ATA Chair Windsor: “I wish Grandpa could see me now”

PHOENIX, Ariz. — When the CEO and President of Maryland-based Hahn Transportation Barbara Windsor goes away from home for the weekend, a guy she met away back in grade one drops over to feed her dogs.

He is Bob Weller. He also happens to be Hahn’s senior driver, having driven for the specialized family-owned carrier since 1974.

For her part, Windsor has just been named the new chairman of the American Trucking Associations (the first-ever woman chair) and referred to the longstanding friendship between herself and Weller in her acceptance speech at the ATA’s annual management conference earlier this week.

Windsor’s trucking roots run deep — she remembers helping out as child, ether can in her jacket pocket on cold mornings — and her family business has long advocated being involved with industry associations.

Windsor’s grandfather James Russell Hahn started Hahn Transportation in 1933. He and his wife and two daughters moved from the farm to the city and started trucking crops from the fields to the canneries, the milk from the farm to the creameries, the coal or oil to the homes, schools and hospitals for heat.

"As time went on he realized that he needed the assistance of trade associations — the Maryland Motor Truck Association (MMTA) and the ATA to help with the state and federal regulations imposed on trucking.

“He was a small carrier, but he found value in these trade associations worth the dues."

James Hahn went on to become a Chairman of MMTA in 1967. His daughter, Rebecca Hahn Windsor would become the first female chairman of MMTA in 1988 and in 1997. "I became the second female chairman of MMTA, following my mother," Windsor told the conference.

(Incidentally, the current administrator of the DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Anne Ferro, also served as president of the MMTA between 2003 and 2009).

"I really wish my grandfather could be here to see his granddaughter very proudly and humbly accept the chairmanship of this great organization that he believed in and supported for many years,” she said. “His legacy lives on.”

Between being born into the family trucking company and becoming chair of the ATA, Windsor earned experience in other industries, as well. Prior to re-joining Hahn in 1991, she worked at Trans World Airlines for 20 years.

“We have many challenges facing us,” she said. “Highway reauthorization, HOS, new cleaner efficient trucks and fuels and of course CSA 2010 — just to name a few. I am here to represent all of you as we continue our daily mission of moving our customers’ goods in a SAFE and efficient manner.”