I have interviewed and profiled every National Tank Truck Carriers Professional Driver of the Year since becoming Bulk Transporter editor in 2020. I even wrote about all eight Champion Finalists my first year, when NTTC suspended the program due to Covid-19, and the candidates waited an extra year to see who won. So I know these are all elite tank truck drivers—and even more impressive people.
Still, I didn’t fully comprehend the difficulty of selecting a winner until now.
This year’s field of William A. Usher Sr. trophy candidates, which a panel of American Trucking Associations staff whittled to eight well-deserving finalists, featured Darrin Guillory, Custom Commodities Transport; Ed Heard, Highway Transport; Bruce Jones, G&D Trucking/Hoffman Transportation; Michael Key, Kenan Advantage Group; Travis King, ADM Trucking; Jwill Kosier, SWTO; Heath Leitzke, Groendyke Transport; and Mark Schroyer, Grammer Logistics. Together, they boast over 17 million career miles.
Heard and Schroyer are repeat finalists, so I knew a little about them. Heard worked in law enforcement for 26 years before switching careers and Schroyer is a past president of the American Truck Historical Society (ATHS). But before traveling to Arlington, Virginia, to participate in the judging process for the first time, I didn’t know Heard’s son, Jazton Heard, is the assistant chief of police for the Missouri City Police Department, or that ATHS’s scholarship is named for Schroyer’s dad, George Schroyer.
In other words, these are high-character folks from first-class families.
While celebrating at the Chart House, and conferring in a boardroom at the Westin Arlington Gateway hotel, I also learned Guillory lost three fingers intervening in a domestic violence incident; Jones is a former Marine who has endured unimaginable family tragedy; Key, the youngest in the bunch at 40, already operates a five-truck fleet; King is a pastor who drives a pink truck in honor of his wife’s breast cancer battle; Kosier decided to pursue his life-long passion for driving trucks in his 50s after beating cancer; and the always-helpful Leitzke, whose son also is a trucker, trains first responders.
With so much quality, how do you crown only one? It’s a quandary. Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in this worthy endeavor.
See also: Usher’s Powell claims Usher trophy
The 2024-25 Driver of the Year panel included Rebecca Brewster, American Transportation Research Institute president and COO, and Dan Horvath, ATA senior vice president of regulatory affairs and safety policy, two people I’m more accustomed to seeing on stage than across the table; and America’s Road Team Captains Pete Palczynski and Anthony Tirone, two impressive Walmart Transportation drivers who previously pulled tanks. We asked each Champion Finalist 1-2 questions, then listened to each one explain why they’re a good candidate, how safety is a core value, and why tank trucks are their passion in a speech that was supposed to last 3 minutes.
Spoiler alert: They all went over, so time wasn’t the determining factor.
Confession: Tirone and I also queried candidates on their barbeque preferences. One correctly stated the best brisket is in Texas, so I considered elevating him to No. 1 in my top three for that reason alone.
I didn’t. But I thought about it.
Upon further reflection, I have also gained a much deeper appreciation for the first 10 NTTC Drivers of the Year, starting with Groendyke’s James Starr in 2013-14, and the judges annually tasked with grading their greatness.
Now I’m eager to sit with this year’s winner—after the big reveal.
