Do you have your PPE on? Are you wearing nitrile gloves as you turn the pages of this magazine? What, someone sneezed? I’m outta here!

Admittedly, the first thing to come to mind as I sat to draft the Chairman’s Corner was, “What sorcery is this?” Did you ever think there would be a time in the history of trucking where we suddenly became the unsung heroes — again?

I find it perplexing that with each crisis, i.e., hurricane relief, floods or other natural disasters, the trucking industry steps up, and we’re the heroes. I may be an opinion of one here, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that our industry served, and continues to serve, as this nation’s hero on a daily basis. I suppose it’s much like what we were always taught growing up, “You don’t miss something until you realize it’s gone.” Well, we’re not gone — we’re here to stay! And to that point, people should find solace in the fact that the trucking industry will always have their back, and our industry will always reveal next level leadership in everything we do.

By way of anything new, there has not been much movement on the legislative side of the organization. Our President, Rick Taylor, will address this more specifically within the following pages of the magazine.

The KTA board of directors did hold our first quarter board meeting recently in Frankfort back in March. The board meeting was held in conjunction with the trucking industry’s day at the capitol program. We do extend a huge thank-you to Don Hayden, President of M & M Cartage, for supplying this year’s tractor and for making sure the KTA trailer was parked by the Capitol for legislature’s, members of the media, and the public to view.

If there is one thing consistent about business, it’s the inconsistent dynamics of business. Great leaders can navigate turbulent business climates just as well as they can sail a calm sea of activity. Often, they use those frenetic circumstances to capitalize and strip away the competition. Sure, some of the successes that come from chaos are pure luck, but once you dig into the stories, you find out there were intentional, key decisions that launched the team to exponential success (Daum, 2019).

Within the trucking industry, and I speak of the Kentucky carriers with which I’m familiar with, I would attest the leadership within those carriers have found themselves making decisions far outside the realm of normalcy. Often in perilous situations, industries find themselves making knee-jerk decisions without the facts. In knowing the carriers of our association, it is a breath of fresh air to know decisions made in the past several weeks have been those with the safety of employees first, including the continuity of their businesses. That, in my book, is the pinnacle of leadership in the trucking industry.