TLA37_AllPages

More documents

Recommendations

Info

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
TCA 2019 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 29
Page 1: CAPITOL RECAP | SAFETY AND SECURITY
Page 4 and 5: leads the way Great isn’t simply
Page 6 and 7: JULY/AUGUST | TCA 2019 Legislative
Page 8 and 9: Shuster released an infrastructure
Page 10 and 11: CAPITOL RECAP The FMCSA’s May 14
Page 12 and 13: CAPITOL RECAP DANGERS OF SPEEDING A
Page 14 and 15: JULY/AUGUST | TCA 2019 Tracking The
Page 16 and 17: “Wall Street to me was profession
Page 18 and 19: Settling at Forecast for trucking:
Page 20 and 21: JULY/AUGUST | TCA 2019 A Chat With
Page 22 and 23: Sponsored by Mcleod software McLeod
Page 30 and 31: Vigneault spends a leisurely moment
Page 32 and 33: Talking the Talk … FMCSA’s Mart
Page 34 and 35: members contribute when they visit
Page 36 and 37: Cultural Change DE- Efforts to redu
Page 38 and 39: Those Who Deliver with Veriha Truck
Page 40 and 41: Memphis, The Truckload Carriers Ass
Page 42 and 43: WEIGH. PAY. GET GOING. You know you
Page 44 and 45: TALK A QUICK LOOK AT IMPORTANT TCA
Page 46 and 47: MARK YOUR CALENDAR JULY 2019 >> Jul
Page 48: THETRUCKER.COM

TLA37_AllPages

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?