FAMILY: Wife, Lee Ann, and two boys ages 4 and 9. My wife is finishing her master’s degree to be a nurse practitioner. FAVORITE DRINK: Bud Light (or water—I drink a lot of water every day.) FAVORITE VACATION: Orange Beach, but I’d like to get to Fiji FAVORITE FOOD: Crawfish
our job is to overcome that and to start to expose the positive things that the industry does.”
BIG SHOES TO FILL The Arkansas Trucking Association’s
40 Under 40 council began in 2011 with the purpose of cultivating the next gen- eration of trucking leaders in Arkansas. The council has four meetings per year at varying locations around the state, where they hear from both industry professionals and experts from out- side the industry, all of whom provide some diversity of thought. Their most recent meeting in Ft. Smith featured Jason Turner, the vice president of tal- ent development and growth initiatives for Arcbest, who spoke about the char- acteristics of companies that have been around for a long time. Voss, who has been on the council
since its establishment, says it’s been an informative experience critical to build- ing the new major. “It’s provided lots of ways to get involved with the trucking
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association instead of [just] showing up to the conference every year and they’re like, who are you? Further, from the Association’s standpoint, I think it’s really valuable to teach the next genera- tion the value the Association provides to the trucking industry.” Voss has been peripherally aware of
the Arkansas Trucking Association since his days as an undergraduate, but it was when he began his time as a faculty member that he began to interact with them more directly. First, he was asked to join the 40 Under 40 council, but then in 2015, his old professor Dr. John Ozment retired from the University of Arkansas and left the ATA Board of Directors. “I was fortunate enough to take his place. He’s a fantastic dude. He did a lot for the Association. It’s big shoes to fill.” Big shoes, perhaps, but also reward-
ing. “It’s a fantastic organization that serves a lot of fantastic organizations with a lot of fantastic people. I think trucking and transportation logistics in
general is a very underappreciated field.” Voss’ awareness of the ATA and those it serves inform his teaching, resulting in classroom goals that line up with the goals of the ATA. When working with students, be it in teaching or recruit- ing, the first thing Voss tries to impart to his students is the value of the field. He often has them check the labels of their shirts to find out where the item was made. Students find that the major- ity of their garments were not made in America, which leads to students ask- ing how the item got here. “There’s this whole process that has to occur for these shirts to be made someplace else, to be shipped here, to get to the shelf to be on the shelf at the time that you want it to be there so you can show up and you can purchase this shirt, right? It doesn’t just magically happen.” It doesn’t magically happen, but
learning how it does occur will be only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the value the new program will provide. ATR
Issue 5 2016 | ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT
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