Pugh resigns as NMFTA executive director

Pugh resigns as NMFTA executive director William W. Pugh has resigned as executive director of the National Motor Freight Traffic Association.
   The Alexandria, Va.-based association’s membership comprises motor carriers operating in interstate, intrastate and foreign commerce.
   During his 32 years at the association, Pugh also held the position of general counsel. He spearheaded establishing a new organizational structure and operating procedures that has allowed continued development and maintenance of the National Motor Freight Classification without the need for antitrust immunity while facilitating continued input from carriers, shippers and third parties.
   The classification is a standard that provides a comparison of commodities being transported.
   The association explains on its Web site that “commodities are grouped into one of 18 classes — from a low of class 50 to a high of class 500 — based on an evaluation of four transportation characteristics: density, stowability, handling and liability. Together, these characteristics establish a commodity’s “transportability.”
   Those four transportation characteristics were once prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1983 and then mandated by its successor agency, the Surface Transportation Board, though the STB no longer regulates the classification process.
   The association said: “By analyzing commodities on the basis of these characteristics and only on the basis of these characteristics, the NMFC provides both carriers and shippers with a standard by which to begin negotiations and greatly simplifies the comparative evaluation of the many thousands of products moving in today’s competitive marketplace.”
   The NMFTA also assigns and publishes the Standard Carrier Alpha Codes, a unique two to four-letter code used to identify transportation companies worldwide; and the Standard Point Location Codes, a nine-digit numeric code designed to provide each point originating freight and each point receiving freight in North America with a unique number so constructed as to identify the point with its geographic location.