Hutchinson tells truckers how vital they are to trade
Gov. Asa Hutchinson spoke to members of the trucking industry on Wednesday regarding the increasing significance of their role to the global trade market.
Hutchinson was guest speaker at the Arkansas Trucking Association’s noon awards luncheon, during the 2022 Annual Business Conference & Vendor Showcase at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
The event, which goes through Friday, features experts from the field that discuss the regulations, technology trends, workforce challenges and economic realities that affect industry success.
Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton, while introducing Hutchinson to the stage, thanked him for the “strength he had been to the trucking industry” during his tenure as governor.
“Over the past seven years, your administration has engaged all the math of the industry on a whole host of issues,” she said, from taxation, to litigation reform, to modernizing the Department of Finance and Administration, and agency overreach.
” … You kept businesses open and protected during the pandemic. And this one other little thing, like passing the largest highway funding bill in the state’s history,” she said.
Serving in his final year as the state’s 46th governor, Hutchinson said, “We have a highway funding plan that sets us apart from the other states because we have a steady stream, ready to do business, ready to build roads — the infrastructure that we need is a recruiting tool as well as a necessity during this time the critical supply chain we’re all working on.”
He noted how his relationship and experience with the trucking industry led him to understand just how vital they are to overcoming the current supply and demand chain issues.
As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives during the 1990s, and wanting to help out the trucking industry, he said he followed the advice of veteran Republican U.S. Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt in joining the transportation committee. Hutchinson also later worked in Homeland Security under the George W. Bush administration.
“I was responsible for border and transportation security and making sure that we did not have terrorists coming in through those systems into the United States of America in the post-911 environment,” he said. “I worked with truckers; I worked with you to secure our country — and what a great partnership.”
He said they “had to make sure we had the right balance. And I’ll never forget, we enhanced our security. We tightened it up on the border. We had specific threats. And I would call the border after we enhanced our security level and I would ask them in Detroit — it was the Ambassador Bridge up there — ‘What are you finding
as a result of your increased inspections?’ And they would tell me what they were finding. Then I would ask the question, ‘How long are the wait lines?’
“And let me tell you, that last question is as important as any. Because when you’re talking about just-in-time delivery for our automobile industry, you cannot block the flow of goods and commerce into the United States that’s critical for our supply chain,” Hutchinson said.
That principle of balance is necessary for today’s world, he said.
“In today’s world, we’ll continue to have security issues, we continue to inspect, we have to keep that flow of commerce moving, and the trucking industry is a great partner in it, of course. Today we have some of the nation’s largest trucking companies in Arkansas. I’m proud of that history,” he said.
“But we also have some of the most innovative smaller trucking companies represented in this room. In fact, we have over 4,800 trucking companies in Arkansas providing 97,000 jobs and more, and they’re mostly smaller companies that are entrepreneurs, that are innovators, that are making a difference for their community and for our country.”
He said workers in the trucking industry, today, are more appreciated than ever before, and expressed how essential everything they do is.
“Anybody who has experience in the supply chain understands that,” he said. “But after coming through a pandemic, not just those in business understand your importance, but every consumer in America understands the importance of the trucking industry and of the supply chain. And if the supply chain does not work, then the costs of housing goes up. If the supply chain doesn’t work, you have empty shelves in the consumer market, in the grocery stores. And so every consumer understands the importance of the work that you do. It is truly, truly critical.”