Bowles' RHA burden?
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I When west-London haulier toy Bowles was elected unpaid toad Haulage Association thairman in May he calmly ook on a catalogue of burdens hat would make a workaholic lquirm.
He spends three days a veek on RHA business, is on he phone to director-general kyan Colley every other day, ittends 12 board and six counil meetings a year, makes an ppearance in each district ■ nce every 12 months, attends inners, talks to ministers and ravels.
His public duties do not end here. He has been a magisrate in Ealing for 20 years and ; a commissioner of taxis. All his and running a business ihich Bowles has built up from lmost nothing . . twice. He ; stoical about the sacrifices: You have to burn the candle t both ends for two years, but le workload would worry any ian," he says.
Bowles says he gets round it y employing modern corniunications — a carphone and LX — to run his business at rm's length. His firm, Roy owles Transport, which cares air cargo from Heathrow ul Gatwick airports, has its )ard meetings at 7.30am, and
his son and daughter, aged 34 and 30, work in the business full-time.
He began his first company 35 years ago while working in his father's fruit and veg shop 31on from Heathrow. Someone at the airport needed film taken to London urgently; Bowles had a car and Roy Bowles Transport was born. Soon his father was working for him.
As courier work from the airport grew, he bought nine minibuses to escape restrictions on goods-carrying vehicles which only allowed him to operate two vans. By 1968 he was running 100 trucks.
He sold the business in 1970 for an interest in an ill-fated forwarding agency. When it flopped in 1974, Bowles had to start again, with two vans. He built it up to its present 150strong fleet of lveco Fords and Mercedes-Benzs, attributing his success to his reputation in the air freight industry — and to honesty. "If I'd created a bad impression the first time, I wouldn't have won the business back," he says.
He hopes to take this reputation into his job as the association's chairman, which he regards as the biggest honour in the industry. "You feel you've reached the pinnacle of your career. You must be a proud man to be elected by the members," he says.
Figurehead
"When I'm a magistrate, people in court don't stand up because I'm Roy Bowles — they stand because I represent the Queen. It's the same when I'm RHA chairman. It's because I represent 11,000 people. You are a figurehead, and the respect hauliers have for the chairman is encouraging."
Bowles joined the RHA in 1959. He was on his subdistrict committee within a year, but it was another 20 before he made the national board. "You don't suddenly say, "I'm going to be chairman". These sort of things happen," he says — perhaps making a reference to Charles Garn, the 32-year-old haulier from East Anglia, who gained prominence by vowing at October's RHA conference in Portugal that he would eventually be chairman himself.
He is determined to increase membership to pre-recession levels of 17,000, and the signs are encouraging. The first eight months of the year saw a rise of 360. "If only each member would bring in another. I bet there are thousands of hauliers out there who are using RHA conditions of service." A year's subscription only costs the price of five litres of fuel a week, and RHA members save on insurance.
"I'd like to shame hauliers into joining," he says. "RHA members should wear the badge with pride."
He is keen to put across the point that large transport companies, as well as small operators, are valued members of the association. "The Post Office, Wincanton and TNT are all members. Wincanton needs someone to speak for it in Whitehall. The big company needs RHA membership as well as the little guy."
He is scornful of operators who emblazon their trucks with macho liveries. It adds to the press image of the "speeding juggernaut" and cowboy driver. "They don't give the industry a good name tearing up the Ml," he says.
As Bowles completes his first six months in office, he says he has been keen not to rock the boat with a radically different style from his predecessor, Glyn Samuel, or by storming in with controversial proposals.
"We have lost our three top executive officers (director general Freddie Plaskett, secretary Len Harper and shortly senior executive officer Bob Duffy). It's an important piece of surgery the RHA must recover from," he says.
"We've had the same men at the top for years, and it has been important that we got the right people to replace them." His other big job is to make hauliers aware of 1992. "I don't think many hauliers plan more than one year ahead," he says. "We have got to be more optimistic and seize opportunities." 0 by Murdo Morrison