Being of British extraction, I’ll be excused for my perspective on history. “Old” is a relative term, after all.

My father, for instance, once took me to see a small church in England where he’d sung as a choirboy in the 1920s. I thought that was a long time back, but then I saw a little plaque on the wall of that cold, unheated stone building. It said the place was built in 1219 A.D. Yet, nearly 800 years later the church was still the focal point of that Oxfordshire village, and I’ll hazard a wild guess that it remains so, a mere three decades after my visit.

Given that definition of “old,” I’m usually a little amused-and very ready to snicker-when I see those words below store signs and company logos that boldly exclaim “Since 1990.” Or “Est. 1994.” I mean, hell, that’s nothing.

Or is it? In a world where things can and do change drastically overnight, these terms are being redefined. Witness the magazine you’re holding.

This issue marks the 15th anniversary of Today’s Trucking, and I guess that makes us old in some senses. Certainly it makes us proven and, in this new world, established. Those 15 years may be a dot on the larger temporal landscape, but these days they represent true longevity.

It makes me proud-and prouder still that, with your continuing encouragement, we never stop trying to improve what we started in the spring of 1987.

You’d have to take me back to the 1960s to make me feel truly nostalgic-the very early Stones, Chevy Biscayne 409s, the back row at the A&W drive-in where the carhops loved to linger. But I’m nonetheless drawn to look over the first 15 “TT” years and, with growing trepidation, at the next 15. In 1987, with deregulation and free trade just around the corner, huge opportunities were opening up. Many grabbed them with both hands and prospered, while others never did manage the competition very well. Back when we launched, 30-year-old family companies were just starting to be run by the sons and daughters of the founders, adding the “handover” challenge to all the others that owners and managers faced. Partly because of this influx of new and younger thinking, and partly because something had to be done to attract and retain everyone from owner-operators to rate clerks, there’s been more emphasis placed on “people management” than there has in the past. I think there’s been more lip service in the trucking business than real change, but a path has been charted. Now we just have to get folks to walk the talk.

I’m much less encouraged when I look at the money that flows around this industry. Skinny margins have become a structural problem wrought by deregulation and free trade, the very changes that opened up so many new opportunities. They’ll kill carriers one by one if we don’t find new ways to value the trucking service. Without making more money, trucking companies will never be sufficiently attractive to the new recruits they so badly need. It’s not just a matter of pay, but equally one of training. As an industry, I’d suggest that far too little is invested-maybe just 20 per cent of what’s needed-in educating technicians and managers and salespeople, not to mention drivers. I mean continuing education for everyone, not just the rookies, because learning never stops. Success depends in large part on having a workforce that’s always on top of the knowledge game.

And fleets are going to have to pay for it. This isn’t just my idea, by the way. For instance, in June, at a symposium hosted by the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council, Manitoba Trucking Association general manager Bob Dolyniuk said fleets can no longer expect new drivers to have invested thousand of their own dollars in basic training. New drivers don’t have that kind of money. Instead, the onus will shift to the employer, and so it should. But, dare I say it, additional training will require money that presently doesn’t exist in many company coffers.

I’m not smart enough to know how carriers will get it, but get it they must. To be honest, sometimes I’m ready to shout that the industry needs to go back to the days of tight entry controls and managed traffic lanes. I backed the move to deregulation, and with great interest watched it unfold in the early years of this magazine.

But deregulation hasn’t made the strong stronger, it’s just made them survivors-survivors too often lacking the wherewithal to prepare properly for the future. So it’s time to stop cutting costs. Instead, we have to make money. And with luck, it’s just a matter of what we choose to focus on.