ATA president says tough times still ahead for industry

Bill Graves, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations, delivers his state of the industry address at the organization's annual meeting this morning in New Orleans. (The Trucker/Kevin Jones)

By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff

10/6/2008

NEW ORLEANS — There’s just no getting around it — things are not going well for the trucking industry.

That’s the bottom line assessment of Bill Graves, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations.

Making his annual state of the industry address this morning to delegates at the association’s annual Management Conference and Exhibition under way here, Graves noted that typically a president or governor would begin such as address by declaring that the state of things at hand were somewhere from good to great, whether in fact they actually were.

Graves said as he prepared his remarks, he thought about highlighting some of his organization’s accomplishments such as legislative victories, legal battles won or new programs.

“But I knew regardless of those things I was able to rattle off, the fact would still be the facts: things are not going well for our industry and we face some awfully tough times in the near future,” Graves told delegates. “With war and unrest throughout many parts of the world as a backdrop, unimaginable record fuel prices have hit us hard and the hits just keep coming.”

Graves said those included the economic slowdown, the collapse in consumer confidence, new regulatory requirements and the political uncertainty facing the country.

“And I’m not confident anyone knows if we’ve yet bottomed out, and if and when we do, how long it will take before anything close to an economic recovery will occur,” he said.

But he quickly called on the industry to step forward.

“There are two types of people,” he said. “There are those willing to accept the world as it is, and there are those who work to make it a better place. The very nature of our industry makes us the latter.”

Graves noted that the trucking industry works every day to ensure that people in the smallest cities and the farthest corners of the country have food, medicine, clothes and other consumer goods “that contributed to the quality of life we enjoy in the U.S., a quality of life that makes us the envy of others around the globe.”

Graves called on the industry to pull together to overcome the hardships it now is facing. He tied the efforts of the industry during Hurricane Katrina three years ago and the need to work together to have a plan for the uncertain times ahead.

“New Orleans recovery has been a remarkable journey,” he said, “a journey that started with more than 1,600 trucks hauling over 3,700 truckloads of food, water and other essentials into the city. No other mode was even remotely responsible for helping this city back on its feet.”

One of the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina is “how effective we can be when we partner together,” Graves said. “Our industry came together and helped this city through the initial rescue, then the recovery and now the rebuilding. This is the same fundamental strategy for ATA success in policy and regulatory advocacy that we have been promoting for years.”

The conference continues through Tuesday night.