Tamara Jalving’s daughter is at the age where she’s trying to determine her career path, but she isn’t very interested in the trucking industry despite her mother’s leadership role at a transportation company.
Jalving, vice president of safety at Yellow Corp. (CCJ To 250, No. 6), said she is trying to help her daughter see past the perception that trucking is a male’s environment.
Jalving was one of five women leaders in trucking at the American Trucking Associations Management Conference & Exhibition in San Diego this week to discuss ways the industry could help shift that perspective and branch beyond its traditional pool of candidates to not only recruit and retain women but also to empower them to succeed.
“I want to encourage the audience and people here to stop using the term male-dominated when it comes to the trucking industry; let’s expire that term because we’re here,” Cari Baylor, president of Indiana-based Baylor Trucking, said during the panel.
While women have always been part of the industry, they have faced challenges often reserved specifically for their gender – from labor-intensive roles like driving to the executive level.
For Jalving, the biggest challenge has been developing new relationships.
“There have been some struggles coming in at a higher level. This industry, more so than the other industries I’ve worked in, … there are longstanding relationships of people who’ve been in this industry 10, 20, 30 years,” Jalving said. “When you’re coming in, people often have expectations that you must have earned your way there. It’s easy to be dismissed. I did earn my stripes; I just did it in other industries.
