as officers is to help the staff
in getting the right resources, help to set priorities to ensure they
are not spread too thin and avoid having them run in multiple
directions. We know what is meaningful to us and I think we are
going to get some things done.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 29

Spring | TCA 2017
Member Mailroom
Who should attend TCA’s
Safety and Security
Division meeting?
Any TCA member who is interested in supporting and continuing
to develop a safer truckload industry is welcome and
encouraged to attend TCA’s 36th Annual Safety and Security
Division meeting. We will be holding panel discussions on best
practices, maintaining a corporate safety culture amidst high
turnover, and successful driver communication programs.
There will also be several interesting and informative
workshops from which to choose, including The Anatomy of a
Deposition, Defending Against Workplace Violence, and Defining
a New World of Safety Personnel. The Arizona Department of
Public Safety will be hosting a workshop on understanding a
compliance review. In addition to these great education programs,
attendees will have time to visit the exhibit hall, attend
networking receptions, and enjoy meals together.
The 36th Annual Safety and Security Division Meeting will be
held May 21-23 at the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel &
Spa in Phoenix.
For more information and for registration, please visit http://
www.truckload.org/2017-Safety-Security-Division-Conference.
Feel free to contact tcameetings@truckload.org or call
(703) 838-1950 with any questions.
30 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

June 12-14, 2017
Argosy Casino Hotel and Spa | Riverside (Kansas City), Missouri
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| Retention | Fleet Management
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
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of Trucking and Its Workforce
Scott Steinberg, CEO
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One of the world’s best-known business strategists, strategic
innovation consultants, and trends experts, Scott Steinberg
joins us for an eye-opening conversation about how
transportation-related technology could impact the way
we live and work.
The Evolution of Ransomware:
Protecting Your Workforce
and Your Company
Supervisory Special Agent
Darren Holtz
Kansas City Field Office, Cyber Program
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The Changing Legal Landscape for
Employers: A Look Back and a Look Ahead
EEOC: Friend or Foe— Criminal Convictions
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Reimagining the Workplace: The 2017 Best
Fleets to Drive For
The Real Driver Health Crisis and How to
Mitigate Your Losses!
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Darren Holtz will share best
practices and tips for dealing with ransomware, a type of
malware that encrypts, or locks, valuable digital files and
demands a ransom to release them.
Register Today at GrowYourWorkforce.com
Connect with us on Twitter @WFBCON. Share what you know #WFBCON17.

Spring | TCA 2017
Talking TCA
c R Y S TA L G I T C H E L L | G O V E R N M E N T A F F A I R S M A N A G E R
B Y d o r o t h y c o x
Trucking is no stranger to 180-degree turns, and neither is Crystal
Gitchell, Truckload Carriers Association’s government affairs manager.
But whereas trucking has to make radical changes because of regulations,
Gitchell’s change was because of an epiphany of sorts, which
eventually led to another epiphany.
“At the end of high school I was in a technical program,” she says,
“and I took a commercial photography course.”
That led to a job with a commercial photography studio at the ripe
old age of 18, “then I went to college soon after they hired me.”
Gitchell attended college at Virginia Commonwealth University in
Richmond, Virginia, as an art major because it was the closest college
to where she lived, enabling her to keep working at the studio.
According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, Richmond has a “vibrant”
arts community downtown, and Gitchell says her job was
located in a downtown building that afforded her a chance to work
with artists every day, from painters to furniture makers, to jewelers
to other photographers who worked in different subject matters.
“I always thought I was going to be an art major,” she says, but
the day-to-day interaction with artists and seeing their “struggle”
to tread water financially made her realize that the profession was
not for her: “It was such a struggle that my heart just wasn’t in
it … .”
Photography at the time was converting from film to digital and
Gitchell says she had learned everything manually and learned how
to develop pictures in a dark room. “When everything went digital it
just lost the glamor for me,” she says. That played a part, as well, in
her eschewing art as a profession.
“I still enjoy doing that but it has turned into more of a hobby.”
Changing her art major was the easy part. Finding out her perfect
fit for a profession wasn’t so easy.
Gitchell first changed her major to anthropology. Then again to
women’s studies.
Finally she changed to a political science major and that’s when
the first epiphany came.
“I had this required government course that I had to take, like an
introduction to U.S. government, and when I took the class I realized
that I didn’t know anything about how the government worked, and it
terrified me that I didn’t know. I thought I knew so much but I didn’t
know anything.
“Right then and there, after the first week of class I switched my
major and decided to do a career change — to get out of art and get
into some kind of political policy realm from that point forward — and
that was probably like my third year of college.”
What was so terrifying about what she learned in that first government
class?
“It shocked me,” she says, “that elected officials from the local,
state and federal level were making decisions on my behalf and at
that point I didn’t understand the decisions they were making and
what the process was for them to make these decisions that would
have this huge impact on my everyday life.
“That just really struck a chord with me; I couldn’t believe it. So I just
said, ‘I have to get involved. I have to know everything.’ And I ended up
going to graduate school … and getting a degree in public policy from
George Mason University at the campus in Arlington, Virginia.
“When I enrolled in George Mason, I wasn’t 100 percent sure what
I wanted to do professionally. I thought maybe I would end up working
for a member of Congress or a state legislator but I took the leap
to move farther north, go to this school in the D.C. area and kind of
see where I landed.”
She held internships with the Virginia House of Delegates and U.S.
Senator Jim Webb, so “I kind of had a feel for how those offices ran
and I liked it.”
She was still working for the photography studio while in graduate
school, but quit her job halfway through school to study abroad in
India in 2012 with a focus on women’s businesses.
The trip to India included a visit to the slum area of Mumbai where
32 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 33

