Women In Trucking Association (WIT) has announced Sarah Johnson as its September Member of the Month. Sarah is the Executive Vice President of Milestone Trailer Leasing in St. Charles, Missouri.

While in college, Sarah started working part-time for her father’s trailer rental and leasing company, Personal Attention Leasing (PAL) which was based in St. Louis, Missouri. At the time, he had a rental fleet of 200 trailers. The summer she started, he added his second location in Kansas City, Kansas.

Sarah always thought it was a temporary position, as she had different plans for her career path. She moved away to Chicago and Los Angeles while earning her degree, but eventually settled back to the St. Louis area to help again with the business. The running joke in the industry is that once you’re in transportation, you never get out!

Over the course of 10 years, Personal Attention Leasing grew through acquisition of assets and companies to a fleet of 15,000 trailers and 12 locations. Sarah held several roles in the company during those years. From inspecting equipment, bookkeeping, facilitating the human resource function, to helping the team with computers. Whatever it was, she would jump in and figure out how to make it happen, always putting the needs of the customer first. “The growth of the company and my various roles gave me tremendous exposure to all aspects of the business, which I couldn’t have learned in any classroom,” she said.

“Considering the fact that I worked for my father, I put pressure on myself to prove to my co-workers that I earned my position and that nothing was ‘given’ to me. Over time, that pressure has transitioned to the fact I am most often, the only women in the meeting,” she said.