School of Truck Doug Voss brings logistics lessons to University of Central Arkansas students
By Lacey Thacker Contributing Writer
In 2015, the College of Business at
the University of Central Arkansas was awarded a three million dollar grant from the Arkansas Commercial Truck Safety and Education Program to cre- ate a new major. This program comes at a time when the trucking industry faces a severe labor shortage. Dr. Doug Voss, associate professor of logistics and supply chain management at UCA, was key in the decision to apply for the grant. Now that’s it’s been awarded, he and his colleagues are excited to use the funds to make a lasting impact on the face of transportation education in Arkansas. It’s immediately clear why Voss
excels at recruiting students. On the walk to his office, he begins telling a story about a gecko that escaped in his college dorm room and was missing for weeks before being suddenly found by an unsuspecting visitor. His casual demeanor and anecdotal method of conveying information are a hit with students, as is his passion for the indus- try. It doesn’t hurt that he grew up in a complementary business, either.
GETTING HERE His grandfather started a heating
and air conditioning business which his father later took over. Voss spent much of his childhood helping with the busi- ness. “From the time I was 12 until I was 22 years old, I worked for my dad all summer, every summer, and half the time during the school year too. I spent all this time crawling in attics and
ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 5 2016
crawling under houses, carrying Freon drums and other stuff. I was raised in a somewhat similar environment to trucking, and so it’s just a natural fit and the students, I think, [can tell].” A native of Little Rock, Voss attend-
ed Hall High School before moving to Fayetteville to attend the University of Arkansas for his undergraduate degree. Though he briefly entertained the thought of forestry, he quickly decided that wouldn’t be a fit for his goals. On freshmen orientation day, his father pointed out that he would be asked to choose a major. “I said, ‘I think I wanna be an engineer.’ And Dad said, ‘Really? Well, son, do you like math?’ I said, ‘Dad, I hate math!’ He goes, well, you might think about marketing.” Voss is a born storyteller, and his contagious laughter at his own expense draws the listener in. He did think about marketing,
but in the end majored in transporta- tion and logistics. He worked in the trucking industry for a couple of years, and enjoyed it so much he returned to Fayetteville for a master’s degree, also in transportation and logistics. Voss had already moved and signed a lease on an apartment when, once again during stu- dent orientation, the other shoe fell. He was sitting next to Dr. John Ozment, a professor who was instrumental in Voss’ education, and who also served on the board of directors for the Arkansas Trucking Association for many years. “John leans over and goes, ‘Hey, Voss, I got you an assistantship.’ I was like, ‘What’s an assistantship?’ And he said, ‘Oh, you know, we’re gonna pay you like five-hundred dollars a month and we’ll
pay your tuition.’ And I said, ‘Oh, no! John, I didn’t even think about having to pay for tuition.’ And John said, ‘Well, I guess it’s a good thing I got it for you then, huh?’” It was a good thing. Voss com-
pleted his master’s and went straight to Michigan State, where he completed his PhD in logistics. From there, he went directly into a post-doctoral posi- tion for a year with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security to study food supply chain security, a par- ticularly hot topic at the time. In 2007, he was able to return to
Central Arkansas as a faculty member at UCA. Permanent classes on sup- ply chains were available beginning in 2007, but in 2010 it was made official—students majoring in market- ing or management could now get an emphasis in supply chain management. Though this was a step forward, there was still more to be done.
THE ACTSEP GRANT To do more requires more funding,
of which there is a shortage in higher education. This makes starting a new program, even a valuable one, difficult. “We had to make the decision as a uni- versity if this program was important enough for us to truly have a program or just kind of teach a couple classes in it. And, they did think it was important enough to have a true program, and so we went down to the trucking associa- tion and said, ‘Ok, here are the prob- lems we’re facing.’” Soon after, the College of Business was able to apply for a grant through
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