After two days, and more than 1.4 million steps, a team of America’s Road Team Captains won the American Trucking Associations Healthy Trucker Challenge at the ATA Management Conference & Exhibition October 17-20 in Philadelphia PA.
“This challenge was a fun way to bring attention to truck driver health by taking an everyday activity that we take for granted, walking, and making it into a competition,” said America’s Road Team Captain Herschel Evans, a professional driver with Holland, who took a competition-best 75,320 steps.
The America’s Road Team Captains successfully defended their title as Healthy Trucker Challenge Champions that they previously won at the 2014 MCE. All told, ATA’s leadership, the America’s Road Team, and attendees walked, jogged, or ran 1,472,486 steps--equating to 736 miles and burning an estimated 67,734 calories. The Captains each took an average of 15,943 steps per day to win the challenge.
“The America’s Road Team Captains are real go-getters and they were tough to keep up with” said ATA Chairman Pat Thomas, senior vice-president of state government affairs at UPS Inc. “But I think everyone who participated learned a lot about how important it is to stay active and how we can emphasize that to our colleagues throughout the industry.”
The challenge consisted of former ATA Chairman Phil Byrd, Bulldog Hiway Express; Kevin Burch, Jet Express: Dave Manning, TCW; Barry Pottle, Pottle’s Transportation; and Sherri Garner Brumbaugh, Garner Transportation. The ATA leadership team was up against the steps of 20 America’s Road Team Captains and the challenge consisted of averaging each team members’ steps per day.
“This challenge brings attention to one of the most important issues our industry faces--the health and wellbeing of our professional truck drivers and their families,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “At the end of the day, health and safety are our biggest priorities in this industry, so emphasizing those two items at MCE will have lasting effects on trucking.”
Additionally, Garth Pitzel from Bison Transport led the way for the attendees for a second straight year and won a complimentary registration for the 2016 MCE in Las Vegas NV.
“The ATA Healthy Trucker Challenge was once again a fun and engaging way to get everyone moving--together”, said Glenn Caldwell, vice-president of corporate development at Healthy Trucker. “Small changes to lifestyle--like this challenge--have a positive compounding effect over the long term. It was amazing to see how many America’s Road Team Captains kept up their steps in our ongoing challenge after last year’s event. Based on the America’s Road Team's success and enthusiasm so far this year, I expect we'll have some more incredible success stories from them by next year's conference.”