Julie Tanguay Takes Helm as OTA Chairperson, Seeks Responsibility from Supply Chain

1st woman to hold position in association’s 82 year history

Julie Tanguay, President, L.E. Walker Transport Ltd. has been named chairperson of the Ontario Trucking Association. She is the first woman to hold the position in the association’s 82 year history. The announcement was made following an election held in conjunction with the annual convention of the Ontario Trucking Association the largest of its kind in Canada. ‘Regaining Our Edge’ was the theme of the 2008 convention.

Julie Tanguay was born into the trucking industry. In 1987, at the tender age of 23, she along with her sisters Laurie, Wendie and their mother Jean took over the family trucking business from her father and in the intervening years Julie has overseen its growth from 30 vehicles to a fleet of over 180 vehicles today.

“Trucking has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember,” says Tanguay. “Still, if you’d asked me a few years back whether I would ever become chair of the Ontario Trucking Association, I’d have said ‘no way’.”

“It was pretty intimidating (coming onto the board) at first; there were all these legends of the trucking industry and then there was me, the only woman,” she recalls now. “I don’t think I said a word for the first couple of years – I listened and learned --but gradually I became more comfortable, got more involved in the activities of the board, became a member of the executive commitee and here I am.”

In the past few years, Tanguay has become one of the most effective and passionate leaders at OTA. She has been an ardent supporter of the OTA’s efforts to make the activation of speed limiters mandatory; she has said she wants her fleet to be violation-free; and she wants to run a profitable business.

On being OTA’s first woman chair, Julie Tanguay, says that despite the strides made by women in the trucking industry (she says there are more women running trucking companies today than at any time in the industry’s history), “although I don’t want to dwell on it, it’s still a big deal and shows how our industry is changing. It’s a big honour for me to be the first woman chair.”

In addition, to running her business and serving on the boards of both OTA and CTA, Julie is also completing a certificate in the OPM Management Program at the Harvard Business School of Executive Management, which often finds her flying to different parts of the US on weekends to participate in study groups with her classmates. She will graduate in 2009.

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