When developing her list of priorities and objectives for her 2-year term as Chairwoman of the MMTA, one issue that rose to the top for Chelsea was member engagement. As someone who regularly attends our quarterly in-person Membership meetings, she was struck by the wealth of information that got reported… and that most of our industry updates and reports naturally tended to focus on negativity and pessimism.
She asked us to consider a new approach for our meeting that provides meaningful content that encourages attendance and participation, while resulting in a value-added experience focused on positive things that are happening around us. To this end, we are pleased to announce not one, but TWO special topics that we hope you will find meaningful, interesting and valuable.
We are still going to have industry updates, but the main focus will be on a new “Good News Report” agenda item that will include:
- Dan Koloski and Kate Simmons from the Roux Institute. TRI’s mission is to spur innovation, build talent and drive economic growth in Maine. And they are doing this largely through AI and data analytics, something being seen/used more and more in trucking. Dan and Kate will not only talk about what the Roux Institute is working on, but they will also want to hear from our trucking community, especially as it relates to ways they can possibly partner with our members. Whether it is placing interns to work on improving logistics/efficiency, or helping our members develop basic data analytic knowledge/skills so they are better equipped to implement and use telematics that benefit their businesses.
- Kirk Ross from Sappi North America who will join us to talk about his company’s significant investment in their Maine operations, which is good for the economy and good for trucking.
As you can see, there are some pretty exciting things to talk about at our October 9th Membership and Board meetings – and some good news for a change! We hope you will join us at 9am at the MMTA office in Augusta and we hope you consider bringing others in your businesses that might be responsible for maintenance, operations, dispatch, and anything else where improved data can improve your profitability!