Truckload Authority - Winter 2015-16

master’s now, but my coursework had to be in
education. It had to be job-related, so I decided
to pursue my master’s degree in education administration.”
But just as the deadline for applying to get
his master’s approached, Goode learned of a new
master’s program that had his name written all
over it.
“The program was Curriculum and Instruction:
Adult Education for Practicing Professionals,”
he recalled. “I thought, this is for me. This
is exactly what I do. I read the curriculum and I
told my boss if I could have written the curriculum
I couldn’t have done a better job. This program
is perfect.
“As it turned out, I had a knack for adult learning
I didn’t know I had. I became a straight A
student. And on top of that the company paid for
it because it was job-related. So I achieved the
goal of getting my master’s, not paying for it and
becoming a straight A student in a field that I really
loved.”
After he had worked long enough at the credit
union association to pay back his tuition in time
worked, Goode was recruited by the American
Staffing Association to be the organization’s first
director of education.
He was there four-plus years.
“It was tough but I enjoyed it. It was a good
career move for me since I was in charge of education
for a large organization and when I was
fully staffed I had about four employees, which
was the most people I had ever supervised in my
whole life including my dog.”
But when the economy went south during
the Great Recession seven employees, including
Goode, lost their jobs.
The next nine months turned out to be what
today Goode calls “the best nine months of my
life. I do a lot of voluntary work for an organization
called Soka Gakkai International-USA (SGI-USA),
which is the most diverse Buddhist community in
the United States with more than 500 chapters
and some 100 centers throughout the country and
which is dedicated to peace, culture and education,
so it gave me the opportunity to do volunteer
work and take care of my mom who became ill
about a month after I was laid off.”
He also supported a niece who was suffering
from Lupus.
But when his savings were about two-thirds
depleted, he knew it was time to search for a job.
“I had lunch with a friend who I worked with at
the National Association of Federal Credit Unions
and he was looking for a job, too. He said, ‘Ron,
give me your e-mail address and if I see any jobs
for education I’ll let you know and if you see any
jobs for marketing will you let me know?’ The very
next day he saw an ad for director of education at
the Truckload Carriers Association. I didn’t know
the job existed. I told people the job found me.”
Goode submitted his resumé and was asked to
come in for an initial interview.
The TCA director of education at that time was
Ginny DeRoze and she was going to retire, and
they wanted to hire her replacement before she
retired so she and the new director could work
together for about two months.
His first interview was with TCA staff who were
on the same job level he would be — DeRoze and
the organization’s then director of communications,
Michael Nellenbach.
“When I left that first interview I said to myself,
TCA needs me as badly as I need them. It’s
a perfect match. My skills were exactly what they
needed for where they wanted to go with their
Driving as a volunteer for SGI in 1995.
In Big Sky, Montana, for the 2013 officer’s retreat
education program and the job was exactly what
I wanted my career to look like, so I was really
happy when they called me back for a second interview.”
He subsequently interviewed with then-TCA
President Chris Burruss and Debbie Sparks, TCA’s
vice president of development, who would be
Goode’s boss.
This time, he brought along a sample of his
work.
“I had put together a program about the truckload
industry from what I learned from their website
and gave it to them as a sample of the kind of
work I could do and a few days after they checked
my references, they called back to offer me a job,”
he recalled. “Ginny had done a great job of laying
the foundation for TCA’s training and education,
but what the association wanted and needed to
do was move into a more digital and online presence.
That was my expertise. What we’ve built
since I’ve been here is the Truckload Academy
On Demand, which is the online training portal for
TCA and which didn’t exist before. There are so
many things going on in the industry — Hours of
Service, CSA, employment issues — we were having
to deal with so the online presence is a great
opportunity for our members to keep up-to-date
on these and other issues at a time that fits their
schedule.”
Goode believes education will follow the trends
of society and that it could become “an important
part of social media that people access. I know
I’ve received a wealth of information through
social media, through Facebook and Twitter and
tweeting and it’s usually short snippets of postings
and that sort of thing but I see it becoming more
of a social community kind of environment because
that seems to be where people, especially
younger people, tend to communicate. I think as
With Carolyn
Kaburick, wife of
the late former TCA
Chairman John
Kaburick
With nieces and nephew
society moves more and more toward digital and
mobile and people communicating on their phones
via social media that might be where education
has to go to find them. That’s the crossroads between
what people need and what they want and
what we have to deliver.”
Speaking of people, Goode noted he’s worked
with myriad associations and good people through
the years, but he’s noticed something in trucking
that seems more prevalent than in other industries.
“The one thing I really like about trucking is
how these companies and the people who work
for them are salt-of-the-earth good people,”
Goode said. “They’re the kind of people that
you want to be your neighbors, whether they’re
drivers or whether they started a company or
they inherited one or a family business or whatever
it is. They’re the kind of people that you
would want to call neighbors, the kind of people
you can call by first name. They could be the
president of a very large fleet and you could call
and say, ‘I need to talk to Keith (Tuttle, the current
TCA chairman, or Shepard (Dunn, a past
TCA chairman) or John (Kaburick) or whoever it
is; if they’re available they’ll talk to you and if
not, they’ll get back to you. If you send them an
e-mail they’ll show their concern.
“This is an industry of professionals who are
just so wonderful; they believe in what they do.
I had never considered working in trucking, but
when I checked out the TCA website I said, ‘If
I go to work someplace I don’t care how bad I
need a job, I want it to be meaningful; it’s got
to be an association where I can buy into what
they believe in.’”
All of which reinforces Goode’s feeling of having
come back home to his roots when he walked
through that door almost six years ago.
TCA 2015-16 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 39