The Safety and Security Division of the Truckload Carriers Association named James Ransom, CDS, director of safety for Boyd Bros. Transportation Inc., as its Safety Professional of the Year. The award, known as the Clare C. Casey Award, was presented Monday, May 18, during the division’s annual Safety & Security Division Meeting, held at the Marriott Louisville Downtown in Louisville, Ky.
The Safety Professional of the Year award recognizes a person whose actions and achievements have profoundly and positively benefited or contributed to safety on our highways. Nominees must exemplify leadership and demonstrate the goals of protecting lives and property in the motor transportation industry while serving their company, industry and the motoring public.
Ransom has been responsible for Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration safety compliance and risk management at Boyd Bros. since 1980. During his 29-year tenure, he has seen the Clayton, Ala.-based company grow from 75 tractors to 672. Under his leadership, the safety department grew correspondingly, from two to six people.
His performance at Boyd Bros. can be measured by the sheer number of awards the company has received. In the most recent five-year period alone, Boyd Bros. has received more than nine safety improvement awards from TCA, the Safety Management Council of the American Trucking Associations, and the Alabama Trucking Association. Due in part to Ransom’s efforts, the company’s total accident frequency and U.S. Department of Transportation-recordable accident frequency ratios have declined dramatically over the past four years.
Ransom has served as an instructor for the National Safety Council’s Defensive Driving Course since 1988. He also is certified as a director of safety through the North American Transportation Management Institute (NATMI) and as a Highway Watch driver through Highway Watch Alabama. He has developed his education even further through countless professional seminars, workshops and conventions on topics such as motor carrier litigation, alcohol/drug misuse, time management, negotiation and hours-of-service regulations.
Ransom’s list of professional achievements is extensive. He has been chosen as the Alabama Trucking Association’s Safety Professional of the Year four times. He also has served on that organization’s Truck Driving Committee and Safety & Management Council (SMC) steering committee (two different chapters) for more than nine years and eight years respectively. He has been a longtime member of NATMI, and a member and officer of ATA’s SMC Awards & Image Recognition Committee and Safety Product Development & Review Committee. He also has been an active participant in TCA’s Safety & Security Division.
At Boyd Bros., Ransom serves as the chairman of the company’s United Way drive and is a supporter of the company’s Red Cross blood drive initiatives. In his personal life, he spends much of his time with community activities, such as ushering for his church, serving on the scholarship committee of his county’s chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, and reading for his county’s schools through the National Education Association’s Read Across America program.
“I have known and respected James Ransom for many years, and I cannot think of a more deserving safety professional to receive this recognition,” says Doug Cook, last year’s Safety Professional of the Year, who is also secretary and treasurer of TCA’s Safety & Security Division and vice president of safety for Covenant Transport.
The annual Clare C. Casey Award is named after a safety professional who served TCA actively from 1979 until 1989. He was devoted to ensuring that all truckload safety professionals could meet yearly to build the strong safety network this division provides today, and was instrumental in forming the first Safety & Security Division meeting in 1982. After his death in 1989, the first Clare C. Casey Award was given in 1990.
