The company commemorated the milestone at a special ceremony February 1.

Steve Russell, founder and CEO of Celadon Group, took delivery of a special award to commemorate his fleet’s receipt of the 100,000th trailer. Other speakers included the mayor of Terre Haute and several members of the Great Dane management team. The ceremony also recognized the 14 Great Dane employees who have worked in the Terre Haute plant since it opened 17 years ago.

Great Dane opened the 565,000-sq-ft facility in 1995 with a single production line and added a second line two months after the plant opened. It produced 2,700 trailers during its first year of operation. It has averaged more than 8,200 trailers per year in the 17 years it has been in operation.

The plant is capable of producing the full line of Great Dane’s new Champion dry van series, including the Champion CP dry-freight van that utilizes the company’s composite panel technology.

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T. Boone Pickens, the oilman-turned-gas promoter whose BP Capital owns Clean Fuels, joined Navistar executives to announce a deal yesterday morning at the truck builder’s new headquarters in Lisle, Ill.

The agreement will see Navistar building more International trucks with natural gas engines, while Clean Energy will build more filling stations for truckers who commit to using the comparatively inexpensive and increasingly abundant fuel.

Customers who sign up will pay no extra money for trucks equipped to store and burn natural gas and filling stations for them.

“Progress is being made in alternative fuels,” said Dan Ustian, Navistar’s chairman, president and chief operating officer, who opened the press conference before slipping away to prepare for a stock analysts meeting later that morning.

“It’s always seemed to be government supported. While we hope we can get more money for research and development, this can stand on its own.”

Pickens, who’s been promoting the use of natural gas since 2010, said it’s both a financial and national security matter.

“Prices vary, but this is the cheapest fuel in the United States” at about $2.50 per diesel-equivalent gallon, or about $1 to $1.50 less than diesel, he said. “We cannot pass up this opportunity.

“Heavy trucks are the biggest users of fuel and stand to see the biggest savings” because of gas’s lower cost. “It’s a big deal for our country because we’ve got to get off OPEC oil.”

Clean Energy spent $200 million last year to build fueling stations for both compressed and liquefied natural gas, said Andrew Littlefair, the firm’s president and CEO. That effort will expand under the partnership with Navistar, with $250 million budgeted for this year.

Jerry Moyes, president of Swift Transportation, who participated in the announcement, said he’d like his company to have the first trucks in the program. “We’re very excited about the potential for natural gas,” he said. “We buy millions of gallons (of fuel) every day, so this is a big deal.”

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Saha discussed the shifting aftermarket parts and service business in North America for an audience of industry suppliers in Las Vegas last week at the annual Heavy Duty Dialogue .

“Class 4 to 8 truck repair and maintenance channels are finding it increasingly harder to attract skilled technicians because of the complex and dirty nature of the work,” Saha said. “Dealerships are expected to grow their skilled technician numbers in the short and medium term because of their ability to offer higher wages and training.”

This is creating pressure on independent repair facilities to upgrade their knowledge and skills, he noted.

“Despite the slight economic recovery, fewer independent shops are providing the level of training they historically provided. In 2010, 55% of independents offered formal training services versus 87% of dealerships.

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Osterberg told the audience that he had four “keys to success” when it comes to fleet safety: Hire the “right” drivers (and retain them); train them effectively; manage driver-performance actively, and leverage technology to enhance safety programs.

Traditional safety metrics are lagging, not leading indicators, he noted. Rather, he said Effectiveness flows from the ability to identify and proactively manage those leading indicators, and technology can definitely help to get the job done.

“Technology enables visibility to driver behavior,” Osterberg said. “In the past, it was a crash that raised our awareness of an aggressive driver. Now we can [use driver performance monitoring technology to help us] detect indicators of problematic behavior to enable interventions to remediate the behavior preemptively.”

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Planned hiring is in line with 2011 hiring, which exceeded internal expectations by 74 percent over 2010 due to industry demand. “We’re pleased to continue this positive hiring trend at our North American operations in 2012,” says Ken Hurley, senior vice president of human resources for Penske Truck Leasing. “We look forward to adding new associates to our talented diverse team.”

Penske Truck Leasing and Penske Logistics anticipate finding qualified candidates for the following positions: vehicle maintenance supervisors, technicians, customer service, sales, drivers and logistics and supply chain positions. Penske plans to promote open positions through various online hiring and social media sites, career fairs at diesel technical/trade schools and colleges and universities, diversity career fairs and military job fairs.

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For a complete solution, customers can choose the Kenworth NavPlus system. For those that don’t want all the bells and whistles of the NavPlus, factory-installed radios are now Bluetooth capable, Kenworth said.

“While Kenworth NavPlus is the ultimate do-all, hands-free cell phone system married to true-truck navigation, iPod and MP3 integration, diagnostics, gauges and a host of other features, some drivers just want basic Bluetooth capability, and that’s what we now offer with our two high-quality radios,” said Michelle Harry, Kenworth’s special projects marketing manager.

The factory-installed AM/FM/CD radios are available with or without satellite radio capability. A small Bluetooth microphone is mounted in the A-pillar trim above the driver. Up to eight cell phones can be synchronized to the radios and contacts can be automatically loaded, the company said. A contact screen makes calling easy while parked, but drivers can also take advantage of voice command mode to make calls while on the move.

