Operations

NPTC honors high achievers/contributors at conference opener

April 29, 2012

Cincinnati, OH. The annual National Private Truck Council Education Management Conference and Exhibition opened here in Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon. One of the first orders of business was to honor the achievements of members and their employees over the past year, including recognizing those who successfully completed the rigorous Certified Transportation Professional (CTP) program.

Sixty-nine graduates were recognized—a record number for a single class. Fleet Owner, which sponsors the Top CTP Graduate Award, was on hand to present it to Joey Wood, platinum customer manager for PeopleNet.

Wood told Fleet Owner that he did not expect to graduate at the top of his class, but that he is proud of the CTP certification. “The training is valued by PeopleNet and its customers,” he noted. “Those CTP initials really mean something. They give you more credibility.”

Gary Petty, president and CEO of NPTC, and Tom Moore, NPTC vice president, education, thanked the 37 companies that are part of the Five-Star Member program dedicated to raising financial support for the training and certification offerings at NPTC through its educational subsidiary, the NPTC Institute.

The audience also gave a thunderous standing ovation to keynote speaker, Merril Hoge of Pittsburgh Steelers fame and author of the book, “Find a Way.” “Live by what you trust and know to be true, not by what you fear,” Hoge said after describing his treatment for Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2003. “Find a way,” has been his guiding philosophy since the age of 12, he noted, when he began to work toward his goal of playing football for the NFL.

This year’s conference is off to a strong start, Petty told Fleet Owner. More than 1,000 people are registered to attend, including representatives from 130 fleets and over 150 allied suppliers. The number of exhibitors (173) is also record-breaking. “We believe this is the largest conference in our history,” Petty said. NPTC began in 1939.

Gary L. Strausbaugh, vice president, transportation for The Mennel Milling Company, assumed the chairmanship of the NPTC Board for a two-year term from Rick Foster, senoir director, fleet safety for Wal-Mart Transportation, LLC.

About the Author

Wendy Leavitt

Wendy Leavitt joined Fleet Owner in 1998 after serving as editor-in-chief of Trucking Technology magazine for four years.

She began her career in the trucking industry at Kenworth Truck Company in Kirkland, WA where she spent 16 years—the first five years as safety and compliance manager in the engineering department and more than a decade as the company’s manager of advertising and public relations. She has also worked as a book editor, guided authors through the self-publishing process and operated her own marketing and public relations business.

Wendy has a Masters Degree in English and Art History from Western Washington University, where, as a graduate student, she also taught writing.