Class of 2008
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Last year, Steve Goulding attended an educational session at the National Private Truck Council’s (NPTC) annual conference. It was here that he learned, for the first time, about a unique certification program.
Among the many benefits offered by conferences and professional associations in the trucking industry, Goulding believes there is nothing equal to what he learned by going through the NPTC’s Certified Transportation Professional (CTP) program.
From the moment Goulding signed up, he was mentored by professionals such as Jeff Wermuth, a CTP from Toys-R-Us.
“Jeff got me signed up for it,” Goulding says. “He was glad to send me some material, and mentored me from the moment signed up.”
Goulding already had a lot of prior experience in trucking as a general manager for a trucking and warehousing firm, and for the past year as the director of operations for LaneLinks, a brokerage firm that specializes in creating backhaul solutions for private fleets.
The CTP immediately “sparked my interest,” he says. The CTP is a rigorous certification equal to and exceeding the requirements for many other types of professional certification programs. To give you an idea of the difficulty of the CTP exam, for example, the initial pass rate is 40 percent. The CTP certification consists of expertise in five core areas: Finance, HR, Operations, Equipment, and Safety.
Beginning in early summer, 2007, Goulding began studying and reading. At the end of summer, he began studying example practice questions. Throughout the fall and winter, he was reading even more material and attended the NPTC’s National Safety Conference in September. After this conference, he participated in some online safety webinars sponsored by J.J. Keller and the NPTC.
The crowning educational event was the NPTC’s Fleet Institute held in January where Goulding and other fleet professionals met to learn and prepare for the CTP exam directly from peers who had already completed the CTP program.
“It makes a huge difference if you attend,” Goulding says. “I hit the ground running.” He attended an exam preparation workshop to practice how to complete the exam’s case studies and multiple choice questions.
After the exam preparation workshop, the rest of the week was set aside to studying individual subjects and listening to presentations from peers with the CTP certification.
After graduating from the Fleet Institute, Goulding continued to study for the CTP exam. Tom Moore, vice president of public affairs for NPTC, provided immediate feedback on how to analyze and write case studies. His wife pitched in and recorded study material for him to listen to during his daily commute. His employer, LaneLinks, allowed him to fly in the day before the test to spend an extra day studying before the exam.
“I studied in the hotel all day long,” Goulding says. He took the exam through a proctor in February at Toys-R-Us in Rialto, Calif. The case study portion of the exam took 2 hours to complete. The multiple choice portion took 2.5 hours for 120 questions.
Goulding will join several other people from the Class of 2008 “band of brothers” on stage at this year’s NPTC annual convention to receive the CTP certification.
The education from the CTP program has made a big difference in Goulding’s job as the operations director for LaneLinks.
By belonging to a network of professionals, “I can relate on a level of credibility that I could not before,” he says. “I’m certified in the five core areas that they work in. If I’m talking about something here at work, or to my network of customers, I have that credibility that I have been certified in those areas. I’m not just pulling information out of the air.” As new developments happen in the trucking industry, “I am seeing them from the standpoint of the five core areas,” he adds.
The total cost to take the CTP exam and attend the Fleet Institute was between $4,000 and $5,000, he says. Money well spent.
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