TransWest's director of training grew the safety culture with a passion for others' success
Key takeaways
- Kim Corona’s career spans multiple industries, including accounting, cosmetology, and transportation, showcasing her versatile skill set and passion for teaching.
- Her rapid promotion at TransWest from site manager to director highlights her leadership abilities and dedication to company growth and safety culture.
- Corona developed a comprehensive 10-point safety training system and overhauled CDL training, significantly reducing training time and increasing pass rates.
- She implemented innovative safety initiatives like Drive to Zero and blindspot training, emphasizing continuous improvement and driver safety.
- A strong believer in confidence-building and personal connections, Corona actively mentors her team and promotes a supportive, collaborative work environment.
Kim Corona can’t talk about her job without lighting up; the passion exudes through her. But her journey to her role as the director of training, safety, and compliance at Washington-based fleet TransWest includes careers in different industries, a love of teaching, and a desire to see people succeed.
Corona entered the workforce in accounting, where she eventually taught others how to do their taxes. She calls that her “right-brain,” or analytical, work. Later, she decided to do hair, which led to a job as a cosmetology and esthetician instructor. This is her “left-brain,” or creative, work. Before her job at TransWest, she drove a school bus. The experience she gained here provided her with practical knowledge of the world of professional driving. But it is all thanks to her softball league that Corona is able to use her left- and right-brain skills coupled with her CDL knowledge and love of teaching at TransWest.
When one of her softball teammates learned she had a CDL, he recruited her to work for his transportation company, TransWest. It took very little time for her managers to see something more. By day 30 on the job, Corona had been promoted to site manager, tasked with hiring drivers for the growing company.
“I was like, ‘OK, I can do that,’” Corona said, “and I just took on the task.”
A growing leader, a growing company
Under Corona’s leadership as site manager, the location’s fleet grew from four vehicles to 28 within a year. Even when TransWest hired an experienced operations manager, Kyle Brown, to oversee multiple locations, he never critiqued Corona’s management. When she asked for feedback, he told her: “It seems like things are going well. You don't seem to need my help.” To Corona, that was a testament to the leadership she was building within herself and among her team.
“It was a huge moment for me because I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This is my boss, and he really believes in what I'm doing,’” Corona said.
Soon, she was promoted to operations manager at a larger TransWest facility, working directly with Brown, who became her mentor. Eventually, Brown left the company for another opportunity, and shortly after his departure, the adversity came, Corona remembers.
“It was scary for me because it was the first time I didn't have that person to lean on, who had taught me so much, and [TransWest] had grown by leaps and bounds,” Corona recalled. “So, when COVID happened, just trying to keep all that together … I would call him for support, even though he didn't work here. So, he continued to mentor me from afar.”
Corona shared that perhaps the best advice Brown gave her was simply, “Don’t doubt yourself."
“I think just giving me the pep talk, the ‘you can do it,’ just gives you that confidence to continue to move forward,” she said.
Building a safety culture
As her mentor, Brown’s years of transportation experience helped shape Corona’s understanding and knowledge of safety and compliance, unlocking a passion within her for the meticulous details involved in transportation compliance. Corona's newfound passion for safety and the analytical side of transportation complemented her natural leadership skills and her “right-brain” thinking, which led to her eventual rise to TransWest’s director of training, safety, and compliance.
It was under Corona’s leadership that TransWest’s current safety culture was built. She helped develop the company’s 10-point safety training, which essentially breaks down the Smith System’s five training focuses into a 10-point system. Corona also overhauled TransWest’s in-house CDL training. The program—which Corona describes as formerly having no standard operating procedure and no apparent CDL trainee benchmarks or goals—has proven successful.
“We took people that were spending three to six months [in CDL training], and they were getting through in four weeks,” Corona said. “Every single person we've sent to get tested has passed. Some people have taken [the test] two times, but every single person we've sent has actually passed their CDL test and gotten their CDL, which is huge.”
Corona also helped implement TransWest’s Drive to Zero initiative with the goal of seeing how many days individual drivers and the entire company can go with zero traffic incidents. In addition, she has recently implemented blindspot training. These trainings are constantly evolving to prevent drivers from becoming desensitized to the messaging and to keep safety at the forefront of their minds.
Recognizing others' needs helps bring success
Today, it’s impossible to miss Corona’s confidence and self-assuredness when having a conversation with her, but it wasn’t always like that, she said. Building her confidence and belief in herself took time, and having others, like Brown, simply remind her that she could do it. Now, as a woman in a male-dominated industry and from her drive to see others succeed, she wants to return the favor to all the other “underdogs” in the industry—both the women and the men.
“Transportation is transient,” Corona said, acknowledging that many drivers hop from one job to the next. “You see a lot of people who maybe just don't have a lot, or this [job] could change their life, and I want to see that happen.”
Corona aims to motivate others by simply asking them what it is they need to be successful and preventing them from self-sabotaging a good opportunity. She shared an example of a driver who told her he was “always late” when they first met. Immediately, she told him to change his mindset; telling himself he will always be late is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But telling himself he’ll be on time can be a self-fulfilling prophecy as well.
“That gentleman worked for me for five years—he was late one time,” Corona said. “He always was like, ‘I'll never forget that conversation.’”
In some way, Corona gives this special attention to everyone at TransWest. She works hard to learn the names of each individual who walks through the doors and makes assessments of what they might need to succeed by simple observations and “reading people.” Corona calls this her superpower.
“There's so many people out there that have absolutely zero confidence in themselves … It’s just trying to build that up,” Corona said. “It's walking through the break room and saying ‘Hi’ to people and using their name. It's so simple. It's just connecting with people and giving them a reason to smile.”
Today, there are women on Corona’s team who tell her, “I want to be like you.” But she admits that she sees their talents and skills and looks at them in awe, too. What makes her team so successful is that they all practice “give and take” and have learned to collaborate. Where one team member shines in their industry experience, Corona coaches them with their communication skills.
It’s in recognizing and respecting individual talents and abilities that make Corona so good at what she does, and it’s the personal connections she’s built that make her an inspiration to others.
“I want people to succeed,” Corona reiterated. “I want to give them that help, prop them up, and send them forward.”
About the Author
Jade Brasher
Senior Editor Jade Brasher has covered vocational trucking and fleets since 2018. A graduate of The University of Alabama with a degree in journalism, Jade enjoys telling stories about the people behind the wheel and the intricate processes of the ever-evolving trucking industry.