the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” was filmed, and was unlike anything
Gitchell has seen before or since. She says members of her tour
group found themselves walking on several inches of wet garbage
and watching recycling efforts to smelt soft drink cans. Everywhere
she went she says children grabbed their hands, smiling and wanting
their pictures taken.
She also visited a school in Bangalore for “the poorest of the poor”
where the children were speaking multiple languages [and] doing
complex math problems and putting on plays about social issues.
“It was intense,” she says. “The kids here [in the U.S.] can’t speak
as many languages.” The school also employed the children’s mothers
to come in and cook so every child got a hot meal every day.
Entrepreneurship there was completely different, she found. While
in the U.S. one may think of TV’s “Shark Tank” or Silicon Valley; in
India it means getting a loan to sell snacks on the roadside or making
textiles, Gitchell explains.
Adding to the more global outlook Gitchell got in India, she says
George Mason was “very, very internationally diverse,” so much so
that she was the only American in some classes. “It was a very international
education.”
Upon her return from India, Gitchell switched gears from women’s
studies and got a temporary intern position with the ASPCA (American
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), where she worked
on animal advocacy issues and when that job ended, hired on with an
IT consulting firm working for federal agencies but says, “I didn’t like
that at all” and was only there 10 months.
Then in 2013 she got hired at the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association,
a small trade organization, and “that’s really where I hit
my stride professionally in trade associations, which I never thought
I would do.”
That was the second epiphany.
She stayed at that association for three years before leaving several
weeks ago to come to TCA.
“I really loved that job” in the government affairs department of
the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association working on state and local
legislative issues and promoting that industry, she says, “but I was
stagnant.”
“And at TCA it’s more federally focused and more the hands-on,
grass roots campaigns that I’ll be working on, which is what I really
love to do.”
She saw TCA’s job listing
on the website of the
ASAE (American Society of
Association Executives). “I
was just clicking through
because I’m a member. I
saw it and thought, ‘Wow,
that’s exactly like something
I could do.’
“I love trade associations
[and] I love this type
of trade association. I love Before she could even walk, Crystal was riding horses
this kind of work and TCA’s
issues were very interesting and they have a very broad reach.”
She hadn’t known anything about the trucking industry beforehand,
but “I did a lot of homework,” she says, “before I came in here
and met with [President] John [Lyboldt] and [Vice President of Government
Affairs] Dave [Heller].”
And “we got on just immediately.”
What she’s already learned in just the short time she’s been at
TCA is that in the truckload sector, “they’re very collaborative with
each other. The folks I’ve talked to on the phone seem to have a
good camaraderie and are willing to help not just themselves but the
truckload industry.”
Epiphanies aside, life could have gone much different for Gitchell
had she parlayed her love of horses and horse riding into a career.
“My entire life since I can remember has been riding and showing
horses,” she says. “There are pictures of me riding on horses before
I could walk. I was showing [horses] when I was five years old; I
was competing. I still do it when I can today and I did what is called
hunter jumping. Primarily as an adult I go into eventing.”
The definition of eventing — also known as a horse trial — is an
equestrian event in which a single horse and rider combination competes
against other combinations across the three disciplines of dressage,
cross-country, and show jumping.
Lest anyone not know, folks in Virginia take their horses and their
horse riding very seriously and even engage in fox hunts, as they did
and still do in Great Britain.
One might say riding and showing horses is in Gitchell’s blood because
her parents — Sherry and George Self — met at a horse barn.
Q & A With CRYSTAL GITCHELL
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: June 29, 1987, in
Richmond, Virginia
MY TRADEMARK EXPRESSION IS: Don’t get bitter, just
get better
MOST HUMBLING EXPERIENCE: Becoming a mom
PEOPLE SAY I REMIND THEM OF: Me. I am one of a
kind
I HAVE A PHOBIA OF: People with a flu/cold
MY GUILTY PLEASURE: Sugary Starbucks Frappachinos
THE PEOPLE I’D INVITE TO MY FANTASY DINNER
PARTY: Margaret Atwood, Lois McMaster Bujold, Marge
Piercy, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis
MY GREATEST PROBLEM AS A PROFESSIONAL IS: I
tend to over explain and get very into the weeds
I WOULD NEVER WEAR: A Penguin’s jersey
A GOAL I HAVE YET TO ACHIEVE: Adopting a horse
THE LAST BOOK I READ: “Cleopatra: A Life,” by Stacy
Schiff
LAST MOVIE I SAW: “Arrival”
MY FAVORITE SONG: “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn
IF I’VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT WOULD
BE: You have to take whatever you have and make the most
of it
MY PET PEEVE: Being late
THE THING ABOUT MY OFFICE IS: Get ready for lots of
baby pictures
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Ambitious
34 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

Crystal enjoys a moment with TCA Membership Liaison
Tomora Brown during the annual convention.
“My mom rode with my grandmother and my dad’s cousins. They
rode Western [saddle] mostly but it was just something I always did,
and my parents had their own horses and we’ve kind of had that my
whole life.”
Summing up her childhood, she says, “It was just horses, horses,
horses.”
But they didn’t live on a farm. “We lived in the suburbs and we
boarded the horses in a suburb right outside of Richmond and we
would rent land from people [and] would lease space at people’s
barns. Now I ride other people’s horses and that’s been kind of nice.
I have friends with horses and I take lessons on some horses that
belong to a friend of mine.”
After an eventing accident, Gitchell says she’s back to “doing hunter-jumpers”
whenever she can.
Gitchell was born and raised in the Richmond area, and went to
Salem Church Elementary in Chester, Virginia. Then she went to Salem
Church Middle School nearby, and on to L.C. Bird High School a
couple of blocks away.
Her brother lives close by and works with her dad, who owns a
commercial grounds maintenance company. It entails more than one
might think.
“They go into factories and paper mills and do all the maintenance,”
Gitchell says. “They’ll shut the factories down and they’ll go in and
do all the maintenance while the machines are shut down. It’s really
interesting, really hands-on kind of stuff outdoors. My brother moves
train cars around and they deal with a lot of heavy equipment.”
Her dad started the company, called George Self Lawn Service
and Property Maintenance, “when he was a teenager,” she says, “and
some of the guys have been with him since I was a little kid.”
She and her husband Ryan lived a few blocks away from each
other and were friends for about a year and a half before they started
dating in 2010, and have been married for nearly five years. They
met when a friend brought him to a party Gitchell was having at her
apartment.
“He showed up at my party on a little Vespa scooter and we
were just friends ever since and we started throwing parties at
his apartment up the street and our friends would go back and
forth” from his to her place. The two lost touch for a while, then
he showed up at her 23rd birthday party “and that’s when we kind
of started dating.”
They now have a nearly nine-month-old baby girl named Violet
Mae who at present “has a lovely home daycare during the week.”
A full-time student at the present, Ryan is also a substitute
teacher and is focusing on special education at the University of
Richmond.
They got married August 1, 2012, in “a very nice place” in Las Vegas
with a reception at the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, having both
been previously married and “not wanting to go through the whole
rigmarole” again, she explains.
Today, she and her husband and baby girl live in Fredericksburg,
Virginia, about an hour south of D.C. It’s up in the mountains and
an area that’s even bigger into horses than where she used to live,
and people do the fox hunts, which Gitchell says, “I really long to do
someday.”
If her drive and confidence in her professional life is any indication,
she will do just that.
The Truckload Carriers Association
welcomes companies that
joined our association in
February and March.
Truckline Insurance
Group, LLC
February 2017
FedEx Custom
Critical, Inc.
FleetNet America
March 2017
MG Logistics
Dell
Lincare
FirstLab
Ally Financial, Inc.
LoadDocs
FourKites
LaunchIt PR
Aperia Technologies
FlowBelow
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 35

