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Juggling ad
Page 24
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The Road Haulage Association's national chairwoman manages to
juggle home life with a transport business and her responsibilities to RHA members — Chris Tindall finds out how.
Val Smith greets me with a smile and .1 handshake in a sparse office which, she is quick to point out, is not hers Having just hotfooted it over from a Road Haulage Association (RI-IA) board meeting, the association's national chairwoman has hijacked the first room in the Weybridge headquarters she can lay her hands on.
She apologises and helpfully positions herself where the sunlight streaming through the bare window isn't blinding me. With consideration like this I'm not expecting a difficult interview.
Smith admits to being tired. Not content with regular sleep deprivation courtesy of early flights from her native Belfast, she admits to being out with friends until 1.30am that morning. But despite this lack of sleep, her passion for her job and infectious sense of humour remain undiminished.Throughout the interview, she is animated and frequently leans forward in her seat to emphasise her point.
Female perspective Smith is deservedly proud of her status as national chairwoman; particularly as she is the first female to hold the position.! ask if her predecessor, Bob Russett, offered any advice when he passed over the baton last year. She becomes serious: "He is a particularly hard act to follow. [But] like Bob.! work hard and I like people."
She believes a female perspective is bringing a breath of fresh air to a male-dominated industry: "I can remember the days when salesmen would come to sell their stuff to our company; they would address the man I was with, never me. It still happens.
However, being a woman who manages a family as well as a major business, she has firstclass planning skills and a sense of logic: -We have good memories too and you need a good memory in this job!
Time is valuable to Smith. When she's not making sure the RI-IA is run the way members wish, she's being general manager for warehousing and distribution business Bondelivery: it's part of the McBurney Group with depots in Belfast and across the border. It's substantial by Northern Ireland terms with more than 200 staff and a £45m turnover. The third ball in this time-keeping juggling act is her family of three children and her husband.
"In the two years you are chairwoman you are dedicating yourself primarily to the job and to the RHA, it eats into your personal time," Smith acknowledges. "But I'm happy to do it... what I do I enjoy. It gives me a better insight into the industry."
Apart from a few months working in a bank shortly after her marriage (-very boring"), she has always worked in transport:"Most jobs you do are repetitive, but in haulage you don't know from one moment to the next what's going to happen you're always challenged and you're always learning."
Growing up in Belfast has instilled Smith with a work ethic which she says runs through the population,coupled with a friendliness that historically the media has not focused on.
"Because of the Troubles we have perhaps been by-passed by business; [therefore] we have always had to work very hard to catch up." She cites Terry Wogan and Gloria Hunni ford as examples of hard-working, personable Northern Irish people to back up her point.
-[And] we have a very loyal labour force -I have people working for me who have been here for 30 years."
Earlier involvement Smith is particularly concerned about the Lorry Road User Charging (LRUC), mainly due to the porous reputation of the border with the Republic, and she simply doesn't see how any system could work: "I think it's going to be very difficult to have LRUC in Northern Ireland without something similar in the South. Everyone knows about the smuggling that has gone on;! don't know how they are going to do it."
Then there's the Working Time Directive Smith advises operators to wait for the government's final guidelines on this before panicking in fact she thinks limiting drivers' hours could help the industry in the long term: "Maybe that's what will entice more people into the industry There's no doubt it will create more jobs?'
She's doesn't pretend to have all the answers but she knows what the government should be doing to ensure a fair deal for her members "It needs to get closer to Europe where these Directives are coming from. We often gel involved after Europe has said 'this needs tc happen by such and such a date'.We have to gel involved before it gets that far.
"You have different cultures and work ethics it's very hard to merge into something every. one can agree on."11