On the Road with Henry Albert

Hello everyone, I just  finished attending the fall Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association fall board meetings. It’s always nice to attend the board meetings and be surrounded by  people who care about the future of our industry.

This season, we had some special visitors and I would like to thank them for taking time out of their busy schedules to attend. First, we were addressed by Jack Van Steenburg, director of the FMSCA Office of Enforcement and Compliance. Jack listened to our concerns with a very open mind. One of the points  he understood  was how long dock delays contribute to driver fatigue.

Some other attendees included our Lobbiest Rod Nofzinger, Mike Joyce and Laura O’Neill. These folks gave us a report on upcoming issues from Washington DC. Each spoke of our industry moving in a positive direction in the future. I ask  that each of you take time to contact your lawmakers when issues  affect our way of making a living. It’s very important that our voice is heard on capital hill.  The lobbyist can only educate our representatives to a  point, then it’s up to us. It’s  our responsibility to let the lawmakers know how we feel and are affected by the laws before they’re put into place. You can find out about the trucking issues by going to www.ooida.com.

We also had Paul Yurkovac, public relations/project coordinator for the owner operators coalition of Virginia. He discussed issues affecting drayage truckers who pull intermodal containers from the ports of Virginia. His association is new. However, he is off to a fantastic start representing this sector of our industry. You can find out more information by going to their website at www.oocva.org. 

Finally, we had Mellissa Clausen, Dave Siler and Miguel Soetaert from Freightliner and Detroit Diesel. They made  a presentation for the board of directors. The new “Coronado” was shown and the details of SCR were discussed. I believe that many of the fears as to how SCR operates were put to rest. I also know that Mellissa, Dave and Miguel left impressed by the way the board meetings are conducted. I think it was important for the board members of OOIDA to hear about issues regarding regulations. Such as, EPA mandates, California laws and other government regulations. For me, it’s been a very informative and productive week . As always, I enjoyed my time in Grain Valley, MO. Be safe, until next time…

          Henry

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 4, 2009 at 7:22 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.