TCA Honors America’s
Top Drivers
Sponsored by:
By Aprille Hanson
Professional truck drivers Murray Manuliak
and Gary Buchs may drive in different
countries, but their backgrounds and commitment
to safety and giving back parallels their
unmatched driving ability. The two grew up
on farms, one in Canada, one in the United
States. Driving grew to be more than a job — a
passion — and a career that has lasted more
than 20 years for each.
Living inside each man is a desire to do
more — to be ambassadors of the industry —
whether it’s passing along knowledge to new
drivers or showing up to help those in need after
a natural disaster. Pride in their companies
runs deep because it has allowed them to give
their families the life they deserve.
Men like this should not only be thanked,
but rewarded, even though recognition has
never been the source of their motivation to do
more. The Truckload Carriers Association and
its partner Randall-Reilly awarded Manuliak and
Buchs with Driver of the Year honors at TCA’s
annual convention during its annual awards
banquet in Nashville, Tennessee, March 28.
Manuliak, 55, who drives for Bison Transport
of Winnipeg, Manitoba, was named the
2016 Company Driver of the Year.
Buchs, 62, who is leased to Landstar System,
Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida, was named
the 2016 Owner-Operator of the Year.
They each received $25,000.
“The lifeblood of the trucking industry is
its drivers,” said 2016-2017 TCA Chairman
Russell Stubbs. “They work tirelessly day in
and day out, but often only get noticed when
something goes wrong. In recognizing safe,
dedicated drivers like Murray and Gary, we
hope to shine a light on the great things our
drivers do every single mile.”
The contests are sponsored by Love’s Travel
Stops of Oklahoma City and Cummins, Inc.
of Columbus, Indiana. Top drivers are chosen
based on their history of reliable and safe truck
transportation and winners are chosen based on
safe driving, efforts to enhance the image of the
trucking industry and positive impacts on local
communities, according to TCA. For owner-operators,
business skills are also considered.
“That was wild, it is an honor; just to be
named to the top three was honor enough,”
Manuliak said, struggling to find the words. “I
was a little shell-shocked for a while.”
For the married father of three grown children
and the proud grandpa of nine, the honor
belonged just as much to his family, especially
his wife of 35 years, Heather.
“To do this job, it’s a lifestyle — but both
partners have to be on the same page. You
have to have a partner who is a very strong
person themselves,” he said, adding that his
wife “was very excited and honored. I’d say
part of it is hers too.”
While Manuliak, of Brandon, Manitoba,
has driven professionally for 25 years, driving
more than 3.1 million consecutive accidentfree
miles, he credits Bison Transport for its
safety- and driver-first mindset.
“It is a family atmosphere. I can go in there
and talk to anybody — I can talk to the president
and CEO and just have a chitchat,” Manuliak
said. “… It’s part of our culture; we have
a right-to-decide policy. Everyone wants their
freight, but someone has to make a decision on
when it’s safe to or when it’s not safe to drive.”
Manuliak has been a key part of building
up that safety culture by serving as an in-cab
instructor in Bison’s Driver Finishing Program.
Rob Penner, president and CEO of Bison
Transport said, “Murray is well-spoken and has
a strong voice within our organization, making
sure our business is a leader in safety. He
is a role model for all professional drivers to
follow.”
In addition to his day job, Manuliak competes
in truck driving competitions, receiving
many honors, including first place in the Super
B category and third place as a representative
of Team Manitoba in the National Truck Driving
Championship.
Buchs, of Colfax, Illinois, said although this
is the third national award recognition he’s received
in his lifetime, it’s the most meaningful.
“It’s been one of the most exciting, unbelievable
experiences ever,” he said. “… I want
to be that person when they see me, they want
to drive safer because I drive safer. I try to live
my life for the example of my family so they
make good decisions, are kind and generous
and ethical people.”
Throughout his 27-year career, Buchs has
driven 3.2 million consecutive accident-free
miles, landing him several honors including
Landstar’s 10-year Safe Driving Award,
10 Landstar Star of Quality Awards and the
2015 TravelCenters of America’s Citizen Driver
Award.
“I run my business differently than a lot
of owner-operators. I don’t travel hundreds
of thousands of miles” at a time, he said. For
years, he drove regionally to be with his wife
Marcia and his two children as they grew up.
“We — my wife and I — make major decisions
together and she helps with the financial
side. We worked together on all that; she also
holds down the home fires of course.”
Buchs said Landstar has allowed him to run
his business as it fits with his lifestyle.
Landstar CEO and President Jim Gattoni
said, “Gary’s commitment to the safety and
education of others speaks to his ability to
represent our industry in a positive light. He
would make an outstanding ambassador to the
public, projecting an image that is worthy of
the industry’s safe, honorable, customer-driving
professionals who deliver the goods that
touch our lives every day.”
For as much as Buchs dedicates his life to
being a safe driver, it all goes back to family, he
said. Even his drive for fitness and health began
when his son Luke was deployed. Landstar
allowed Buchs to suspend his contract while he
left for 13 months to live in Hawaii to help his
daughter-in-law, who also serves in the military,
care for his two young grandchildren on
base. Buchs lost 50 pounds during that time,
Bison Transport’s Murray Manuliak, second from left,
accepted the 2016 Company Driver of the Year award at
the Truckload Carriers Association’s annual convention.
Pictured from left are Brad Holthaus, Randall-Reilly’s
vice president of sales, truck media group; Manuliak;
Garth Pitzel, director of safety and driver development
at Bison Transport, and Jon Archard, vice president of
sales at Love’s Travel Stops. Randall-Reilly’s Overdrive
Magazine and TruckersNews.com are partners with TCA
for the contests. Love’s Travel Stops and Cummins, Inc.
are sponsors.
Landstar’s Gary Buchs delivers his acceptance speech
at the TCA annual convention after being named the
2016 Owner-Operator of the Year. With Buchs is Mike
Cobb, vice president of safety and compliance for
Landstar System, Inc.
running 5 and 10Ks while pushing a baby stroller. Today,
he is still dedicated to fitness, completing the Chicago
Marathon in 2015.
Buchs also gives back to the community, donating produce
to local food pantries and actively volunteering with
Eight Days of Hope to assist victims of natural disasters.
He credits his career with the flexibility to volunteer.
“Part of it was the way I was raised, the tradition of
our family growing up with a strong Christian faith, being
involved with the church,” he said of his desire to give
back.
Runners-up in each category were awarded $2,500
each.
Company driver finalists were: David McGowan of
Marinette, Wisconsin, driver for WEL Companies, Inc., De
Pere Wisconsin; and William Poteet of Lakeland, Florida,
driver for Saddle Creek Transportation, Inc., Lakeland.
Owner-operator finalists were: Philip Keith of Long
Beach, Mississippi, leased to WEL Companies; and Kevin
Kocmich of Litchfield, Minnesota, leased to Diamond Transportation
System, Inc., Racine, Wisconsin.
36 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

