TWNA members: Are your addresses (including your e-mail address), phone numbers and other information as listed on the TWNA membership roster up to date? Check 'em out by contacting Frank Conte (see listing just above)!
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NOVEMBER 15, 2000

The fall meeting of TWNA was called to order by President Rolf Lockwood on November 15, 2000 (during GATS). Between 25 and 30 people were in attendance. 

SPLITTING OF SECRETARY-TREASURER'S POSITION:
It was brought to the attention of the group that long-time Secretary-Treasurer of TWNA, Bob Deierlein, has relinquished his position (clearly the man was overworked). Two other people have been appointed to fill his position: Carol Birkland will fill in as interim Secretary, and Avery Vise will assume the responsibilities of Treasurer.

Before handing over the reigns, Deierlein reported that $8,110 is the balance of the TWNA account.

DIGITAL IMAGING PROJECT:
Tom Kelley reported on what type of digital imaging is available and best for magazine reproduction. He has put together a document which will be published in part on the TWNA Web site. The document outlines the imaging needs/wishes of editors. An abridged copy will also be available in an upcoming newsletter.

WEB SITE UPDATING:
Rolf read Deborah Lockridge's report on updating the Web site as based on the results of a professional review. Our thanks to Nick Crews of Allison for covering the cost of the review. Lockridge has indicated that she is willing to work on routine updates and Tom Kelley has offered to revise and maintain the site for a nominal fee. 

TWNA BYLAWS:
It was noted that updates on TWNA by-laws, the membership list and other aspects of the site are long over-due.

TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENT AWARD:
Will again be made for the current year, and David Kolman has volunteered to head-up a committee to get it in gear. He will be looking for volunteer committee members.

TWNA-FUNDED SCHOLARSHIPS:
These were discussed at length. Members also talked about requests from Ol' Blue, USA ($1,000 to cover insurance expenses related to his educational school visits) as well as a suggestion that a sum of money ($2,000 to $2,500?) be provided to Truckload Carriers Association to distribute as a scholarship to offspring of members of the trucking industry. A motion was made by Rolf Lockwood, and seconded by Tom Gelinas, to distribute the funds as requested. Motion passed.

NEXT TWNA MEETING:
...Will be scheduled during the Mid-America Truck Show in March of 2001. 
--Carol Birkland, Secretary
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Nominations Due for 2000 Technical Achievement Award

Who, or what, should get TWNA's Technical Achievement Award for calendar-year 2000? TWNA Full members decide by nominating deserving products and services, and it's now time to do it. As usual, the award will be presented by TWNA President Rolf Lockwood during The Maintenance Council of ATA's annual meeting in March. 

The annual TWNA award recognizes and celebrates technical achievement in the trucking industry. The honor goes to a new product or service that in some substantial way advances the art of trucking -- something that makes trucking more efficient, productive or profitable, or contributes to making the highways safer.

To be nominated, the product or service must have a potentially broad positive effect on the industry -- in other words, be available to a large number of truck buyers -- and be commercially available in the calendar year being considered, in this case 2000.

Better think fast, because the committee chairman, David A. Kolman (TWNA's immediate ex-el presidente) would like your nominations by Jan. 8, 2001. (Delay in getting out The Disptatch causes this deadline to be tight.) Fax in your ideas to 410-486-7478, or e-mail them to dkolman@truckinginfo.com.

Kolman has taken over chairmanship of the TWNA Technical Achievement Award Committee from Lockwood, who has held the position since the inception of the award program some nine years ago. 

Additional volunteers are needed to serve on the committee. If interested, please contact Kolman immediately. Current members are Paul Abelson, Tom Berg, Bob Deierlein, Tom Gelinas, Bill Hudgins, Rolf Lockwood, Andrew Ryder, Steve Sturgess and Jim Winsor. 

Here's how the nomination process works: In selecting the winner, the award committee accepts nominations submitted by TWNA's Full Members. The committee then creates a series of progressively smaller shortlists and votes on the final three nominees to choose the winner.

Once again, Grote Industries is generously by providing the winner's trophy. Grote has been doing so since winning the inaugural award for its LED marker lamp introduced in 1991. 
 
 

Editor's Note: Tom Kelley has worked very hard on the digital imaging project, which is likely to set new standards for trade magazines, and continues his work (along with Deborah Lockridge) on the reconstruction of our web site. He filed these two brief reports....
Work Proceeds on TWNA.ORG Website

Thanks to an Allison Transmission-sponsored evaluation and input from many members, TWNA is currently in the process of revising the twna.org website. Deborah Lockridge will be handling the ongoing updates of general information, while Tom Kelley is working on the technical arrangements and design of the site. Goal is to have the first stage of the revision completed before our meeting during MATS in Louisville in March.

In addition to changes that will make the navigation and graphical appearance of the site more consistent, new features will include an expanded "Resource" section and an updated "Member Links page" that will include a brief description of each website. 

The second stage of the site revision will include a password-protected area for updating membership information, as well as the ability to join TWNA or pay membership dues online. As additional information about the site update becomes available, it will be posted to http://www.twna.org/SiteUpdate.html on the web.

