COOKEVILLE — Averitt Express recently honored its Cookeville service center associates for an impressive safety milestone, as they had zero preventable accidents or workplace injuries throughout 2018.
Cookeville service center director Pete Ziegler attributes the milestone to associates working smart on the dock, in the shop and out on the road. Another factor, he says, is experience – 25 of his team members have 20-plus years of service.
“They take their time and look at every single piece of freight, and they think of the best way to move it,” Pete says. “I think that has a lot to do with having experience. It’s extremely important to have a team that is focused on safety. Safety is something we talk about every single day, and our team is made up of good, smart people.”
Cookeville city driver David Adams has accumulated nearly 39 years of safe driving during his Averitt career, and he chalks up his success to not resting on previous accomplishments.
“It’s a day-to-day thing,” David says. “You can lean back on your experience and think about it, but I like to say that every time you push the buttons to roll, it’s a new day. You’ve got to do the routine things and checks in your head day after day after day. You’ve got to stay focused and not take anything for granted. It doesn’t matter what you did last year. The moment you’re in the truck, you’ve got to keep safely doing what you do.”
To honor Cookeville service center associates for their accomplishment, Averitt presented them with a 2018 Safety Champions award and treated them to a breakfast celebration.
Averitt’s Cookeville-area service center is located at 1199 Salem Road, and its corporate headquarters is at 1415 Neal Street.
About Averitt Express
Averitt Express is a leading provider of freight transportation and supply chain management with international reach to more than 100 countries. The company is a founding SmartWay℠ partner, and specializes in delivering customized transportation solutions that include cross-border, dedicated, expedited ground/air, intermodal COFC/TOFC, international ocean/air, local customization, less-than-truckload, PortSide®, retail solutions, temperature-controlled, transportation management, truckload (dry van, flatbed, brokerage) and warehousing services. Averitt’s technology offerings include a full suite of web-based shipping tools, electronic data interchange (EDI), warehouse management systems (WMS), and transportation and operations management systems. Together, these services and technology solutions provide “The Power of One” to shippers, allowing them access to multiple transportation solutions from a single provider. For more information, call 1-800-AVERITT (283-7488) or visit AverittExpress.com.