TCA Honors America’s
best fleets
®
Sponsored by:
By Jack Whitsett
The Truckload Carriers Association and
partner CarriersEdge named Bison Transport
of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and Grand
Island Express of Grand Island, Nebraska,
Best Fleets to Drive For March 28 at the organization’s
annual convention in Nashville,
Tennessee.
Bison Transport won the award for large
carriers, a category sponsored by EpicVue,
for an amazing third time in the last four
years, and has placed in the top 20 carriers
for seven of the nine years the Best Fleets
program has existed.
Grand Island, winner of the small carrier
award, which was sponsored by Bose Ride,
has placed in the top 20 six times running.
“To claim the title of Overall Winner
even once requires a strong combination
of outstanding programs, high satisfaction
levels, and great results in safety and retention,”
said TCA President John Lyboldt.
“To do it three times is an unbelievable
achievement that both companies should
be very proud of.”
Scoring levels had to be adjusted because
of increased efforts by motor carrier fleets to
improve job satisfaction among drivers, said
Jane Jazrawy, CEO of CarriersEdge.
“For 2017’s program, we had to adjust
scoring levels more significantly than ever
before, since fleets are doing so many more
things for their drivers than we’ve seen in
past years. The fact that these two previous
winners are once again at the top of the list
shows just how much effort they put into
building great workplaces for their drivers.
Their commitment to their people is clearly
paying off.”
The annual survey and contest recognizes
North American for-hire trucking companies
providing the best workplace experiences
for their drivers. To participate, fleets
must be nominated by a company driver or
independent contractor working with them,
after which they are evaluated across a
broad range of categories reflecting current
best practices in human resources. The 20
top finishers are identified as Best Fleets to
Drive For and then divided in half according
to size. The highest scoring fleet in each category
is named overall winner.
Rob Penner, president and CEO of Bison
Transport and new TCA chairman, said despite
the continuing success of his company
in winning the Best Fleets to Drive For award,
Bison management and employees still get a
charge out of winning the honor.
“It’s an honor to be included among
this group and it is still a charge,” Penner
said. “For our non-driving staff and leadership,
to have our own drivers nominate us
and support the efforts we put into their
driving careers is truly special.”
In addition, the company treats the
award with care, he said.
“We are cautious about how we promote
this award. It is used in our external driver
recruitment campaigns, but internally it is
not what we promote. We know that we
have many things we need to improve for
our drivers and we do not and will not rest
on the fact that we’ve been recognized to be
among industry’s leaders.”
Grand Island President and CEO Tom
Pirnie, whose company also has a string of
successes with this award, agreed that winning
does not get old.
“We’ve been so fortunate to stay in the
top 20 for the last six consecutive years,” he
said. “It’s never a ‘given’ with Best Fleets.
Carriers are amazingly innovative and constantly
pushing the envelope. Just making
the top 20 list is a huge accomplishment, so
being named an overall winner is absolutely
a charge!”
Penner identified respect and appreciation
for drivers as the most important factors
in running a motor carrier that drivers want
to work for.
“Your driver needs to believe in the programs
and support that your company offers
them as well as feeling like they have a say in
the direction and approach of the business,”
he said. “You can’t have two organizational
cultures. Whatever you do, it has to extend
out to the entire team.”
Pirnie has a similar thought on the most
important factor for a driver’s company.
That would be “listening and doing right
by the driver,” he said. “Sometimes we tend
to get in our own way with policies and forget
at the end of the day our company is made
up of people. So many corporate policies
and guidelines alienate our drivers and we
don’t take the time to listen to their story or
situation.”
Penner targeted driver retention as the
key to continued excellence.
“Driver retention has been our best advantage,”
Penner said. “The investments we
have made in the development of our people
stick with us. More than 20 percent of our
drivers have achieved more than 1 million
consecutive accident-free miles. They are
the foundation of our company. They tell us
what we need to be better at and work with
us on it. They are actively engaged with our
new people to ensure we don’t lose the positive
momentum we have built, nor dilute our
culture.”
Pirnie pointed to innovation and risktaking.
“The bar gets pushed higher every year,
so to stay in the top 20 you must innovate,
Grand Island President and CEO Tom Pirnie accepts
the award for winning the Best Fleets to Drive For small
carrier division.
Garth Pitzel, director of safety and driver development,
Bison Transport, accepts the Best Fleets to Drive For
large carrier divison award from Jane Jazrawy, CEO of
CarriersEdge, which sponsors the entire competition.
take risks and continue to develop quality programs. We study
the Best Fleets scorebook every year to see where we have opportunities
for improvement.
“We entered the contest for the first time in 2012 and were
fortunate enough to make the top 20. What we learned from
that first entry was we already had great programs in place for
our drivers; we just didn’t communicate them well. So from that
point on we continued to tweak existing programs and add new
ones based on driver feedback and industry trends.”
Penner stressed Bison’s Driver Advisory Board and its role in
the company’s success.
“We live in a world of self-improvement and continuous improvement,”
he said. “That’s our process. We have a Driver Advisory
Board consisting of management and driver representation
and we have an open and collaborative approach to building out
our driver programs and solving problems. It’s a critical factor.
Our drivers know their opinion matters and that the programs
they have in front of them are built by them, for them.”
The Best Fleets to Drive For survey and contest is open to any
fleet operating 10 trucks or more, regardless of TCA membership
status. Nominated fleets are evaluated in areas like driver
compensation, pension and benefits, professional development,
driver and community support, and safety record.
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 37

