NEWS IN BRIEF, Continued from page 11
meeting that regulators “certainly understand the restart (change) has had an unintended negative impact on [the] industry.” However, the agency has no plan to address that negative impact — a productivity loss of 3 to 5 percent. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, intro-
duced legislation that would suspend the new 34-hour restart requirement for a year and require the FMCSA to study the impact of the restart changes on truck operations, highway safety and driver health. Two days after the amendment to a federal appropriations bill passed a Senate appropriations com- mittee in June, a Walmart truck was involved in a crash killing and injur- ing two high profile comedians. The crash and its media coverage triggered the truck driver fatigue debate all over again. The Senate has not yet voted on
the amendment, but it could still be revived, Byrd said. “We’re not letting go of that.”
2014 TMC SUPERTECH The 10th annual SuperTech was
held September 22-24 during TMC’s fall meeting at the Dolphin Resort at Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Mark McLean Jr., a FedEx Freight technician from New York, finished as grand champion for the second year in a row. McLean and other competitors
were lavished with tools, merchandise and gift-card prizes. McLean and the two runners-up, also FedEx Freight technicians, will get to attend Nascar races during next year’s season. Prizes were also awarded to the
winners of the 15 skills stations. Arkansas’ own Eric Rusk, McKee Foods Transportation, earned the top score at the HVAC station. The Technology & Maintenance
Council’s SuperTech competition recog- nizes and improves technicians’ skills, which is why big fleets back the pro-
12
gram so solidly and why their mechan- ics win every year. Mike Delaney, president of the
WheelTime network of service shops, interviewed maintenance managers on why they participate in the annual technician event. Delaney looked for answers to two questions: “One: How has SuperTech impacted the way you train and develop technicians? Two: What business results can you attribute directly to your SuperTech efforts?” Maintenance managers from
participating carriers said their com- panies now select and train techs like SuperTech does, including using cer- tification tests from ASE, a national automotive testing organization. Techs who have competited help train younger colleagues and act as mentors. This increases everyone’s knowledge and betters their performance, Delaney reported. “Winning at SuperTech today
means diagnosing more complexity, more accurately and more quickly than ever before. It means knowing – not thinking – that your trucks won’t come back. And it means taking team-based leadership to new professional levels
to guide the next generation of techs. Ten years after inception, SuperTech is changing the way companies are doing business,” Delaney said.
BENTLEY NAMED NEW TCA PRESIDENT
Trucking pub- Bentley
lishing-executive Brad Bentley has been selected as the new president of the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA). He will suc- ceed Chris Burruss,
who resigned in June due to personal reasons. The search committee, led by TCA
Chairman Shepard Dunn, reviewed more than 100 applicants over the sum- mer. After narrowing the candidates to a “short list” and conducting inter- views, Bentley’s name was presented to the Executive Committee. Bentley relo- cated from Alabama to the Washington, D.C. area and began working for TCA full-time in mid-October. When Dunn notified the mem-
ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 5 2014
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