Trucking News, Updates, & Back Issues

Women In Trucking Association (WIT) has announced Dana Achartz as its June Member of the Month. Dana is a safety representative for Great West Casualty Company in Illinois.

Dana has been in trucking safety for over 10 years. She started her career as a log auditor, then eventually moved up to a safety coordinator, safety supervisor, safety manager and then ultimately a safety director. A few years ago, she completed the CDS (certified director of safety) certificate from NATMI, the North American Transportation Management Institute.

Last year, Dana moved to Illinois to join the Great West Casualty Company insurance team. With her new position, she’s able to visit motor carriers and continue to pass on her knowledge of safety and driver training to assist carriers with enhancing their driver training and accident prevention practices.

Dana is involved with the local trucking associations and even co-chaired a “share the road” program, which brings awareness to the motoring public and to high school students of what not to do around big rigs on the road. The program highlights safety for everyone on the road.

Trucking has touched Dana’s life in multiple ways. Her grandfather was an over-the-road truck driver for the BNSF railroad and her father was an LTL driver and also worked safety in the office for a linen company. She truly loves what she does and is passionate about safety.

“I was lucky enough to get a little taste of the old ways of trucking and then lucky enough to be part of the big transition of ELD’s 10 years ago as they were first making their appearance in the industry. What an amazing change it’s been over the years,” she said.

In her career, she has helped companies build safety departments, design and orchestrate driver new hire orientation, as well as perform all safety trainings and technology trainings for ELDs. “Throughout all of my safety knowledge, driver training and bringing awareness to the public and frequent safety training with drivers, I truly believe over the course of my ten+ year career, somewhere out there , at some point I saved at least one life. That one life is worth everything I do,” she said.