TCA Honors America’s safest fleets
Sponsored by:
By Cliff Abbott
Every carrier wants to be safe. If the emphasis
on CSA scores and Commercial Vehicle
Safety Alliance Roadchecks isn’t motivation
enough, news sources and social media outlets
ensure that every truck crash is widely
publicized. Then, there’s the ever-present
risk of litigation and the additional publicity
it creates.
At some carriers, however, there’s another
reason for safety.
Pride.
At Bison Transport, the pride runs deeper
than Lake Winnipegosis, a lesser-known,
833-foot (254-meter) deep sister to the famous
Lake Winnipeg. The Bison team and especially
the drivers want the motoring public
to know: “You’re Safe With Me.”
The culture behind that confident statement
resulted in yet another big win for Bison
Transport when the carrier was awarded
TCA’s National Fleet Safety Award for carriers
in the large division (25 million or more
miles). It was the tenth time the carrier has
taken the coveted Grand Prize in the competition.
Bison has been recognized by TCA
for safety in every year since 2005 and took
first place for the 11th consecutive time, a
record that is unmatched. And Bison has
claimed the Safest Fleet prize in its category
for seven years in a row, also an unmatched
feat.
Garth Pitzel, director of safety and driver
development at Bison Transport, accepted
the plaque at TCA’s annual convention at the
Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Tennessee.
Apparently, the culture of safety sits
well with Bison drivers, as the company
is also a multiple winner of the TCA Best
Fleets to Drive For competition. That’s no
coincidence, says Pitzel. “We used to be so
focused on compliance that it hurt,” he said.
“We were compliant, but we still weren’t
safe.”
So, how did the Bison team achieve a
culture of safety? “It really came down to a
more simplistic view,” said Pitzel. “We had to
develop a culture of caring. We have to show
that we’re not asking them to buy into a process,
but people.”
One way Bison achieves this is in their
communication with drivers. “An example,”
he said, “is choosing between telling a driver
to deliver on time or to get home safely.
When they understand that they come first,
the delivery gets made on time AND they get
home safely.”
Pitzel credits the carrier’s 20 percent
turnover rate as a huge part of changing the
culture at Bison. “At that rate,” he explained,
“we’ve got to hire 380 drivers to replace our
losses. That means we get to interact with
the majority of our drivers, growing the culture
we have already instilled. Imagine, at
100 percent turnover, we would have to get
our entire fleet to buy into our culture all over
again every year.”
According to Pitzel, 773 drivers received
safety awards last year, over 40 percent
of Bison’s fleet. The 39th driver reached
the two million safe mile plateau. Retention
plays a role in those numbers, too,
he said. “The riskiest period in a driver’s
tenure is one to six months,” he said. “At
20 percent turnover, I have 380 new hires
to get through that risk period instead of
1,500 more if turnover was higher. Retention
is huge.”
The company’s “Right to Decide” policy
grants drivers final decision-making authority
when safety is threatened by inclement
weather or other factors. Safe drivers are rewarded
with additional pay, Crystal Awards,
jackets and even diamond rings for the safest.
Awards are presented at regional annual
awards dinners.
The company also uses technology to enhance
its safety programs, equipping their
1,400-tractor fleet with adaptive cruise control,
roll stability control, collision warning
systems and side object detection. EOBRs are
used as well.
About 40 km southeast of Winnipeg sits
the town of Steinbach, Manitoba, home of
the operations center of TCA National Fleet
Safety Award winner in the small carrier
(less than 25 million miles) category. Big
Freight Systems, Inc. proudly displays its
tagline of “Better Drivers … Better Service”
on the header of its website (bigfreight.
com). Founded in 1948 when the Coleman
family purchased a 4-truck outfit in Steinbach,
Big Freight Systems has grown steadily
ever since.
Current president Gary Coleman’s team
might be considering adding two more words
to that tagline, “Safer Drivers,” since the
company walked away with TCA’s top safety
award in its category.
Under Coleman’s leadership, the company
began a Continuous Improvement program
in 2013 that has grown to encompass
nearly everything the company does, including
safety.
To provide a catalyst for culture change,
the carrier adopted the slogan, “Safety first,
on-time delivery second.” As they do at Bison,
drivers have the final say in deciding
when it’s safe to drive. The company uses e-
mail and satellite messaging to remind driver
associates to avoid risks.
Drivers at Big Freight Systems earn
“points” for their years of service that can
be redeemed for premiums. They can add to
their point totals by successfully completing
various levels of Continuous Improvement
training and by achieving various safety
goals, including clean DOT inspections and a
monthly “Pinnacle Safety Award.” The company
doesn’t stop there, however, awarding
team points to those who participate on company
committees, become first aid or CPR
responders, or complete external training
GREAT WEST CASUALTY COMPANY
The Difference is Service
Big Freight Systems President Gary Coleman accepts
the National Fleet Safety Award for small
division carriers from Patrick Kuehl, executive vice
president of Great West Casualty Co., which sponsors
the competition.
Garth Pitzel, right, director of safety and driver development
at Bison Transport, accepts the National
Fleet Safety Award for the large carrier division from
Patrick Kuehl, executive vice president of Great
West Casualty Co., which sponsors the competition.
courses. There’s even a 250-point “thank-you” bonus.
Coleman took to the stage at the TCA convention to
accept the award.
In an industry where many drivers view ELDs, dash
cameras and other safety technology as micro-management,
the men and women behind the wheel for Bison
Transport and Big Freight Systems are setting the pace
for the rest. Don’t be surprised if future awards again
feature these carriers and their teams.
38 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

TCA Honors 2015
highway angel
Sponsored by:
By Lyndon Finney
What happens when you put together a truck driver who might be considered
a weather ninja and another truck driver who’s so dedicated to his
load he doesn’t want to leave his rig — despite the fact that flood waters are
steadily creeping up around his truck?
You have a dramatic rescue, the type of which angels are made — Highway
Angels to be exact.
“I’m no hero. I’m a basic person with a heart of gold and would do what I
did all over again at any given time,” says Daniel Sieczkarski, a Melton Truck
Lines driver who last month was named the Truckload Carriers Association’s
2016 Highway Angel of the Year.
The driver who found himself trapped inside his cab along Interstate 10 on
April 18, 2016, might beg to differ with Sieczkarski’s belief that he’s no hero.
The saga began the morning of April 18, 2016, when Sieczkarsk pulled
out of the Melton terminal at Laredo, Texas, headed for Mount Holly, North
Carolina, with a load of frame rails for Freightliner, which has a manufacturing
facility there.
The weather was OK in Laredo, but Sieczkarski had been keeping up with
reports on the torrential rains that were pounding the Houston area. He was
especially concerned about Interstate 10, which traverses Houston west to
east, and which was part of Sieczkarski’s planned route to Mount Holly.
He was able to turn off I-35 onto I-10, but soon noticed water beginning
to spill over onto the roadway, and what’s more, just off an exit near a TX-
DOT weigh station, he noticed a tractor-trailer beneath the underpass sitting
sideways in quickly rising waters that were the aftermath of a nearby levee
break.
Sieczkarski parked his rig and ran back to the overpass where another
trucker had stopped.
“I started yelling at the driver (owner-operator Ron Bumpus) of the rig to
make sure he was OK,” he said. “He kept saying he had help coming, but the
flood was coming. I asked the other truck driver if he had a rope or anything
else we could send down to him and he had a three-eighth-inch air hose. He
was able to borrow a life vest from a father and daughter who’d happened
upon the scene.
“I took the hose and life vest and tied them together and lowered it down
from the top of the bridge into the water and let the current take the vest to
the truck so he could grab it and we could pull him out, but he grabbed the
hose and tied the life vest to the mirror.”
Sieczkarski slid down the concrete embankment and convinced Bumpus
to release the life vest.
“I asked everyone if they were going to jump in and help and they looked
at me like I was stupid,” he said. “They tied the hose and life vest to my back
into a big knot. I said my prayers, asking the Lord to handle everything, and
I jumped in and swam to him and got hold of the truck to lift myself up out
of the water.”
And what did Bumpus do?
“He told me I might as well turn around and swim back because he had
help coming,” Sieczkarski said. “But I told him, ‘I’m not swimming back. The
only way I’m going back is with you.’”
Out of breath and now chilled from being wet, Sieczkarski stood on the top
step of the tractor reasoning with Bumpus.
“I asked him why he didn’t jump out and he told me he had a medical issue,
that he was scared and didn’t know how to swim,” Sieczkarski said. “As
soon as he told me that, I’m thinking to myself that that situation just made
it 10 times worse because he didn’t know how to swim and was scared for
his life.”
While Sieczkarski was trying to convince Bumpus it was time to abandon
his rig, another bystander showed up with a bungee cord. The bystander
wrapped it around the hose to use it like a drag line.
Sieczkarski got Bumpus, also concerned about his wallet, to put his medication
and cell phone in a plastic bag.
“I reminded him everything in his wallet could be replaced or would dry
out,” Sieczkarski said. “I told him my main focus was getting him to safety.”
Sieczkarski kept trying to convince the driver to leave the tractor.
“After 10 minutes or so, he said alright; he’d started changing his mind
about it. I was standing on the truck’s top step and felt the truck move backward,”
Sieczkarski said. “At the same time I was feeling the truck move, I
looked at the front of the truck and the water was just starting to come up
over the hood. So I’m like, ‘We need to go now, no if, ands or buts.’ I opened
Lance Platt, left, CEO of the Salt Lake City-based EpicVue, which sponsors
the Highway Angel program, presents Daniel Sieczarski with the trophy for
being named 2016 Highway Angel of the Year.
the door, he came out, I hooked my right arm under his shoulder. We both
swung out, I let go of the truck. I told them on the bank to start pulling.”
The two went under the water three times.
When they did get to dry land, Bumpus let go of Sieczkarski and started to
slide back toward the water.
Exhausted, Sieczkarski asked the bystanders to grab Bumpus, which they
did.
Sieczkarski didn’t know until later that a bystander had streamed the rescue
live and the feed was picked up by The Weather Channel.
Drenched, Sieczkarski called his boss and told him what had happened so
the receiver would know the load might be late. To say the least.
During the awards ceremony at the annual convention, Lance Platt, CEO of
the Salt Lake City-based EpicVue, which sponsors the Highway Angel program,
presented Sieczarski with a trophy and prize, a complimentary EpicVue satellite TV
package that includes a 24-inch flat screen TV, a DVR, and a one-year subscription
to more than 100 channels of DIRECTV programming, including premium channels
such as HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and the NFL Sunday Ticket.
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 39

