David Bradley is the public face of Canada’s largest trucking associations. Some people go so far as to say the industry as a whole. The outspoken CEO of the Ontario Trucking Association and Canadian Trucking Alliance is the one who stands in the glare of the media spotlight whenever trucks are in the news, particularly in the nation’s most populous province. Critics of association policies switch back and forth between his name and the groups themselves, as if they are one and the same.

And now he’s leaving.

Bradley announced earlier this year that he will retire from both association posts at the end of 2017. Stephen Laskowski, the long-time second in command who he championed for the job, has been named successor at the provincial level. The search to fill the top national job is ongoing.

These are no small changes. Bradley has essentially defined the top staff positions. He was promoted to lead the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) in 1990, on the heels of the industry’s deregulation. The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) has never known another CEO.

It wasn’t the career path he planned in university. After spending a brief stint in consulting and banking, the one thing that attracted him to OTA’s ad for a chief economist was that it sounded as far away from banking as he could imagine. The point was reinforced during a third interview with Ray Cope, who held the top provincial job at the time. How, Cope asked, did the young economist think rates were set? Bradley fell back on his university classes, citing things like cost-plus models. Cope laughed, Bradley recalls. “He said, ‘You find out what the other guy is doing, discount it by 20%, and give him a pair of Leafs tickets.'”

This business was different than banking.

That was the extent of his training for awhile. Bradley’s first day at the OTA was October 28, 1985. United Canada Insurance collapsed the next day, and he was largely ignored as other staff scrambled to find ways to cover carriers left without insurance coverage. When the first association convention was held a few weeks later, he was given tasks like collecting tickets. He’ll never forget the glare he received from CP Transport president Karl Wahl when asking for one.

Besides that, nobody in the office seemed to known what economists did, so Bradley set about defining the role.
“I indulged everything that interested me,” he says. First there was a submission on proposed Employment Insurance -changes. Then a paper on the looming driver shortage. By the time Cope announced plans to retire, Bradley had impressed enough people to be tested and vetted by an industrial psychologist, to see if he had what the senior job required and plan for related training.

He was named general manager at the age of 33. And things were about to change.

A new focus

The OTA had 34 people on staff those days, including a battery of lawyers assigned to fight -licensing applications. Deregulation ended the need for roles like that. Cuts were made. Deep cuts. “When you did it, you found out who had relationships in the industry,” Bradley says.

The association refocused on lobbying, but with an approach he wanted to reflect the -industry’s personality. When fighting against plans to increase diesel taxes in 1991, members began -jamming the Ontario legislature’s fax machines with “axe the tax by fax” messages, complete with a caricature of the finance minister. When making the case for 53-foot trailers he followed NDP Transport Minister Gilles Pouliot into legislature washrooms, knowing that’s where the politician escaped for smoke breaks. He and other OTA staffers were known to mill about hotel lobbies during various events, always looking for the chance to get in the ear of one politician or another.

Those were the fun times.

He refers to the mid-1990s as the -provincial industry’s “Armageddon”. Four Toronto-area motorists were killed by runaway truck wheels; a runaway dump truck crashed into a townhouse and killed a woman inside. He found himself in private meetings with grieving families, participating in a coroner’s inquest, and pulling together technical experts who could present solutions such as a training program for wheel installers. He was named co-chair of the Target ’97 task force on truck safety, alongside Transport Minister Al Palladini. Some recommendations stuck, others didn’t, but it still remains the province’s broadest look at the topic.

It also happens to be the time he became a fixture in Toronto-area media reports.

“The media loved him,” recalls Rebecca Freels, who was in charge of OTA communications in those days. “He had that ability to put a human face on the industry.” The team was able to define positions on the fly. The OTA members were defined as professional operators; fleets that ran afoul of rules and regulations were called “bad apples”.

The love was not universal. The death threat – the first one – came in a letter claiming the author knew where Bradley lived. Other threatening and abusive calls came after that. “It goes with the territory if you’re in the public eye,” he says dismissively. But the anger in his voice rises when referring to the abusive language some callers used when they connected with OTA staff. They didn’t deserve that, he says.

A national voice

The national role came next, after Neil Woolliams of West Rim Express Lines and Evan MacKinnon of MacKinnon Transport asked if he would lead the struggling Canadian Trucking Association.

