36 Oregon Trucking Association, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch Women in Trucking, cont. “I really believe that women have a lot to offer in terms of both their perspective and also their capabilities,” said Diane. “From a historical perspective, it was not uncommon to see women in dispatch and customer service roles. Now I think you’re seeing more women engaged in the operational side of trucking.” Diane DeAutremont – Lile International Companies Growing up around her father’s trucking company, Lile International Companies, Diane DeAutremont never fully understood what a complicated industry trucking was. Today, Diane is the second-generation owner of Lile and appreciates what she calls the “interesting and challenging environment” of her company’s day-to-day operations. Growing up, Diane worked at Lile in the summers doing packing and work in the office, before taking a full-time role at the company in her mid-20s working in dispatch in Tacoma. She says her experience working in operations helped her to learn about and better understand the business and is grateful that’s where her father positioned her at the start of her trucking career. “In what I do on a daily basis, understanding how the work gets done, both the right process to get it done efficiently and at a level of quality our customers require, is really important,” said Diane. “Especially in a corporate environment, it’s really hard for people in accounting or another department to understand the different pieces that come to play in the process, so I often encourage people to think about not just the piece in the middle, but also where you start and where you end up and everything that has to happen in between.” Diane says that there are more women in trucking today than there were when she first started working at Lile, which she thinks helps add depth to the industry and perhaps a little different perspective. “I really believe that women have a lot to offer in terms of both their perspective and also their capabilities,” said Diane. “From a historical perspective, it was not uncommon to see women in dispatch and customer service roles. Now I think you’re seeing more women engaged in the operational side of trucking.” Lile has a handful of women who are crew leads and most of Diane’s executive team is made up of women. She believes there are a lot of opportunities for women in trucking and encourages women to join the industry and bring their unique perspective to trucking.
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