James Ransom of Boyd Bros. Transportation Named TCA Safety Professional of the Year

05/21/2009

Louisville, Kentucky:

The Safety and Security Division of the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) has named James Ransom, CDS, director of safety for Boyd Bros. Transportation, Inc., Clayton, Alabama, as its Safety Professional of the Year. The award, known as the Clare C. Casey Award, was presented on May 18 during the Division’s annual Safety & Security Division Meeting, held at the Marriott Louisville Downtown in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Safety Professional of the Year award recognizes a person whose actions and achievements have profoundly and positively benefited or contributed to safety on our highways. Nominees must exemplify leadership and demonstrate the goals of protecting lives and property in the motor transportation industry while serving their company, industry, and the motoring public.

Ransom has been responsible for FMCSA safety compliance and risk management at Boyd Bros. since 1980. During his 29-year tenure, he has seen the company grow from 75 tractors to 672. Under his leadership, the safety department grew correspondingly, from two to six people.

His performance at Boyd Bros. can be measured by the sheer number of awards the company has received. In the most recent five-year period alone, Boyd Bros. has received more than nine safety improvement awards from TCA, the Safety Management Council of the American Trucking Associations, and the Alabama Trucking Association. Due in part to Ransom’s efforts, the company’s total accident frequency and DOT-recordable accident frequency ratios have declined dramatically over the past four years.

Ransom has served as an instructor for the National Safety Council’s Defensive Driving Course since 1988. He is also certified as a director of safety through the North American Transportation Management Institute (NATMI) and as a Highway Watch driver through Highway Watch Alabama. He has developed his education even further through countless professional seminars, workshops, and conventions on topics such as motor carrier litigation, alcohol/drug misuse, time management, negotiation, and hours of service regulations.

Ransom’s list of professional achievements is extensive. He has been chosen as the Alabama Trucking Association’s Safety Professional of the Year four times. He has also served on that organization’s Truck Driving Committee and Safety & Management Council (SMC) steering committee (two different chapters) for more than nine years and eight years respectively. He has been a long-time member of NATMI, and a member and officer of the American Trucking Association’s SMC Awards & Image Recognition Committee and Safety Product Development & Review Committee. He has also been an active participant in TCA’s Safety & Security Division.

At Boyd Bros., Ransom serves as the chairman of the company’s United Way drive and is a supporter of the company’s Red Cross blood drive initiatives. In his personal life, he spends much of his time with community activities, such as ushering for his church, serving on the scholarship committee of his county’s chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, and reading for his county’s schools through the National Education Association’s Read Across America program.

Last year’s Safety Professional of the Year, Doug Cook, who is also secretary and treasurer of TCA’s Safety & Security Division and vice president of safety for Covenant Transport, said, “I have known and respected James Ransom for many years, and I cannot think of a more deserving safety professional to receive this recognition.”

The annual Clare C. Casey Award is named after a safety professional who actively served the Truckload Carriers Association from 1979 until 1989. He was devoted to ensuring that all truckload safety professionals could meet yearly to build the strong safety network this division provides today, and was instrumental in forming the first Safety & Security Division meeting in 1982. After his death in 1989, the first Clare C. Casey Award was given in 1990.