many women still find themselves in women-dominated
fields, such as human resources, where there are not objective measurements. Unfortunately, until women move into
operations with line positions, they will never make it into
the front office.
QIt is no secret that truckers face significant regulatory headwinds on various fronts. Does this reflect aggressive policies of this administration, or was this bound to
happen regardless of who occupied the White House?
A Most of trucking’s issues are on the political agenda, regardless of the party in power. This means energy,
environment, and safety. Many of the issues addressed by
the Obama administration such as truck driver hours of
service and CSA [the Compliance Safety and Accountability
initiative for rating drivers] began under Republican
administrations. But this administration always seems to
“balance” the scales against business, and by extension,
trucking. In essence, this administration likes employees,
not employers.
QThe Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) was heavily criticized for basing its new
hours-of-service rule not on good science or economics,
but on politics. Congress has now taken steps to ensure that
the agency’s proposals on driver sleep apnea will be part of
a rulemaking and not take the form of guidelines that
might not require it to use hard numbers to justify its
actions. Does this mark a turning point in Congress’s recognition of industry concerns that safety regulations have
become too onerous and threaten its viability?
A No. What it does is address the industry’s concerns that this wasn’t going to be handled through a formal
rulemaking. FMCSA originally wanted to issue “guidelines”
on sleep apnea and not go through the regular rulemaking
process. Guidelines result in a continuously moving target,
subjecting the carriers to heavy-handed enforcement and
ultimately resulting in the courts’ codifying the decision
through litigation. In essence, guidelines sidestep the
process of vigorous debate among all participants and don’t
require the agencies to do real cost-benefit analysis. At least
under a rulemaking, the agencies have to disclose their
analysis, no matter how flawed.
QCan you describe Driver iQ, and how it came into being?
A Driver iQ is a background screening company dedicat- ed to the transportation industry, and specifically
trucking. It was the brainchild of Billie Lee, who had been
the president of DAC Services for 14 years before it was sold
to USIS and then to HireRight [both background screening
firms]. She wanted to know if I thought the trucking industry was ready for a competitor in this space. I said an opportunity did exist and that I wanted to be involved if she were
serious. We spent several years building a business model
and working with industry leaders to see if they’d support it.
The feedback was positive, and we launched in April 2011.
The key to successfully providing background screening
for the trucking industry is to have a database of driver termination records related to employment, accidents, and
substance use and abuse. We have 22 of the top 25 truckload
carriers supplying, or in the process of supplying, driver
