4 Oregon Trucking Association, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch FROM THE PRESIDENT Jana Jarvis AS 2024 COMES to an end and I reflect on both the progress we’ve made and the challenges we’ve faced this year, I was reminded of a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, who said, “You must do the things you think you cannot do.” That simple statement describes the journey that we have been on for all of 2024— After surviving the prolonged economic shutdown resulting from the pandemic with our membership and programming intact, OTA joined the rest of the country in facing the inevitable challenges that the post-pandemic, two-year recession brought to Oregon’s economy. We saw a number of our members go out of business, and many of our longtime active members had to refocus their energy on their businesses instead of on association activities. In the association world, declining membership and increasing costs are a dangerous combination that have the potential to lead to reduced member benefits and member participation. And yet, despite the economic and regulatory challenges we have faced, as I reflect on what we have accomplished this year, and what we need to focus on as we prepare for 2025, I am incredibly proud of the work our OTA team has put in to expanding our member offerings in 2024 This year, we expanded our training programs and had record participation in our Fleet Safety and Fleet Maintenance programs that continue to better prepare your teams for the challenges ahead. We continue to offer virtual training to other states, most recently adding the Idaho Trucking Association to that list. And we were selected by the State of Oregon to provide the New Carrier Education program to every newly registered trucking company in Oregon which has allowed us to not only help them succeed but also exposed them to OTA’s offerings. Training has been and will continue to be a priority for OTA. You recently received a brochure of our training offerings in the member packets that were mailed to the primary contact in your company—I encourage you to take a moment to peruse this and reach out to us if there is something you need that is not on the list! Hopefully you have heard by now that we were able to secure for our members a substantial discount through our SAIF Workers’ Compensation Program. Our team has worked for years to negotiate for our members a program with SAIF and I am proud to share that this coming year we are offering a 10 percent discount to OTA members who qualify for our program. Talk to your broker to see if you qualify and help us spread the message to those who aren’t OTA members. The more participation, the better the program will get! We continued to host our ever-popular annual member events including the Southern Oregon Mixer, our Truck Driving Championship, our Spring Safety Conference, our Annual Leadership Convention and our Maintenance Fair. All of these events create the opportunity for members like you to learn, network, and invest in your employees. We will continue to provide first-rate programming to make your investment worthwhile. We also delivered box lunches to drivers during National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, expanding our program to five weigh stations across the state. Thank you to those who contributed to this program both financially and by showing up to help—the surprise and thank-yous we see from drivers always makes this one of my favorite events of the year. We also invested in our association. We brought in a new database and updated our website allowing us to better communicate with you, our members. Take a moment to update your contact information if you haven’t in a while so that our outreach to you doesn’t get caught up in your spam filter! Member participation has also been a goal of our Board of Directors, so we expanded our committee offerings and continue to do outreach for committee participation. We also added new members to our Board of Directors. If you would like a say in what OTA is offering, or doing, get involved! There are lots of different ways for you to participate, but volunteering for one of our committees helps the industry, the association, and your business. One of our most critical committees is our Government Affairs Committee, which works closely with our advocacy team in Salem on policies that have the potential to significantly impact our industry. As many of you already know, 2024 was a challenging year for our industry on the government affairs front. In January, we sued the State of Oregon over the inequity in our trucking tax rates when it became clear that we were overpaying in excess of 32 percent and the legislature declined to fix it. The lawsuit is ongoing, but its existence ensures that the voice of trucking has an even greater voice in the transportation discussions that are already underway to pass a new transportation package during the 2025 legislative session. Ahead of the introduction of that package, this summer, the Joint Transportation Committee (JCT) held Reflecting on Growth in the Face of Existential Challenges in 2024 and for the last few years.
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