Even with the massive shortage of truck drivers in this country, some job seekers still need a helping hand in building a career behind the wheel. For anyone seeking to enter the trucking industry, the first step is training for and acquiring a commercial driver’s license.
One businesswoman is making it her mission to help fill those empty seats by tapping into talent pools in underrepresented communities.
“I serve minorities because we have a hard time getting access to the things we need to expand and grow our business,” according to Teresa Watson, executive director, Minority Professional Truckers Association.
There’s more than 80,000 jobs going unfilled in the trucking industry and those jobs could be filled by individuals in underrepresented communities if they only had training, support, and access to capital.
WorkingNation sat down with Watson at the NASWA Veterans Conference in Washington, D.C.
Watson learned the trucking business from her late father and she has been a fleet owner for 18 years. She’s passionate about helping those starting out in the industry – perhaps starting their own trucking business – map out business plans and goals.
“I do what I do because I love to serve those who are in need. Any knowledge that I’ve gained over the years that I’ve been in business, I’m an open book. I share it with any and everybody who needs help.”
Learn more about the Minority Professional Truckers Association.
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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