Sponsored by Mcleod software
McLeodSoftware.com | 877.362.5363
Welcome to
Members, prospects and guests of the Truckload Carriers
Association had a great “hoe-down, toe-tappin’” time in Nashville,
Tennessee, March 25-29 at the 79th annual convention at the
Gaylord Opryland Hotel.
After receptions, board and committee meetings and the
opening of the exhibit hall Saturday and Sunday, the formal
program began Monday morning with keynote speaker Rich Karlgaard,
editor-at-large and global futurist at Forbes, who talked
about the slow-growing economy, while TCA Chairman Russell
Stubbs told delegates that TCA is well-positioned for the future.
Monday evening, guests at the fourth annual Scholarship
Fund Gala — which carried a Western theme since the site is the
home of country music — raised $221,875 for the TCA Scholarship
Fund.
Tuesday morning, incoming TCA Chairman Rob Penner told
delegates that the speed of change is faster than it ever has been
in the history of trucking, and that the Truckload Carriers Association
must spend as much or more time working on its future as it
does on what is happening currently, and Eric Starks, chairman
and CEO of FTR and a commercial vehicle equipment expert,
talked about the future of truckload. The session closed with a
panel discussion on “Autonomous and Assisted Vehicles — A
Fast Changing Horizon.”
Tuesday evening, the annual awards banquet featured the
presentation of the Driver of the Year Contests and National Fleet
Safety Awards. The night ended with four country music songwriters
talking about and singing songs they had written that had
become top country hits.
Wednesday morning’s final general session included a presentation
of “Eight Paths to Outthinking the Competition” by Dr.
Kaihan Krippendorff, business strategist and best-selling author of
“Outthinking the Competition.”
(1.) Ambassador Club members were presented
5-year incremental plaques during Saturday’s
members’ reception.
(2.) Attendees gathered in the Presidential
Lobby at the Gaylord Orpyland Resort and Convention
Center for breakfast Monday morning.
(3.) Nashville’s Wild Horse Saloon dance
instructors taught Monday evening’s Scholarship
Fund Gala attendees the two-step and other linedancing
moves.
(4.) Country music legends, the Bellamy Brothers,
performed at Monday evening’s Scholarship
Fund Gala. The evening’s entertainment was hosted
by Pilot Flying J.
2
(5.) Plenty of signage guided attendees
through the massive Gaylord
Opryland Resort and Convention
Center.
(6.) During the Past Chairman’s
Dinner Saturday evening, TCA past
chairmen and officers in attendance
signed 10 proclamations that will be
sent to key membership prospects.
4
5
3
6
1
40 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

12
7
9
13
16
10
14
4
8
11
15
5
6
(7.) During Sunday’s Board of Directors’ meeting, the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial Fund recognized TCA members who have hauled the Wall That Heals
in 2016.
(8.) Bennett Motor Express LLC’s Jeff Ford participates in the inaugural TCA
Wellness Fittest Executive Challenge Monday afternoon in the exhibit hall.
(9.) “A good time was had by all” at the Monday evening reception, hosted
by Freightliner Trucks, and which led into the evening’s Scholarship Fund Gala,
affectionately called the Whistlin’ Dixie Jamboree.
(10.) Trucking in the Round breakout sessions were held during the three-day
event.
(11.) When the convention wasn’t in session, there was plenty to see at the
convention hotel.
(12.) Gov. Bill Haslam welcomed delegates to Tennessee.
(13.) Monday evening, “cowboys” from left, Shepard Dunn, Rob Penner and
Russell Stubbs, hammed it up at the Scholarship Fund Gala.
(14.) Over 100 exhibitors filled the convention exhibition hall.
(15.) Past Chairman Keith Tuttle made the Past Chairman’s Award presentation
during the convention, honoring Tom Kretsinger Jr., who was unable to
attend in person. Kretsinger was honored in Kansas City, Missouri, in January.
(16.) TCA Chairman Russell Stubbs and wife Dawn welcomed attendees to
the annual awards banquet Tuesday night.
(17.) TCA President John Lyboldt, accompanied by his wife Lynne, danced to
the Bellamy Brothers during the Scholarship Fund Gala.
(18.) Incoming TCA Chairman Rob Penner, right, led a panel discussion on
autonomous vehicles at the Tuesday general session. Panelist were, left to right,
Thomas Balzer, president and CEO, Ohio Trucking Association; Kary Schaefer,
general manager, marketing and strategy, Daimler Trucks North America; and
Michael Cammisa, vice president, safety policy and connectivity, American
Trucking Associations.
18
17
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 41