Many thanks to Mike Pennington of ArvinMeritor for the ongoing sponsorship of the site's hosting, to Allison Transmissions for sponsoring the site review, to Mike Newman for his past efforts in maintaining the site, and to everybody else whose contributions have made the TWNA website possible.
 

TWNA Digital Recommendations Now Available Online

To answer all of those burning questions about text files, tiffs, jpegs and dpi, TWNA's recently developed "Recommended Practices For Digital File Formats" has been posted at http://www.twna.org/Digital.html on the existing website. 

Please feel free to distribute this information to all of those in your organization who deal with digital files. Plans call for data tables and graphics to be added to this page when the TWNA site is fully updated.

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"MAYBE WE NEED TO START A TWNA AWARD FOR MOST STUPID ACT INVOLVING A TRUCK,"
. . . says Bill Hudgins, TWNA's vice president, who sent in this article from the July 10, 2000, Albuquerque Journal...

Moo-Ving Violation: Man Takes Milk Truck For Joyride
By Jeff Jones - Journal Staff Writer 

Got milk truck? Albuquerque police say Steve Paul Wright did, and he went to jail for it. Wright, 26, is suspected of swiping a Creamland Dairies milk truck sometime Sunday morning and taking it on a joyride, allegedly running red lights and getting into a hit-and-run wreck with another vehicle.

At the end of the ride, the driver allegedly tried to slam the big truck into an Albuquerque Police Department patrol cruiser that had been following him, according to auto theft Detective Jennifer Madrid-Otero.

A criminal complaint filed against Wright in Metropolitan Court said the transmission of truck 338 was "severely damaged due to the erratic and reckless driving of the vehicle," and police were able to take Wright into custody.

The truck was empty when it was stolen from a Creamland lot on Second NW. Madrid-Otero said some Budweiser beer was later found inside and Wright is suspected of being drunk at the time. Madrid-Otero said she doesn't know why someone would want to steal such a truck.

According to the complaint, a sales manager from Creamland reported he was traveling down Old Coors on Sunday when he saw a truck from his company run a red light. He figured it was one of his employees and began to follow it.

The milk truck later stopped at a gas station and the driver went inside, the complaint said. The manager "also went inside to confront the driver, still thinking it was a Creamland employee," the complaint said. But "the unknown male turned to him and yelled 'Give me $3 or I'm blowin' this place up.' The driver then left the store, got in the Creamland truck and drove east on Central without stopping."

Police later Sunday got a call of a hit-and-run wreck involving a Creamland truck, according to the complaint and Madrid-Otero. The detective said the truck sideswiped another vehicle on Old Coors and plowed into it a second time before fleeing the scene. No one was seriously hurt in that wreck, she said. 

The complaint said another motorist began to follow the truck after the collision and called 911. A police officer pulled it over in a West Side neighborhood. "The driver got out of the vehicle, put his hands over his head and started to walk towards (the officer)," the complaint said, but "he began to yell 'Kill me. I want you to kill me.' He then turned and ran back to the truck, slamming the door shut."

The driver then tried to put the truck in reverse to back into the officer and his patrol car, the complaint said. But Madrid-Otero said the truck wouldn't cooperate. The driver "continually and abruptly revved the engine," the complaint alleges. "The truck was also rocking back and forth."

Police were able to grab the driver and handcuff him, the complaint adds. "I asked him if he knew why he was arrested," Madrid-Otero wrote in the complaint. "He stated because he was 'D.U.I.' Then I asked him if he knew what he was driving. He stated 'A Creamland truck.' I asked Mr. Wright if he worked for Creamland. He stated 'No, I took it from Creamland.'"

Wright faces charges of receiving and transferring a stolen vehicle, aggravated assault on a police officer and criminal damage. His jail bond was set at $15,000 during an initial court hearing Monday, and he remained in the Bernalillo County Detention Center late Monday afternoon. 

Police: 'Something wasn't kosher with the brakes'
Bill Hudgins also sent in this one from the May 19, 2000, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel...

RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC DELAYED BY PIG SPILL

A semitrailer truck spilled about 1,000 pounds of pig intestines on I-43 near downtown Milwaukee Friday afternoon, delaying rush hour traffic. Cleanup crews labored almost 2-1/2 hours.

The incident was the third involving spillage of slaughterhouse by-products on I-43 in eight months. Northbound traffic was restricted to the distress lane near North Ave. after the 3:10 p.m. mishap, and all lanes were closed around 4:30 p.m. for about 10 minutes, said Sgt. Carol Cursman of the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department.

The truck contents spilled when the driver, employed by Ducat's Trucking Inc. of Luxemburg, braked suddenly. The 39-year-old driver from Sturgeon Bay was ticketed for following too close and spilling the load.

The spill ticket will cost $152.50, and the truck company will also get a bill for the cleanup, Cursman said. An employee at Ducat's office would not comment on the spill.

One hundred gallons of animal parts fell out of a semitrailer truck Aug. 12 on southbound I-43 near North Ave. And on Aug. 26, a gelatin-like substance rendered from pig viscera slopped off a truck and onto the southbound lanes near National Ave.

Nobody was injured in any of the accidents.

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