When incoming calls are received, the radio displays the name of the caller and phone number. Pushing the OK button accepts the call, while the ESC button rejects the call.

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According to TCP’s fourth quarter Business Expectations Survey, over 80% of carriers the firm polled report that recent health care changes will adversely affect them. As a result, more carriers (43%) are shifting additional costs to employees and are asking employees to pay more for family coverage (37%). Some 29% report that while they are affected by increased costs, they still haven’t developed an alternative plan.

“With two-thirds of carriers telling us that driver wages must go up above $60,000 to attract and retain drivers, it is likely that drivers will also put more emphasis on shopping for fringe benefit packages as a part of the compensation mix in the future, especially as the effects of health care change reverberate through the economy,” noted Richard Mikes, a TCP partner and survey leader.

“The cost pressure for driver health care and other employees’ health care is just another balancing act challenging carriers this year during rate negotiations and amidst uncertainty in the general overall economy,” he added.

The problem posed by the rising cost of health care is not just an issue for trucking alone. According to a study published last October by global human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt – a division of insurance provider Aon Corp. – the average health care premium rate increase for 2012 is expected to be around 7%, which is slightly lower than the 7.5% mark in 2011 but on par with the 6.9% increase experienced by businesses in 2010.

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According to year-end numbers released by the Environmental Protection Agency, the total volume of nearly 1.1 billion gallons is a record for the industry. The number exceeded the 800-million-gallon target required by the EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard. The previous record for biodiesel production was about 690 million gallons in 2008.

The industry’s success in 2011 comes after Congress reinstated the fuel’s $1-per-gallon tax credit in December 2010 and as the EPA’s RFS program for biodiesel completed its first full year. Without those policies in place in 2010, production dropped dramatically as dozens of plants shuttered and thousands of people lost jobs.

The tax incentive expired on Dec. 31, 2011, and the biodiesel industry is urging Congress to reinstate it. In addition, the industry is calling on the EPA and the Obama administration to finalize the EPA’s proposal to boost the biodiesel volume requirement under the RFS to 1.28 billion gallons in 2013.

“Our success clearly demonstrates that the biodiesel tax incentive and the Renewable Fuel Standard are working just as Congress envisioned,” says Anne Steckel, vice president of federal affairs for the National Biodiesel Board. “Our industry is creating jobs, reducing our dependence on imported fuel, and improving the environment.”

A recent economic study commissioned by NBB found that biodiesel production of 1 billion gallons supports 39,027 jobs across the country and more than $2.1 billion in household income. An additional 11,698 jobs could be added between 2012 and 2013 alone under continued growth in the RFS and with an extension of the biodiesel tax incentive.

“Now is not the time to be second-guessing the RFS or eliminating the biodiesel tax incentive,” Steckel says. “We’re proving that the policies work, that American innovation and competitiveness can pull us away from our dangerous dependence on imported fuel. Just as President Obama said in his State of the Union this week, we need to stay the course to continue creating jobs and building America’s energy capacity.”

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Section 111 of the new law, for instance, requires the Health and Human Services secretary to “promulgate regulations onsanitary transportation practices for the transportationof food,” and also requires theFDA (Food and Drug Administration) “to conduct a study on the transportation of food, including the unique needs of rural and frontier areas.”

Section 204 requires the Health and Human Services secretary to “improve tracking and tracing of processed foods and fruits and vegetables that are raw agricultural commodities in the event of a food-borne illness outbreak; and establish standards for the type of information, format, and time frame for persons to submit records to aid the secretary in such tracking and tracing.”

The Food Safety Modernization Act is, by no means, the first and only move to help assure that food remains safe to eat from farm to the fork. Shippers of some cargo, like perishable food and pharmaceuticals, have been asking fleets to step up and assume additional responsibility for the integrity and safety of their cargo for some time.

They are and have been requiring carriers to deploy technology to help assure the integrity and safety of their goods and, in the case of temperature-controlled food for instance, also help to reduce spoilage and loss. The shippers’ customers’ in this case are the ones holding the whip handle, according to Dr. John Ryan, president of Ryan Systems. Ryan has spent over 25 years implementing high-technology quality control systems and is credited with piloting the first farm-to-fork, Internet-enabled food traceability system using sensors and RFID technology to help get the job done.

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For the six-month period, revenue increased 3.5 percent to $283.0 million in 2011 from $273.4 million for the same period last year. Freight revenue, which excludes fuel surcharges, decreased 2.7 percent to $224.7 million from $231.0 million. Net income increased 47.9 percent to $10.8 million from $7.3 million. “Cost controls and operating efficiencies continued to positively impact results,” said Steve Russell, chairman and chief executive officer of the Indianapolis-based company.

Russell said Celadon completed two asset acquisitions in the December 2011 quarter to address the driver shortage – American Eagle, the nonrefrigerated division of Frozen Food Express; and USF Glen Moore – increasing the company’s average seated count to 2,633 in the December 2011 quarter, up from 2,529 in the September 2011 quarter. “We expect our seated count to increase in the March 2012 quarter, as the USF Glen Moore acquisition was completed at the end of December,” Russell said.

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