A QUICK LOOK AT IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
SMALL
A QUICK LOOK AT
IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
TALK
Wall that Heals Recognition
Past Chairmen’s Award
Representatives of nine of the 16 carriers that were recognized by the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund display their awards.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF) has recognized the efforts of Truckload
Carriers Association members who volunteered their time and equipment to haul The Wall
That Heals in 2016.
Tim Tetz, director of outreach for VVMF, recognized 16 members at the TCA Board of
Directors meeting held in conjunction with the annual convention.
“Because of our partnership with TCA, we were able to bring a national memorial to the
hometown of hundreds of thousands in 2016,” Tetz said. “Leading each procession was a
truck owned and operated by a TCA member demonstrating dedication and commitment to
our veterans — young and old — and to our nation.”
The following TCA-member companies were recognized:
• American Central Transport, Inc., Liberty, Missouri
• Baylor Trucking, Inc., Milan, Indiana
• Cargo Transporters, Inc., Claremont, North Carolina
• Dart Transit Co., Eagan, Minnesota
• Delaware Technical & Community College, Georgetown, Delaware
• Don Hummer Trucking, Oxford, Iowa
• Fremont Contract Carriers, Inc., Fremont, Nebraska
• Halvor Lines, Inc., Superior, Wisconsin
• Hirschbach Motor Lines, Inc., East Dubuque, Illinois
• Interstate Distributor Co., Tacoma, Washington
• Regency Transportation, Inc., Franklin, Massachusetts
• TMC Transportation Services, Des Moines, Iowa
• TWT Refrigerated Services, Cheney, Washington
• WDS Enterprises, Shepherd, Michigan
• Werner Enterprises, Inc., Omaha, Nebraska, and
• Wil-Trans, Springfield, Missouri.
The Wall That Heals is a 250-foot replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. With the
help of TCA’s partnership and the companies mentioned above, the traveling exhibit honors
the men and women who served and sacrificed their lives in the Vietnam War.
TCA always welcomes additional fleets that would like to haul The Wall That Heals. For
more information, contact TCA at 703-838-1950.
Tom Kretsinger, Jr., fourth from left, is surrounded by other former TCA
chairmen at a special presentation in honor of his receiving the 2017 Past
Chairmen’s Award. Other past chairmen include, from left, Robert Low,
Keith Tuttle, Shepard Dunn, Kevin Burch and Russell Stubbs.
The Truckload Carriers Association has bestowed its prestigious Past Chairmen’s Award
on Tom Kretsinger Jr., chairman of the board and CEO for American Central Transport of
Liberty, Missouri, and the chairman of TCA from 2013-14.
The presentation took place a few weeks ago at a special dinner in Kretsinger’s honor
in Kansas City, Missouri. He was recognized again at the annual convention in Nashville,
Tennessee.
In 1981, after passing his bar exam, Kretsinger followed in the footsteps of his grandfather
and father by joining the family law firm, Kretsinger & Kretsinger.
The company had specialized in motor carrier law since the 1930s.
In 1998 he joined ACT as general counsel and has since held several roles, including
president, before being named to his current title.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from William Jewell College and a juris
doctor from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. He also attended Harlaxton
College in Grantham, Lincolnshire, United Kingdom, from 1976-1977.
Besides serving TCA as chairman, Kretsinger has held numerous other positions with
the organization, including executive committee member and board member, treasurer, and
trustee for the TCA Scholarship Fund.
For the American Trucking Associations, Kretsinger has chaired the Litigation Center
and has been a member of the ATA executive committee and board of directors. He is vice
chairman of the ATA Labor and Regulatory Policy Committee and a member of the Highway
Policy Committee, the Revenue Committee, and the ATA Strategic Planning Process Steering
Committee.
Kretsinger is also past chairman of the Missouri Trucking Association. He was recently
honored with Missouri’s Frank Campbell Award for service to the industry. He is a member
of the Missouri Bar Association and the Transportation Lawyers Association and a speaker,
panelist, and writer for the trucking industry. He and his wife Jo reside in Kansas City, Missouri,
and have four children and four grandchildren.
The Past Chairmen’s award is TCA’s highest honor. Recipients are leaders who have
made a significant contribution to the business community, the trucking industry and the
organization. Contrary to the title, the awardee does not have to be a past chairman of the
association.
42 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

Ambassador Club
Weigh.
Pay.
Get
Going.
The 2016 Rigsters were recognized during the member reception at the
annual convention. Shown here are three who were greeted by 2016-2017
TCA Chairman Russell Stubbs, second from left, and TCA President
John Lyboldt, right. The Rigsters, from left, are Roy Cox, John Elliott and
Nicholas Wingerter.
As part of the annual convention, the Truckload Carriers Association paid tribute to
member companies and individual representatives that have contributed to the long-term
growth of the association.
Nine companies were inducted into TCA’s prestigious Ambassador Club for reaching 25
years of membership, and four individuals were honored for helping to recruit members for
the organization in 2016.
Employees of any TCA member company who recruit new members for TCA are designated
“Rigsters” and thanked at the reception for their help in growing the association. To
recognize their contributions, Rigsters are given a special lapel pin.
“TCA is fortunate to have so many long-standing and committed members,” said John
Lyboldt, TCA’s president. “Their combined knowledge and experience has made this association
the amazing resource that it is today. And we are also grateful to our Rigsters, who
believe so deeply in what we do that they’re willing to take the time to share the rewards
with other companies.”
With the addition of the nine newest inductees, there are now a total of 142 companies
in TCA’s Ambassador Club.
The 2017 inductees are:
• Cargo Transporters, Inc., Claremont, North Carolina
• D & D Sexton, Inc., Carthage, Missouri
• Daggett Truck Line, Inc., Frazee, Minnesota
• Hill Brothers Transportation, Inc., Omaha, Nebraska
• Love’s Travel Stops, Oklahoma City
• McLeod Software Corporation, Birmingham, Alabama
• RJW Transport, Inc., Bolingbrook, Illinois
• Scudder Law Firm, P.C., Lincoln, Nebraska, and
• West Side Transport, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
The 2017 Rigsters are:
• Roy Cox, President, Best Cartage, Inc., Kernersville, North Carolina
• John Elliott, CEO, Load One, LLC, Taylor, Michigan
• Nicholas Wingerter, Vice President, Double Diamond Transport, Inc., Schertz, Texas,
and
• Susan Fall, President, LaunchIT Public Relations, San Diego.
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www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 43

James Prout Award
Wreaths Across America has recognized Pilot Flying J’s Wendy Hamilton as the third
recipient of the organization’s annual James Prout/WAA Spirit of Giving Award.
Karen and Morrill Worcester, executive director and founder of WAA, respectively,
presented Hamilton with the award at the recent Truckload Carriers Association’s annual
convention.
The James Prout/WAA Spirit of Giving Award is named in memory of James Prout,
owner of Blue Bird Ranch Trucking of Jonesboro, Maine, WAA’s home state.
Prout was the first person to volunteer to haul wreaths for WAA when the program was
in its infancy. The award is given annually to a deserving professional truck driver, company
or organization that has supported charitable causes in a way that will affect generations
to come.
Hamilton is a senior manager of sales and marketing at Pilot Flying J, the largest operator
of travel centers in North America whose core customer base is truck drivers. Hamilton
was introduced to Wreaths Across America by a colleague in 2010 and has since worked to
make Pilot Flying J a significant corporate sponsor of the organization.
“When I heard about the idea of Wreaths Across America, I fell in love with the concept
of honoring our military,” Hamilton said. “I am honored to receive the Spirit of Giving Award
and will continue to support Wreaths Across America through Pilot Flying J’s relationship
with truck drivers and by spreading the word throughout the industry.”
The trucking industry is a vital group when it comes to helping WAA achieve its goal
of honoring fallen soldiers each year, the Worcesters said, noting that Hamilton and Pilot
Flying J have supported WAA by hosting fundraising events at locations across the country
and by offering promotions where a portion of sales proceeds goes toward placing wreaths
on headstones at Arlington National Cemetery.
“The trucking community has been extremely dedicated to Wreaths Across America
over the years, but support doesn’t come exclusively from drivers,” Karen Worcester said.
“Some of the most important contributions come from those behind the scenes, like Wendy.
Her commitment to helping Wreaths Across America fulfill our mission to Remember, Honor,
Teach, has proved invaluable, and we are grateful for the opportunity to honor her.”
Wendy Hamilton, center, receives the James Prout/WAA Spirit of Giving
Award from Karen and Morrill Worcester.
44 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

