ATA Chairman Ray Kuntz helps the industry tackle Montana-sized challenges.
Ray Kuntz was a student of the trucking industry some 30 years ago – well before he was a participant in it. In the late 1970s as a junior at Carroll College in Helena, Mont., Kuntz read about the debate over trucking regulations and chose the topic for a research paper.
The class project had practically no impact on Kuntz’s career path, but it did hint at his studious approach to running his own trucking company, Helena-based Watkins & Shepard. Kuntz also has made the most from his involvement in the American Trucking Associations, learning new tricks from his peers and from suppliers. Now he brings that same problem-solving mindset to his tenure as ATA chairman.
Working overtime
Like Pat Quinn before him, Kuntz is serving an extended term as ATA chairman. Tragically, Mac McCormick died just a couple of days before last year’s ATA Management Conference & Exhibition. Quinn, co-chairman of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based U.S. Xpress, stayed on as chairman for about seven months longer, and Kuntz took over at the summer board meeting about five months early. Quinn and Kuntz had to deal with the death of a close friend as well as the strain of the unexpected additional time commitment.
Purely from the standpoint of continuity, however, the sudden and tragic change of plans was not too disruptive because continuity has been a stated objective among ATA’s leadership for several years, beginning with Steve Williams’ chairmanship in 2004-2005.
“Steve Williams wanted to keep all our goals long-term and alive,” Kuntz says. That means coordination and confirmation of priorities among past, present and future leaders. A tangible example of this emphasis is the new tradition of the chairman’s retreat. Shortly after he became chairman in October 2004, Williams – who is chairman and chief executive officer of Little Rock, Ark.-based Maverick Transportation – hosted the first retreat, a gathering that included himself, the immediate past chairman, all the vice chairmen and Gov. Bill Graves, ATA’s president and CEO. Quinn continued the tradition, as will Kuntz this fall after MC&E.
ATA certainly never has suffered from a lack of leadership meetings, but Kuntz believes there is something special about the chairman’s retreat because it helps current and future top leadership come into sync. By the time someone goes from a vice chairman position to chairman, he already has been immersed in the key issues and priorities for three to five years, Kuntz notes.
