Career Leadership Award

From Beirut to the service bay: Kirk Altrichter named CCJ Career Leadership Award recipient
The Marine Corps took Kirk Altrichter all over the world, but he found his place in truck maintenance.
March 6, 2022
Kirk Altrichter
TMC's Braswell named Career Leadership Award recipient
A self-described tinkerer, TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell is capable shade tree mechanic and an award-winning journalist.
April 14, 2021
Robert Braswell
Southeastern Freight’s Lee Long named CCJ Career Leadership Award recipient
CCJ's Technology and Maintenance Career Leadership Award honors a career of dedication to professionalism and excellence in fleet maintenance. Read all about it
March 17, 2019
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Maverick Transportation’s Brent Hilton named CCJ Career Leadership Award recipient
Maverick Transportation's Brent Hilton takes home Commercial Carrier Journal's Career Leadership Award. Get to know Brent Hilton a little more here on CCJ!
March 5, 2018
Brent-hilton
CCJ Career Leadership Award: ‘King of Corrosion’ Roy Gambrell finally gets his crown
Known to many as “The King of Corrosion” – “Rusty” to others and “Mr. Rust” to several more – Roy Gambrell etched his legacy in trucking on the corroding undercarriages of trucks and trailers nationwide.
February 26, 2017
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CCJ Career Leadership Award: Kevin Tomlinson was born to be in trucking
Kevin Tomlinson made his break into the trucking industry in 1979, right out of WyoTech’s six-month technician program.
February 29, 2016
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2014 Recipient, Jerry Thrift
Jerry Thrift   Maintenance Director of Ryder System Born in 1952, Thrift was the eldest son of a working-class family in Savannah, Ga. His father, Foster, was a boilermaker at the local paper mill, while his mother, Reba, was a homemaker until Jerry and his younger brother, Ricky, were older, when she reentered the workforce […]
November 16, 2015
2013 Recipient, Marc Clark
Marc Clark It’s fair to say the odds were stacked against Marc Clark entering the work force in 1972 as a teenager. He was small and disabled. He’d spent his elementary school years attending special schools designed to help him compensate for his physical disabilities while identifying a “skill set” that would enable him to […]
August 11, 2015
2012 Recipient, Joe Stianche
Joe Stianche   Vice President Of Maintenance, P.A.M. Transportation Services, Inc. Joe Stianche sits in his office at Royal Trucking in West Point, Miss., peering intently at a cluster of AAA batteries in his hand and talking with a technician. A satellite receiver on a trailer has failed, and no one is sure about the […]
December 19, 2012
2011 Recipient, Carl P. Tapp
Carl P. Tapp, CDM/E Vice President Of Maintenance, P.A.M. Transportation Services, Inc. By his own admission, Carl Tapp, vice president of maintenance for P.A.M. Transportation Servies, Inc., is most comfortable working behind the scenes to move both the Tontitown, Ark.-based company and the truck­ing industry as a whole forward. But throughout Tapp’s long and varied […]
December 15, 2011
2010 Recipient, Mike Jeffress
Mike Jeffress Vice President, Maintenance, Maverick Transport A native of Fayette, Mo., Mike Jeffress’s career in vehicle maintenance began at about age 11 when he first spent a summer as a go-fer for H & S Auto Repair, where his father Willard worked. Willard later became part owner in the business, which became H & […]
December 15, 2011
2009 Recipient, Ronald Lee Szapacs
Ronald Lee Szapacs Maintenance Specialist, Air Products & Chemicals Ron Szapacs was the youngest of three children, following brother Joe and sister Jan. Born in 1945. Ron grew up in the small town of Slatington, Pa. As a child, he was involved in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, played football, ran track and was a […]
December 15, 2011
2008 Recipient, Peggy Fisher
Peggy J. Fisher Tire Stamp, Inc. Peggy Fisher originally was a “Jersey girl.” She was born and raised in Westfield, N.J. — the fifth child in Bertha and Alvin Fisher’s brood of five girls and one boy. As a tomboy, her favorite activities were catching frogs and salamanders, climbing trees and beating up neighborhood boys. […]
December 15, 2011
2007 Recipient, Lew Flowers
Lew Flowers Manager of Vehicle Maintenance, U.S. Postal Service It’s said that the mail must go through, and Lew Flowers has become one of the folks that helps keep that adage true. But there’s more to his story. As a young man growing up in the Tidewater area of Virginia, Flowers had enormous respect for […]
December 15, 2011
Complete List of Recipients
2011 Carl Tapp, P.A.M. Transportation Services, Inc. 2010 Mike Jeffress, Maverick Transportation 2009 Ronald Lee Szapacs, Air Products & Chemicals 2008 Peggy J. Fisher, Tire Stamp, Inc. 2007 Lew Flowers, United States Postal Service 2006 Thomas E. Newby, Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. 2005 C. Oren Summer, FleetNet America, Inc. 2004 David J. Foster, Jr., […]
December 15, 2011
Career Leadership Award
By his own admission, Carl Tapp, vice president of maintenance for P.A.M. Transportation Services Inc., is most comfortable working behind the scenes to move both the Tontitown, Ark.-based company and the trucking industry as a whole forward.
February 9, 2011
Tapp’s father was fluent in about 15 different languages, and young Carl (left) and his brother, Richard – shown here in Germany in 1961 – grew up speaking German as their first language.
Career Leadership Award: Mike Jeffress
Maverick’s mentor Positive role models stepped forward to help Mike Jeffress at crucial times in his life. That’s why he’s compelled to play the same role today. Jeffress left Nashville Auto-Diesel College with a clear plan. “I was going to come back home and change the way Dad and Fuzzy were doing business,” Jeffress recalls. […]
March 8, 2010
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