Don Welchoff is the executive vice president of sales and logistics for the Roadmaster Group
The American Trucking Associations recently urged the Department of Defense to examine how military freight is awarded and moved. Its letter described shipments that reached providers who lacked the operating authority, the insurance, the equipment or the asset capacity to handle them responsibly. The concerns it raises are legitimate, and they deserve a serious response.
Having spent more than three decades in this industry, and having built a company that moves munitions and sensitive freight for the Department of Defense every day, I would offer one addition to a debate that tends to concentrate on contracts and awards: The award itself settles very little.
A tender identifies the transportation service provider awarded the freight. By itself, it does not establish which carrier arrives at the dock, which driver takes the wheel or whether the shipment remains in qualified hands through delivery. For sensitive military freight, those details are central to security and readiness.
Qualification has to be verified, not assumed
Transporting munitions bears little resemblance to ordinary freight hauling. Before a carrier may move this cargo, it must satisfy a demanding set of conditions: security clearances, facility clearances, drivers who have been individually vetted and cleared, and equipment and communications systems certified to a government standard. That standard is rigorous by design, and the threshold for meeting it is deliberately high.
The scale of that vetting is worth understanding. At our company, roughly one applicant in a hundred can meet the clearance and background requirements this work demands. Across the country, only a small number of carriers are approved to transport munitions for the Department of Defense at all.
Qualification also cannot be treated as a one-time approval.
A carrier’s authority, insurance, equipment and ability to perform have to be verified against the particular load it accepts, because a company can present one profile in its registration and operate under another on the road. When a provider is awarded several specialized shipments in a single day without anyone confirming it owns suitable equipment, whether it can actually perform is a question that should be answered before those loads move. A standard that no one reconciles against real capability protects no one.
Where visibility is lost
The vulnerabilities tend to concentrate at a few predictable points along the move.
At pickup, the shipping activity should reconcile the awarded carrier against the truck, equipment, driver and documents presented at the dock. The name on the door should match the paperwork, and the driver should be vetted, licensed for the specific cargo and cleared for the installation receiving it. Any discrepancy needs to be resolved before the freight is released.
In transit, the responsible parties need to know who holds custody of the shipment and whether an equipment change, a driver change or a lapse in insurance has altered the approved plan. Tracking a trailer’s location helps, but location alone does not establish who controls it.
At delivery, the carrier and shipment records should reconcile with the party that actually completed the move. Without that final check, a shipment can arrive on time while a break in accountability goes unnoticed.
None of these checks are complicated. They are skipped more often than they should be, and with freight this sensitive, a skipped check is the moment control is lost.
In my experience, the commercial sector often manages the process more diligently than observers assume. When freight carries real value or sensitivity, a disciplined shipper verifies the carrier, verifies the driver and confirms the particulars before anything departs the dock. That same discipline belongs in the movement of government freight.
What a credible standard looks like
At Tri-State, our operation is built around control and accountability. We move munitions in accordance with the government’s published standards, with cleared drivers and certified equipment. We maintain secure staging locations across the country, so that a sensitive shipment facing a delay can be brought into a protected facility rather than left exposed in public view. Our national footprint allows us to scale for government and commercial customers alike without compromising on security.
I point to our own practices only as an example of the standard that should apply to everyone entrusted with this freight.
Assigning clear accountability
The remedy is not complex. On every sensitive shipment, four conditions should be confirmed before the freight moves
- That the carrier is qualified;
- That it possesses the required equipment;
- That it is properly insured and compliant; and
- That the driver has been vetted and cleared.
The means to verify each of these already exist. What remains absent is a clearly designated owner responsible for ensuring the verification occurs, rather than the obligation dissolving among the many parties who touch a load in transit.
Military freight sustains the people who depend on it, and it travels the same highways the rest of us use. Delivering it on time and intact is a component of readiness. Ensuring that the right carrier and the right driver are the ones moving it is where that work begins.
Don Welchoff has more than 25 years of experience in executive, operations, and commercial leadership. He is currently executive vice president overseeing sales and logistics for the Roadmaster Group. Don has been with the company for over 16 years and is a seasoned transportation industry professional.
