ASSOCIATION INSIGHTS:
TCA Below is an excerpt from the latest issue of Truckload Authority magazine, in which TCA President Jim Ward discussed his first nine months in his new role, and what’s ahead for TCA in 2023.
Author: Lyndon Finney
Question: This may seem like a simple question — but then again, maybe not. In today’s business environment, what is the importance of a trade association, and how is the TCA meeting the obligations of a trade association?
Answer: We provide educational and certification offerings in all aspects of the trucking business, such as safety and risk management, fleet management, technician supervisory training, driver training and development, and benchmarking. In addition, we serve as the ‘voice of truckload’ with the nation’s legislators. All of these are our strengths and are key to our member value proposition. TCA’s Truckload Academy and North American Transportation Management Institute provide the educational offerings in current demand from our members, and we continue to expand these offerings.
Question: You’ve been in office now for about nine months. Looking back over that time, what have been your most valuable accomplishments?
Answer: We, the staff, officers, and member sponsors, have completed a thorough review of the TCA Driver of the Year Program, resulting in a much-improved driver recognition award. Our TCA Profitability Program is in transition to store member’s data, and produce the groups composite inside TCA. We returned to basics for our Refrigerated Meeting and focused the sessions and speakers solely on the refrigerated business. Finally, we held our first TCA Past Chairmans event, hosted by Robert Low, at the Palace in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Question: Two of your most visible achievements at TCA have been changes to structure of the annual convention and the Professional Drivers of the Year contest. What was the reasoning behind those enhancements?
Answer: TCA is determined to deliver the highest-quality educational sessions and industry information available through our industry experts and for C-suite level
attendees at our annual meeting. We can all learn from each other, and so we are seeking out those individuals to share their experiences, thoughts, and ideas with members on how best to prepare to navigate the road ahead. Our members input during our policy committee meetings provide us with the necessary guidance and direction to help us align our limited resources to better serve them. Because of this, we have scheduled the meetings so everyone can attend and provide their insight.
We are not advocating that everyone gets an award, but the committee that led the changes to the TCA Professional Drivers of the Year Awards Program wanted to move away from awarding just one first-place winner to recognizing five professional drivers as TCA’s Class of 2023 — all winners, with something substantial as a prize, like a check for $20,000 each. We hope everyone will plan to join us in Orlando in March for this year’s event!
Question: Looking to 2023, what are the three most critical issues the industry must address?
Answer: Workforce challenges have been — and will continue to be — at the forefront of every discussion, so seeking ways to bring new entrants into the industry in the future will be an ongoing
opportunity. It is obvious that transitioning away from the internal combustion engine as we know it today, is going to continue to be a priority inside the beltway. We will need to keep an open mind, remain engaged, and make sure that, as the industry transitions to future technology, the timelines for implementation are reasonable and attainable. Finally, maintaining the image, the essentiality of trucking, we have come to enjoy during and following the COVID-19 pandemic will take all of us working together to make sure it doesn’t fade away.
Question: In closing, you’ve been intimately involved in the trucking industry for a long period of time. How is the industry different than it was 10 years ago and what’s ahead in the years to come?
Answer: Technology has changed the industry immensely over the past 10 years and will continue to do so. It has provided quality data to the industry to use in decision-making and has removed a lot of unnecessary emotion out of the day-to-day between all parties — carrier, shipper, and driver relationship. I believe Moore’s Law, which posited technology will double in improvement roughly every 24 months, is a principle that is alive and well in our industry today.
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