SPOTLight CHANGING OPINIONS TXTA Foundation commits $50,000 to trucking image campaign
BY JENNIFER BARNETT REED Contributing Writer
Public misperceptions about the
trucking industry and truck drivers have been a growing problem for decades. Now, for the first time, organizations from all segments of the industry — including the Texas Trucking Association — are coming together to do something about it. The Trucking Moves America
Forward campaign officially kicked off in March at the Mid-America Trucking Show. It’s a cooperative effort involving the American Trucking Associations (ATA), the Allied Committee for the Trucking Industry (ACT 1), the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), state trucking associations, carriers and other national and local organizations related to the trucking industry. The group has been working together for close to two years to develop a public relations push with the ultimate goal of educating citizens and policy makers about the importance of the trucking industry to the economy, and about the industry’s progress in the areas of safety and environmental sustainability. “It truly is an industry-wide program,”
said Elisabeth Barna, ATA’s liaison to the TruckingMoves America Forward coordi- nating group. “We had a group of allied
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members, ACT 1, TCA and ATA involved in the development and foundation of the pro- gram, and then we’ve gotten a number of other segments of the industry involved. They’re supporting the effort financially or through in-kind donations, or just joining the movement and using the logo.” In November, the Texas Trucking
Association (TXTA) Foundation, the non- profit arm of TXTA, committed $50,000 over the next five years to the campaign. It is the largest contribution from a state trucking association to date. “Part of our mission is to fund educa-
tional and community service programs to enhance the understanding of and image of the Texas trucking industry,” said TXTA Foundation Chairman DaveMusgraves. “We are proud to be a part of this long over- due campaign to change public opinion and demonstrate that trucking is vital to provid- ing the American standard of living.” The origins of the TMAF movement
go back to the fall of 2012, when ACT 1 approached Mike Card, then chairman of ATA. ATA hosted a meeting of initial stakeholders in January 2013 to kick off work on the idea, and in May 2013, the group used seed money provided by ACT 1 to hire a public affairs agency called Story Partners to implement the campaign. The agency conducted focus groups and other research into ways the trucking industry
could improve its image, said Jeff Mason, ATA’s executive vice president for commu- nications and public affairs. Different groups within the trucking
industry are usually cooperative, but the TMAF campaign takes that cooperation to a new level, “For the first time, OOIDA has been working very closely with industry groups like ATA,” Mason said. “We shared a stage with them for the first time to announce the campaign. That really showed our unity. We’re trying to keep from branding the campaign as one group — anyone can use the campaign and add it to their signatures online, or attach their logo to it and use it for their website.” TMAF has three primary target audi-
ences, Barna said: policy makers such as legislators and government officials; the general public; and, just as importantly, the trucking industry itself. “How can we sell something if we
don’t believe in it?” Barna said. “You’ll hear a driver say ‘I’m just a truck driver,’ or a CEO will say ‘I’m in transportation,’ instead of using the word trucking. We need to build pride within our own chan- nels too.” One of the main strategies of the
movement is to put a human face on the trucking industry by finding and telling the stories of individual drivers, techni- cians and others. TMAF will be traveling
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