Not every Ontario board member was happy with the idea. “A lot of us were thinking, ‘No way,'” says Challenger Motor Freight’s Dan Einwechter, who worried the appointment would weaken OTA. “He proved us wrong.”

The national association itself was in dire straits, particularly in a financial sense. Bradley proposed reforming it as a partnership of provincial associations – an alliance, in other words – and sharing resources with OTA. It’s essentially the structure for the CTA that exists today.

“In many ways it’s a microcosm of Canada,” Bradley says, referring to the push and pull of different regional interests around the CTA board table. But the alliance was able to find common ground on many issues, such as Hours of Service rules.

Finding common ground is no small matter in either organization, insists Kriska Transport’s Mark Seymour. “You got 80-some-odd Type A personalities that own their own businesses. They’re not good listeners.” But Bradley was still able to establish agendas based on the priorities of the day, he says.

MacKinnon also credits Bradley with negotiations about a decade ago, convincing one provincial association to abandon its plans to leave the national group.

“David has to report to them, and accommodate them, and sometimes protect us from ourselves,” he adds of the discussions with board members and fellow association heads, who at times have grumbled that the national voice is too Ontario-centric. “David can be quite blunt, and he can sometimes share his opinion on what he thinks is best for you.”

He is not the only person to cite the characteristic. Those who say it on the record do so in a favorable tone. Those who say it off the record use the term in other ways. Angela Splinter, the CEO of Trucking HR Canada, which has partnered with CTA on several initiatives, admits that the bluntness took her off guard when she first met him. There was never any secret about where he stood. “I think I’m going to miss it,” she says.

As for Bradley? “You may not have always liked what I had to say, but I said it and I defended it,” he says. “I was totally dedicated to this industry.”

Consider the time he had the chance to meet Queen Elizabeth. “She was so radiant,” Bradley says of the encounter, when Premier Ernie Eves guided her to an OTA display during a royal visit. Then he found himself nose to nose with Prince Philip. “Trucking,” the Duke of Edinburgh sniffed. “Why can’t it all move by rail?”

“It’s called service, sir,” Bradley blurted.

There have been times for a softer touch, though. Al Boughton, the founder of Trailcon Leasing, relays the story of one association chairman who began to struggle with memory issues near the end of a term. “David was so kind and so gracious,” Boughton says, referring to how Bradley would quietly step in to help clarify issues. “Nobody ever knew.”

The ultimate measure for a lobbying group, however, comes in the form of policy wins. The goal was always to find ways to weave association positions into government agendas, and to steer discussions in particular directions, rather than raging against the bureaucratic machine.

Bradley cites a long list of association accomplishments, from liberalized cabotage rules to restored meal tax deductions, and a drug testing program that was developed despite Canadian regulators being “missing in action”. He even describes himself as a mule between the Canadian and U.S. governments in discussions to secure a new international bridge at Windsor, Ontario, and is credited with floating the idea of naming the span the Gordie Howe Bridge.

Why now?

The question most people ask is why now? What is it about 2017 that makes this the right time to retire? Bradley says his gut tells him this is the right time. Other body parts, too. He now finds it tough to sit at a desk or in an airplane seat for extended periods, in a job that takes him across Canada and around the world. “I only know one gear,” he adds.

There is also no overlooking the fact that the industry is changing, either. Fleets are consolidating. Many new fleet executives are replacing the association members he has worked with for decades. Inside the office he has also caught himself dismissing ideas because they had been tried before. Been there. Done that. He used to be the one to champion new ideas.

There was no defining moment to the decision to step aside, but last year he began to tell a few select board members that it was time to retire. It still seems like the right -decision, he says. Most days.

“He’s left behind both a stronger OTA and CTA. He has helped unbelievably elevate the respect and appreciation of the industry at many different levels,” Einwechter says, when asked what Bradley’s legacy will ultimately be.

A traditional retirement is not on the radar, though. Bradley isn’t much of a golfer, and describes himself as the least handy person he knows. Puttering around the house is unlikely. Options from law school to art courses have crossed his mind. Maybe other -industry work will come.

“I may cast a bit of a shadow for a time,” he says.