LOUISVILLE, KY.- As dawn broke on Friday March 23, 2012 the weather was looking bleak for the MATS Health Awareness Walk 2012. It was raining heavily. It had also rained heavily for a lot of the previous evening and throughout the overnight.
Our group met at Cracker Barrel at 6 a.m. for our annual meeting and it was looking nasty. Our fellow group member Jeff Clark got soaked riding to the meeting on his motorcycle from his hotel. We were worried. We talked about possible alternatives if conditions didn’t improve.
We gathered in room W2 of the West Wing at the Kentucky Exposition Center and enjoyed fresh fruit, bottles of water and coffee provided by Fedex Custom Critical. Our thanks go out to Virginia Albanese, President of Fedex Custom Critical for her generosity in providing these refreshments.
As walk time approached the weather was still looking uncooperative and the attendance was also looking disappointing. Then, everything changed. It stopped raining and most of the supportive folks who had registered (and more that hadn’t) arrived and we were set to go. We passed out the walk T-shirts provided to us by our groups’ new partner, TravelCenters of America, the TA/Petro people and we were off.
The MATS Health Awareness Walk celebrated its third year as a huge success. The event was promoted as a “Walk and Talk” thanks to many well known people in the trucking industry signing on to walk with us and to their credit, most of them showed up even with the threat of getting soaked. T-shirts and goodie bags were passed out and everyone had a chance to chat with our guest walkers both before and after the walk.
Our thanks go out to Todd Spencer, Joe Rajkovacz and Norita Taylor from OOIDA, John Elliot from Load One Logistics, Lance Wood and Kerry Mullins from Trucker Charity, Miguel Soetaert, Travis Garvey, Miguel Fernandez and Greg Daines from Daimler Trucks, Jeanie Silk from the Great Lakes Convoy, Susan Wirth-White from the Women in Trucking Driver Advisory Council, Bjorn Cannon from Real Wheels, Pam Pollock (in a most unusual walking outfit) from Movin’ Out magazine (Steve was there too), Jeff Maurer from IdleAire and all of the others who showed up to walk despite the threat of getting drenched.
The walk is sponsored by the Trucking Solutions Group and Travel Centers of America (TA/Petro) with special thanks to the Mid-America Trucking Show. The Trucking Solutions Group, along with its partner Travel Centers of America (TA/Petro) are innovators in the trucking industry, working towards making personal health and fitness a bigger concern for all truckers.
Onramp to Health 