"I just believe very passionately that if you're going to take your industry seriously, you need to be engaged, you need to be involved." --Joe Rajkovacz, Director of Government Affairs, Western States Trucking Association

The quote above comes from this week's long talk with Rajkovacz, with a long history in trucking and with the last decade and a half or so with Western States, headquartered in California and among the most prominent actors nationally challenging the onerous parts of the California Air Resources Board’s ever-more-complicated emissions and equipment regulations. Rajkovacz was speaking to the value of association membership for business owners in whatever industry they participate in. Specifically for him, of course, that’s trucking, tracking back to his time as an owner-operator first in the 1980s and in trucking in other roles before that, as you’ll hear in today’s episode highlighting his career.

In this final regular edition of Overdrive Radio for the year, track back through Rajkovacz's early years trucking, from a wash bay to behind the wheel as a Teamster for a brief time early on, then to truck ownership, decades over-the-road, and coming off the road for full-time association work with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association in 2006. He wouldn't be there but for a few years, after which he joined Western States, then the California Construction Trucking Association, to devote more energy to challenging CARB's Truck and Bus Regulation, which would ultimate ban 2006 and older emissions-spec engines in-state.

I’ts at Western States where he’s officially concluded his career, retiring earlier this month back near where he began his trucking career in Wisconsin with his wife, Joan. The two are proud parents of three grown children, grandparents of eight, and staying warm this winter season, we hope.

This conversation was conducted in November during the long-running annual event where Overdrive editor Todd Dills got to know Rajkovacz well -- the annual conference of the National Association of Small Trucking Companies. Rajkovacz has been a perennial presenter there, and odds are will continue to be as his engagement with regulatory and legislative issues on the West Coast for trucking will also be continuing, as you’ll hear in today's episode.

You’ll hear more of Joe Rajkovacz’s story, no doubt, but also plenty evidence of what his career represents – he’s among the best examples we have of a trucking industry participant who spent the time and did the work to act on something fundamental to the truly engaged in the business: a real love for it, and a desire to see conditions for its participants improve for the better.

Find more about the Western States Trucking Association: https://westrk.org