Keith Alan Rahn — My Thoughts on Trucking

I have spent years behind the wheel of a truck, traveling across this country and seeing America from a perspective that most people never get to experience. I've seen the beauty of this country, but I've also seen its struggles. I've seen people at their best and people at their worst. I've seen accidents, emergencies, people who were stranded, people who were hurting, and people who simply needed somebody to stop and help. And I've learned something along the way: trucking is about a lot more than trucks. It is about people. It is about responsibility. It is about trust. It is about getting the job done safely, even when nobody is watching. And, at its best, it is about service.

People who aren't part of this industry sometimes look at a truck and see a machine carrying freight. I see something very different. I see a professional behind the wheel who is carrying a responsibility that most people never think about. Everything we depend on moves by truck at some point. Food, medicine, clothing, building materials, equipment, fuel and countless other necessities don't magically appear on store shelves. Somebody has to move them. That somebody is often a truck driver. We are an essential part of America's infrastructure. But trucking is also a community. You meet people on the road. You help people on the road. You learn from people on the road. And sometimes, you become the person somebody desperately needs when something goes wrong. That is the part of trucking that has meant the most to me.

Trucking gave me an opportunity to see the country, build a career and meet people from every walk of life. But over time, it became much more than a paycheck. It became a responsibility. I'm a U.S. Army veteran, and service has always been an important part of who I am. Trucking gave me another way to serve. When I'm behind the wheel, I don't just think about the load I'm carrying. I think about everyone around me—the people in the cars, the other truck drivers, the families traveling down the interstate, the person broken down on the shoulder, and the person who may need help and doesn't know who is going to stop.

That is why the Highway Angel recognition means something to me. I've now been honored three times by the Truckload Carriers Association as a Highway Angel. But I don't look at those awards as proof that I'm somehow better than another truck driver. I look at them as reminders of what I believe a professional truck driver should be.

The first time I was recognized as a Highway Angel, I wasn't thinking about an award. I was thinking about somebody who needed help. The second time was the same. And the third time was no different. On August 10, 2026, I was at the Sapp Bros. Travel Center in the Salt Lake City area. I had only been there for about 20 or 30 minutes when I took my German Shepherd outside for a walk. As I came around a corner, I saw a man and woman arguing. Then the argument became physical. The man struck the woman. I didn't stand there and watch. I intervened. I told him to stop. When he continued acting aggressively, I made it clear that he needed to back away. Eventually, he left. I then made sure the woman had somewhere safe to stay while she arranged for a ride. I offered to contact law enforcement for her, but she declined, and I respected her decision. My concern wasn't recognition. It wasn't publicity. It wasn't whether somebody was going to call me a hero. I was just trying to make sure she was okay.

The Truckload Carriers Association recognized me with my third Highway Angel Award for that intervention. And that brings me to something I want people to understand: I don't believe you should need an award to do the right thing. If somebody needs help and you can safely help them, you should. That's what being a human being is supposed to mean, and that's what I believe trucking should represent.

I believe trucking should be a profession people are proud to enter. It should be a career where experience matters, where safety matters, where professionalism matters, where character matters, and where the person sitting behind the steering wheel isn't treated like a number on a spreadsheet. A professional driver carries enormous responsibility. We are expected to operate equipment weighing tens of thousands of pounds safely, often in terrible weather, through congested cities, over mountain passes and across thousands of miles. We are expected to manage fatigue, traffic, weather, equipment, regulations, schedules and the unexpected events that happen every day on America's highways. That requires judgment. It requires experience. It requires patience. It requires discipline. And it requires respect.

I love trucking. That's precisely why I'm willing to talk about what I believe is wrong with it. You can't love something and refuse to acknowledge its problems. One of the biggest problems I see is the disconnect between the people making decisions and the people actually sitting in the driver's seat. Too often, decisions are made from behind desks based on numbers, schedules, productivity reports and spreadsheets. But a spreadsheet doesn't drive a truck. A spreadsheet doesn't deal with a snowstorm. A spreadsheet doesn't navigate a mountain descent. A spreadsheet doesn't look in the mirror and realize that somebody is following too closely. A spreadsheet doesn't get tired. A spreadsheet doesn't worry about getting home to a family. A human being does. The driver has to live with the consequences of the decisions made by people who may never experience the road the way the driver does. That's a problem.

We talk constantly about safety in trucking, but safety cannot simply be a slogan. It has to be the foundation of every decision. If safety is genuinely the priority, then drivers have to be given the time, equipment, training and support necessary to operate safely. You cannot tell someone, "Safety comes first," and then make them feel that the load, appointment or production number is more important than making a safe decision. When a driver says, "I don't believe this is safe," the first response should not be punishment. It should be, "Tell me why." Experienced drivers have knowledge that cannot always be taught in a classroom. We need to listen to them.

One of the things I worry about most is the loss of experience in this industry. A new driver can learn how to operate a truck, but experience teaches you how to recognize danger before it becomes an emergency. Experience teaches you how weather changes, how roads behave, how other drivers behave, how to read a mountain, how to manage speed, how to know when something doesn't feel right, and how to make a decision before the situation becomes dangerous. Those lessons are incredibly valuable. We need to create an industry where experienced drivers mentor new drivers, not where experienced drivers are treated as replaceable simply because someone believes a newer driver can be hired for less.

I don't believe the answer to the driver shortage is simply putting more people behind steering wheels. I believe we need to put the right people behind steering wheels. We need people who understand responsibility, people who want a career, people who care about safety, and people who understand that a commercial driver's license is not simply permission to drive a big truck. It is permission to take responsibility for the lives of everyone around you. That's a very different mindset.

