Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/620616
Specia Gifts Specia Gifts BY SUSAN COLLINS, TRUCKSTOP.COM DIRECTOR OF INDUSTRY RELATIONS I had the absolute pleasure of joining the amazing Truckstop.com team at our rst ever user conference in Dallas, Texas this past November. Let me tell you, if you were unable to make the conference, you denitely missed out on an event 20 years in the making. My suggestion: Plan for the next one – this is one you don't want to miss. Not only were the speaker line- ups exceptional, but the subjects addressed and the new product announcements. It was jam- packed full of surprises. And with any hugely successful event these days, there was a mobile conference app: "Truckstop Connected." For some reason or another, I was having diculty downloading this app so I asked for assistance from a very nice young lady who was identied as the "app expert" at the event. It turns out, I had my app store account linked to an old email address and password. In our attempt to change the email and password I was prompted with a security question: "What was the destination of your rst plane ride?" Easy enough – it was Ireland. e young lady looked at me and said, "really? e rst plane ride you ever took was to Ireland – that is so cool – how old were you?" I replied 11. With that came a ood of memories that I had not thought about in years. My Dad had passed away – an awful accident and that summer my grandmother, Nana Mahoney, oered to take me and my sister Annie to Ireland. Nana was planning on one of her regular trips back home and thought that it might help Mom get things in order without us in her hair. Pop Mahoney, however, was given the dreaded task of handling my two brothers, Ron and Greg. I think Nana got the better deal. So here we are o to Ireland for an entire month, July. We ew TWA Airlines — no longer in existence and I believe we were served two full meals — unheard of today. I remember the pilot announcing that we would be landing soon and arriving at Shannon Airport – of course Annie and I ghting to look out the 4-inch window – I remember it being so green and when we nally touched down everyone clapped – they used to do that. Such wonderful funny stories of our trip to this strange place so far from everything we knew – and they all started the same way "we had each other." I think I may have gotten o the subject here for a while but what I'm saying is sometimes gis are so big, bright and shiny like Truckstop.com's user conference where I "connected" with old friends and made some amazing new ones and others seem to seep in more gently like the treasured memories from so long ago from out of the blue that became so vivid and touching. Nana Mahoney is long since gone too – but for a few moments among the excitement of conversations and busyness of the conference, she came to visit me. Vo l . 1 0 , N o . 1 TRUCKSTOP.COM 9