A Special Chairman’s Farewell
As I review the past 12 months, it’s hard to know where to begin. We’ve
had a busy year, so much so that it becomes difficult to quantify the changes
and programs in place.
Critical to our future success, it was imperative that we lay the foundation
from which the association can gain stability. Deliberately, we focused
on operational practices, accounting, plant and equipment, responsibilities
to the membership, realigning our resources and last but not least,
defining personal business objectives and key result areas for each staff
member.
As we moved through the year, TCA leadership, consisting of our executive
committee and board, not to mention staff, communicated a direction
that our association was moving toward. It was imperative that we dramatically
improve our value proposition to retain and increase our membership.
Being relevant, timely and helpful to the members has become our endgame.
In doing so, it was important for us to define what we are for and not what
we are against.
At our board meeting in September 2016, we finalized our vision and
what we were to focus on in the coming months and ensuing years to follow.
It is important to point out that our process was not done in a vacuum or
Scholarship Gala
without the involvement of our members, in fact, quite the opposite is true.
Aided by membership, through conversations and interaction, we are building
a sustainable future for TCA as we share the story of truckload.
As chairman, a lot of people devote their time and efforts to making me
look good. For that I want to thank the officers, executive committee, board
of directors and all of the committee chairs as well as members for their
dedication and just plain hard work … any job that makes me look good is
bound to be difficult. I want to especially thank past chairmen Shepard Dunn
and Keith Tuttle and incoming Chairman Rob Penner for their commitment to
this association and their personal friendship.
As I mentioned last year, I am a third-generation trucker and now a third
generation chairman, for that I thank my grandfather Stoney and father Mit
for showing me how to do it right.
I would be remiss if I did not mention the terrific team in Alexandria,
our TCA staff. They have been challenged this year and have risen to the
occasion. Our staff is dedicated in their endeavor and ardent in their beliefs
that TCA truly is on track to be more than we think is possible, and our most
recent year has demonstrated exactly that.
President John Lybolt has done a tremendous job in just over a year getting
the staff re-energized and pointing in the same direction. TCA is lucky to
have John at the helm.
I leave office knowing that as an organization We Are One. We Are Truckload.
Crittenden Award
RUSSELL STUBBS
PTDI Lee J. Crittenden Award recipient Chris Antonik, M. Ed., gives an
acceptance speech during the annual convention. Antonik recently retired
as the department chair of the Commercial Transportation Program at
Delaware Technical Community College.
The Fourth Annual Scholarship Gala funds were raised in support of North
America’s youth with ties to the trucking industry.
Participants of the Truckload Carriers Association’s fourth annual Scholarship Fund Gala
held during the annual convention, “let their love flow,” raising more than $221,875 to fund
future scholarships named after past TCA chairmen and support trucking families’ dreams
of a higher education.
Thanks to the generosity of hosts Freightliner Trucks and Pilot Flying J, 100 percent of
the gala proceeds went directly to the Scholarship Fund.
TCA members wore cowboy boots and bolo ties and enjoyed a three-course meal at the
event, during which they also placed bids on silent and live auction items, learned how to
two-step with local Nashville dancers, then put their new moves to the test during a performance
by country music legends The Bellamy Brothers, known for such hits as “Let Your
Love Flow.”
Jon Russell, chairman of the TCA Scholarship Fund and the president of Celadon Group,
Inc. of Indianapolis, said of the event: “It was quite an enjoyable night. Everyone was on
their feet dancing and donating.”
The live auction items included a pair of diamond earrings, a diamond ring, a pink tourmaline
jewelry set, a meet-and-greet with boxing greats Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran,
and Tommy Hearns, a trip to the 2017 Transportation Executive Summit, and an entertainment
package that includes both a trip to an HBO boxing match and a trip to New York
to see the 32nd annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Silent auction items
included trips all around the country, a one-of-a-kind TCA humidor, artwork and electronics.
The 2017-18 scholarship application process is currently under way.
The Professional Truck Driver Institute has presented its highest honor, the Lee J. Crittenden
Memorial Award, to Chris Antonik.
The award ceremony took place during the Truckload Carriers Association’s annual
convention. TCA managed PTDI until a few months ago.
The award is sponsored by Cengage Learning of New York.
Antonik recently retired as the department chair of the Commercial Transportation
Program at Delaware Technical Community College. He has been active with PTDI for many
years, and is currently serving as PTDI’s certification commission chair, board member, and
secretary while the organization undergoes changes in management and governance.
Andrew Ouimet, associate marketing manager at Cengage Learning, bestowed the award.
“Mr. Antonik has taken it upon himself to learn every facet of the certification process
more than any other commissioner ever has,” Ouimet said. “My company supports the
training and development of truck drivers, and we are grateful to have someone like him
actively committed to quality educational instruction and administration. He is PTDI’s No. 1
cheerleader.”
Antonik began his career in the trucking industry as a tractor-trailer driver after serving
in the U.S. Air Force as a fire protection specialist.
“Chris has been invaluable in providing assistance to both prospective, as well as
existing schools seeking or renewing certification,” said PTDI Chairman David Money. “His
support of PTDI is, and has been, tireless since his initial introduction to the organization,
both as an administrator of a public school program with a PTDI-certified course, and as a
member and now chairman of the PTDI Certification Commission. He was also instrumental
in establishing PTDI’s relationship with and certification of CMV training programs of the
United States Air Force.”
The Crittenden Award is given to a person who exemplifies the overall mission of PTDI,
for which Lee Crittenden was a staunch supporter until his death in April 1998.
PTDI currently has certified entry-level training courses at 57 schools in 19 states,
Canada, and Germany.
TCA 2017 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 45

Mark Your
Calendar
MAy 2017
>> May 21-23 — 36th Annual Safety and Security Division Meeting,
Phoenix. Find more information at Truckload.org or contact TCA at (703)
838-1950.
JUNE 2017
>> June 12 — Independent Contractor and Open Deck Division
Meeting, Argosy Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri. Find more information at
Truckload.org or contact TCA at (703) 838-1950.
>> June 13-14 — 2nd Annual WorkForce Builders Conference, Argosy
Casino Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri. Find more information at Truckload.
org or contact TCA at (703) 838-1950.
JULY 2017
>> July 12-14 — 2017 Refrigerated Division Meeting, Hotel Talisa, Vail,
Colorado. Find more information at Truckload.org or contact TCA at (703)
838-1950.
Visit TCA’s Event Calendar Page
online at Truckload.org and click “Events.”
46 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2017

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