That philosophy is one of the reasons I started Boots2Trucks. I wanted to create a pathway for people who had already demonstrated that they understood responsibility, discipline and service. I especially wanted to help veterans. Veterans have skills that translate into trucking. They understand discipline. They understand accountability. They understand teamwork. They understand following procedures when procedures matter. They understand what it means to be responsible for something bigger than themselves. But sometimes a veteran leaves military service and doesn't know where the next chapter is going to take them. Some struggle with employment. Some struggle with housing. Some struggle simply to find a sense of purpose again.

I believe trucking can provide more than a paycheck. It can provide a mission. That's where Boots2Trucks came from. Boots2Trucks is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization focused on helping disabled, homeless and transitioning military veterans obtain their CDL-A and enter the professional transportation workforce. The organization provides training, employment assistance, veteran support, career guidance and community outreach. The idea is simple: take someone who served this country and help give them a path toward serving themselves, their family and their community again.

There is a connection between my military service, my trucking career and Boots2Trucks. In the military, you learn that you don't leave somebody behind. I carried that lesson into trucking. When I see somebody who needs help, I don't automatically ask, "What's in it for me?" I ask, "What can I do?" That's the same philosophy behind Boots2Trucks. We're not simply trying to put veterans in trucks. We're trying to help people rebuild. We're trying to give them skills. We're trying to give them opportunity. We're trying to give them independence. And, perhaps most importantly, we're trying to give them a reason to believe that their best days aren't necessarily behind them.

I want trucking to become an industry that young people look at and say, "That's a career I can be proud of." I want experienced drivers to feel respected. I want new drivers to receive real mentorship. I want companies to understand that their drivers are their greatest asset. I want safety decisions to be respected. I want drivers to be able to speak honestly about problems without being afraid that telling the truth will cost them their livelihood. I want veterans to see transportation as an opportunity. I want the public to understand what professional truck drivers actually contribute to this country. And I want the industry to remember that behind every truck number, employee number and electronic log is a human being.

If you've ever driven past a tractor-trailer on the highway and thought, "That truck is holding me up," I would ask you to remember something. That driver may have been on the road for hours. They may be carrying something your community needs. They may be trying to get home to their family. They may be fighting fatigue, weather or traffic while trying to keep you safe. And someday, you may be the person who needs that truck driver to stop. Because that's the other thing I've learned: the road connects all of us. You don't know when you may need another person. You don't know when you may be the person someone else needs.

Three Highway Angel Awards are an honor I will always appreciate. But I don't want the awards to become the story. The story is what they represent. They represent three moments when I saw somebody who needed help. Three moments when I decided that continuing down the road wasn't the right thing to do. Three reminders that trucking can be about something much bigger than freight.

I also believe there are thousands of Highway Angels driving America's highways who will never receive an award. They stop. They help. They call 911. They protect somebody. They change a tire. They check on another driver. They give someone a safe place to sit. They do what needs to be done. And then they get back in their truck and continue down the road. Those people are trucking.

I don't want to abandon trucking. I want to make it better. I want us to stop asking only how many trucks we can put on the road and start asking what kind of professionals we want operating them. I want us to stop looking at drivers as expenses and start recognizing them as the people who make the entire transportation system work. I want us to invest in people, invest in training, invest in mentorship, invest in safety, invest in veterans and invest in the future. Because if we don't, we're going to continue losing some of the most experienced and dedicated people this industry has. And once that knowledge is gone, you can't replace it with a spreadsheet.

I've been asked why I continue to get involved. Why the nonprofit. Why the veterans. Why stop and help people. Why speak out about trucking. The answer is simple: because I believe we have an obligation to leave things better than we found them.

Trucking gave me opportunities. It gave me a career. It gave me experiences I never could have imagined. It introduced me to people from all across this country. It gave me the opportunity to serve others. And now I believe I have an obligation to give something back. That's what Boots2Trucks is about. That's what being a Highway Angel means to me. And that's what I believe trucking should be.

A professional truck driver isn't defined by how many miles they drive. They're defined by how they conduct themselves when something goes wrong. They're defined by how they treat other people. They're defined by whether they choose safety over convenience. They're defined by whether they help another driver. They're defined by whether they have the courage to stop when everyone else keeps going. And sometimes, they're defined by what they do when nobody is watching.

That's the trucking profession I believe in. That's the trucking profession I want to help preserve. And that's the trucking profession I want the next generation to inherit.

I've spent a lot of time on America's highways. I've driven through beautiful places and difficult places. I've hauled freight. I've met strangers who became friends. I've helped people. I've been recognized for helping people. And I've learned that the most important cargo any of us carry isn't always what's inside the trailer.

Sometimes it's our responsibility to one another.

My three Highway Angel Awards are not something I carry as a badge of superiority. They're reminders. Reminders that when somebody needs help, we have a choice. We can keep going, or we can stop. I choose to stop. Because when someone needs help, you don't just drive away. And that, to me, is what trucking is supposed to be.

Keith Alan Rahn

Professional Truck Driver

U.S. Army Veteran

Three-Time Truckload Carriers Association Highway Angel

Founder, Boots2Trucks

Boots2Trucks exists because I believe the transportation industry can provide veterans with more than a job—it can provide a career, independence, purpose and another opportunity to serve. If you are a veteran looking for a new direction, an organization interested in supporting our mission, or someone who believes in the future of professional trucking, I invite you to learn more about what we're doing.

This is bigger than me. This is about trucking. This is about veterans. This is about service. This is about people. And this is about leaving the road—and the industry—better than we found it.