EFS: Women in Trucking Association supports nontraditional career choices

WIT provides gender-based data for metrics such as safety

(Photo: FreightWaves)

This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Enterprise Fleet Summit

FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Women in trucking

DETAILS: Ellen Voie, president and CEO of the Women In Trucking Association (WIT), and Laura Roan Hays, chairwoman of the board at WIT and branch manager at Great Dane, chat about the history of WIT and its future goals.

SPEAKER: Voie, president and CEO at WIT

BIO: Voie founded WIT in March 2007 to promote the employment of women in the trucking industry, to remove obstacles that might keep them from succeeding and to celebrate the successes of its members. Voie is an internationally recognized speaker and authority on gender diversity and inclusion for women working in nontraditional careers in transportation.

KEY QUOTES FROM VOIE

“When I started Women in Trucking, nobody ever separated data by gender. Nobody had safety statistics, nobody had any data that was related to gender, so we do that.”

“The association is a dues-based member association. But, the foundation is a charitable organization, which means that they survive on donations. … The foundation is there to provide scholarship tuition grants to students who are pursuing careers in transportation.”

“I want people to look back and say that I was a disruptor. I want people to say, ‘Ellen made us look at the world differently and see what the world can become when we actually advance women in nontraditional careers such as supply chains.’”

Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Alyssa Sporrer.

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Alyssa Sporrer

Alyssa is a staff writer at FreightWaves, covering sustainability news in the freight and supply chain industry, from low-carbon fuels to social sustainability, emissions & more. She graduated from Iowa State University with a double major in Marketing and Environmental Studies. She is passionate about all things environmental and enjoys outdoor activities such as skiing, ultimate frisbee, hiking, and soccer.