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JULY/AUGUST | TCA 2019
Talking TCA
Adrian Vigneault | Associate Director of Education
BY klint lowry
We have a tendency in today’s society to try to label
people, to categorize them based on just one aspect of their life —
a characteristic, an opinion, or a matter of taste — and assume we
can extrapolate everything there is to know about them.
It’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s always a mistake. No one is onedimensional.
For some people the whole definition of a life welllived
is to keep adding dimensions to who they are.
Take Adrian Vigneault, for example. If he was presented as TCA’s
new associate director of education, and it was explained he has a
background in designing and implementing educational programs.
Add that he’s an avid history buff and you might figure him to be
the academic sort.
But suppose the first thing you were told about Vigneault was
that he started his working life as an auto technician, and that even
today one of his favorite ways of relaxing is to work on cars at his
home garage. You might conclude, “Oh, he’s a nuts-and-bolts kind
of guy, the hands-on type.”
Then again, if your introduction included the fact that Vigneault
had been a defense contractor in Iraq and that he used to teach
U.S. military personnel how to detect and avoid hidden explosives,
that would skew your first impression in a different direction.
All three of those impressions are accurate in their own narrow
context, but even put together they don’t complete the picture. A
person’s character is more than a sum of its parts, especially when
the dominant moving part is the desire to constantly learn and
grow and expand.
Considering that Vigneault has both a mechanical streak and a
penchant for history, it’s not surprising that he’s had a fascination
with and has closely studied the life of Henry Ford. On one of
Vigneault’s social media pages, there is a quote from Ford:
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone
who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep
your mind young.”
Vigneault may not have adopted the American industrialist’s
words as the official mission statement for his life, but they sync up
perfectly to the way Vigneault has conducted the business of living.
“I consider myself a lifetime learner,” he said. “If it’s not reading
books, it’s taking new classes. I like to be a person of many trades,
of many skills, and try to be great at whatever I’m tasked to do.”
Sometimes it’s just life that offers the learning opportunities,
and the fact that Vigneault is always willing to expand his comfort
zone has played a large part in how he came to be the right man
at the right time as TCA has made the expansion of its educational
offerings a priority.
“My background is in instruction and learning design, so I was
a good fit for their goals with TCA’s Truckload Academy and also
helping to revamp their current online certificate program,” he said.
His mechanical, automotive background helps, too, as it translates
easily while he acclimates himself to the language and culture of
trucking. There’s a lot to learn, a lot of terms and acronyms and
abbreviations. It’s a challenge, but that’s part of what makes it
enjoyable, and it’s a way to get acquainted with people in the
industry.
If there’s one thing all lifetime learners know, it’s not to be shy
about asking questions.
In one way, Vigneault has an advantage over many of his TCA
colleagues when it comes to feeling at home. He was born and
raised in Fairfax County, Virginia, just a modest commute to TCA’s
office in Alexandria.
That’s if you take the direct route.
After graduating from Annandale High School in Fairfax County,
Vigneault went to Universal Technical Institute in Orlando, Florida,
where he studied automotive technology, then he went on to the
Ford Accelerated Credential Training Program, where he earned
specialized certification in Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles.
After graduating, Vigneault got himself a job as a technician
at a Ford dealership back in Fairfax County, where he worked for
about four years. About a year in, he started going to night school
at a community college, earning an associate degree in 2010. By the
end of 2010, Vigneault was working as an instructor for a military
contractor in Iraq.
Wait, it feels like we may have skipped a chapter.
It didn’t happen quite that fast, Vigneault explained, but was a
surprisingly simple turn of events that sent his life in an unexpected,
dramatically different direction. It began one lazy afternoon on an
island in the Potomac River.
One of Vigneault’s friends had taken him out on his boat, and
they decided to drop anchor at the island and hang out on the
beach. After a while, a couple pulled up in another boat. They all
introduced themselves and started casually chatting.
“He asked what I did, and I told him I just finished my two-year
degree and I’m working for Ford right now,” Vigneault said. “He
said, ‘listen, a good friend of mine is looking for people with your
background to teach overseas, and if you’re interested, here’s my
card, let me know.’”
Vigneault didn’t think much about it until a couple days later. He
went home for lunch that day, “and it dawned on me that guy gave
me his business card. It was still in my swimsuit. I called him up, and
he said, ‘Yeah, shoot me your resumé.’”
Vigneault didn’t even have a resumé at that stage of his young
career, but the one he threw together had one essential element.
The contractor was working with the Department of Defense. All
the nontactical vehicles supplied to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense
28 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2019