The Trucker Newspaper - October 15, 2018

Features
October 15-31, 2018 • 37
Bendix Huntington Health Center
celebrates 5th anniversary of helping
company’s employees and families
Dorothy Cox
dlcox@thetrucker.com
Around
the Bend
Mike Rowe of TV’s “Dirty Jobs” once told
The Trucker News Organization that he likes
to say “Safety Third” to fight complacency, although
I think it’s also to get a rise out of selfnamed
safety advocates, federal officials, safety
managers, insurance companies and others.
He said when people ask him what he
means by “Safety Third” he answers that in reality,
“you’re not driving a truck because safety
is the most important thing. Your reason for
getting into this vocation wasn’t to come home
safely. It was to deliver the goods.
“The second reason was to make a living.
That’s it. Job One is do the job. Job two is to
prosper as a result” and job three is to “make
sure you don’t kill anybody and make sure you
don’t get hurt in the process.”
He said if safety was really the No. 1 priority,
all the trucks would be made of rubber, all
the cars would be wrapped in bubble wrap, and
the roads would all be made of some sort of
spongy material.
And that brings me to an interesting email I
received recently from Goodyear.
They’re holding a “national hackathon” to
see if the best and brightest young graduate students
can come up with a way that Goodyear
can grow beyond tires.
“We take the rubber tire for granted,” said
Youngjin Yoo, of the Elizabeth M. and William
C. Treuhaft Professorship in Entrepreneurship
at the Weatherhead School in Cleveland.
I didn’t make that title up, it was right there
in the news release.
Given that “countless industries” are studying
the future of transportation, Yoo said, rubber
tires “might not serve a central role in our
transportation forever.”
Is that kind of a scary thought? It’s a strange
one, at least.
And, Mr. Yoo continued, “The fresh perspectives
students offer are perfect to consider
what’s next.”
Teams of five students will be asked to define
the challenges facing Goodyear and at the
COURTESY: BENDIX COMMERCIAL VEHICLE SYSTEMS
The Bendix Huntington Health Center fifth-anniversary celebration included a presentation
by COO Carlos Hungria, shown here, and a dedication of the center in honor of Mike Pogorelc,
who introduced the idea to Bendix leadership.
THE TRUCKER NEWS SERVICES
ELYRIA, Ohio — It’s not every day that the
employees of a manufacturing operation dress
up like Hawkeye, Major Houlihan and Radar
from the TV show “M*A*S*H” and perform a
skit for employees. It’s also not every day such
a facility gets to celebrate the fifth anniversary
of an on-site health center that has changed
hundreds of lives for the better.
Those two happenings came together in
August at the Huntington, Indiana, manufacturing
complex of Bendix Commercial Vehicle
Systems.
At an employee lunch marking the Health
Center’s milestone, Bendix took a fun approach
to a subject the company takes seriously:
the health and wellness of its employees
and their families.
The Bendix Health Center, which opened
in September 2013, reflects Bendix’s commitment
to employee and family health and wellness,
said Carlos Hungria, Bendix chief operating
officer.
At the Health Center, which is staffed by
a nurse practitioner and medical assistant, employees
receive preventive, primary and acute
care services, follow-up care and referral management.
The center is operated through a partnership
with Marathon Health, and provides
other services such as health assessments,
health coaching, and disease management.
The Marathon Health on-site health center
also serves the spouses and children of Bendix
employees. On-site clinicians can either serve
as employee primary care physicians or coordinate
with employees’ current doctors.
“The on-site health center at Huntington is
an important part of our enduring commitment
to promote the wellness culture at Bendix. It’s
an aspect of our company that has grown exponentially
over time,” Hungria said. “As a
company, we are guided by the long-standing
Bendix Be Healthy mission, which is to help
employees and families live and perform at the
top of their game at work, at home, and into
retirement. With our emphasis on prevention
and early detection, we strive to do everything
we can to make healthy living easier and more
convenient for our employees and their families.”
The anniversary event also doubled as
a dedication. In a surprise presentation that
brought cheers and tears, Bendix dedicated the
health center to Mike Pogorelc, who served as
Huntington plant manager for the last 17 years
before being named VP of supply chain excellence
at Bendix. Pogorelc — the originator of
the idea for the center — retired this month after
over 28 years of service at Bendix.
Program that gets results
Since the Huntington Health Center opened,
over three-quarters of Bendix Huntington’s
more than 400 employees and two-thirds of
their spouses have made progress in lowering
key health risk factors. Hungria noted that this
See Bendix on p38 m
Pondering soft bridge abutments, fluffy road barriers while trying to get phone to work
same time identify the needs of the company’s
“future target customers.”
Then they will use 3D printers, laser cutters
and other high-tech tools to “create physical
prototypes” of their ideas.
The Goodyear news release said that since
transportation is moving toward ride-sharing
services rather than personal vehicles, people
won’t be buying tires for their cars. Or at least
as many.
So they want these students to come up
with what’s next “beyond tires.”
“Companies are constantly looking for new
areas of growth,” said Yoo, who will coordinate
the competition. “Goodyear is not an exception,
and part of the company must be thinking about
anything but tires. This contest allows students
to build relationships with a proven company as
it’s eager to find new talent.”
So why not start making the roads out of
some spongy something-or-other and start
making cars and trucks out of a material that
has more give more than metal, something
cushiony or filled with air?
I’ll go out on a limb, here, and say if
they can send a man or woman to the moon,
shouldn’t they be able to come up with something
softer than metal to make vehicles out of?
I mean, come on.
Maybe before we put “driver-assisted”
trucks on the road, before we put autonomous
vehicles on the road, before we put self-driving
vehicles on the road, we should start making
roads and cars and trucks out of something
safer.
How about fluffy, marshmallow-like barriers
instead of concrete ones? How about bridge
abutments made out of squishy rubber or
something similar instead of stone or concrete?
Oh, I know! How about making windshields
out of something you can see through
that won’t cut you like glass? How difficult
could that be for crying out loud?
We’ve got phones that can sync up with
household appliances and direct the coffeemaker
to start the coffee in the morning, don’t
we? When I say “we” I’m of course not talking
about me personally. My phone is a useless
piece of … . Well that’s a story for another
time.
So, what’s beyond rubber tires? You tell
me, readers.
As always, God bless and be safe out
there. 8