Board of Directors

Laura Roan Hays has been in the transportation industry for more than 30 years. She began her career in 1989 as an administrative assistant and worked her way up to Branch Manager, leading the Great Dane Tampa and Miami branches.

Along with her extensive sales and customer service experience, Laura also has comprehensive knowledge of the trucking industry’s aftermarket sector. 

She has been a member of WIT since early 2012, and most recently, she was appointed to the Women in Trucking Board of Directors. She is excited to take on this role and further assist in fulfilling the WIT mission to encourage the employment of women in the trucking industry, promote their accomplishments, and minimize obstacles faced by women working in the industry.

Rachel Christensen is responsible for managing intermodal capacity needs and service performance throughout the entire J.B. Hunt Intermodal network, consisting of 5,500 trucks and 85,000 company owned containers.

She started her career with J.B. Hunt in 2008 and has held various positions in the Intermodal division managing a variety of local and regional fleets.  Prior to relocating to the corporate office in 2016, she was the Director of Intermodal Operations in Chicago, IL where she oversaw the day to day operations of the largest local fleet in J.B. Hunt’s intermodal segment with more than 700 drivers servicing the Chicago metro area.  She currently serves as an advisor to J.B. Hunt’s Women Employee Resource Group, GROW.  In her free time she enjoys staying active, traveling and as a Chicago native, rooting on her home teams from afar.

Leah Shaver is the President & CEO of The National Transportation Institute (NTI), the trucking industry subject matter experts on professional driver wages, best practices, and programs and in 2019 joined the lineup of Talk Radio Hosts on SiriusXM’s Road Dog Trucking Radio.

Leah’s career has been spent supporting long-term growth and expansion of the transportation industry while reinforcing its best resource – professional truck drivers! Today, with Leah’s leadership, NTI works to deliver opportunities for companies that employ professional drivers to grow, to attract additional workers, and then expand in their marketplace with that appropriately compensated, engaged and retained workforce. Tagged the “Sunshine Girl” by SiriusXM listeners, whether on-air with professional drivers or consulting in the boardroom at fleets of all sizes, Leah offers encouraging guidance with an upbeat, and direct manner focused on top performance, career growth and retention.

Recognized as a Top Woman to Watch in Transportation, Leah is a subject matter expert on driver compensation and strategies addressing driver recruiting, retention and development of the driver candidate pool.  In addition to owning and operating NTI and contributing on-air at SiriusXM, Leah serves as an officer on the Board of Directors of the Women In Trucking Association, and volunteers as a licensed foster care provider in her community.

Chris has been in the transportation industry for more than 20 years. He joined Amazon in 2012, during this time has held multiple leadership roles leading the Procurement, Transportation Ops, and Supply Chain teams supporting Amazon’s customer obsession. Currently, he leads the North America Transportation Execution team responsible for Safety, Recruiting, Carrier Engagement and Compliance, and the daily execution of the transportation movements within the Amazon network utilizing the newest technologies. Prior to joining Amazon, Chris spent 8 years at FedEx Ground leading the transportation team with an emphasis on procurement and transportation execution.

Chris enjoys Saturday afternoon’s in the fall rooting on his favorite college football team. The Ohio State Buckeyes.

LaBree became a professional truck driver in 2006. She is an independent owner-operator of Castle Transport LLC, and has been leased to Landstar since June of 2014. She has been a team driver with her husband, Del, for all of her career. They run JIT (just in time) freight and are able to be home most weekends.

LaBree has been instrumental in growing and managing the WIT Facebook group that has over 11,000 active members. In 2016, she became a member of the WIT Image Team, a group comprised of individuals who represent the WIT mission and participate in ride-along events for legislators, regulators, and industry leaders to provide a deeper understanding of the obstacles they face on the road. They also speak to the media and other industry professionals at public events and industry trade shows.

Delores Lail is the Senior Vice President of Sales for Ryder, Fleet Management Solutions, East Region. She is responsible for all aspects of sales and sales leadership in the East with 150 Directors and Sales professionals on her team. Delores has held a series of increasingly expanding positions in sales and operations during her 35 year career. She was inducted into Ryder Rental Masters in 1991 and recently served as a Board Member.

Delores is active in Ryder’s Women Leadership Association and serves as an executive sponsor. She is a member of Ryder’s Diversity Council. In 2016 she was a recipient of the Florida Diversity Council’s Most Powerful and Influential Women’s Award.

Murphy was appointed Vice President of the Business-to-Business Marketing Organization of Michelin North America, Inc. in January 2018. From 2014 to 2017, he served as Vice President of Marketing for the Michelin Americas Truck Tires division of Michelin North America, Inc.  Prior to that role, he led Michelin’s marketing team in Canada as Marketing Director from 2012 to 2014.

Murphy also served in a variety of operational and strategic marketing roles within the Michelin Americas Small Tires division from 2000 to 2012, after spending his first four years with the company in the sales organization of Michelin Americas Small Tires. He holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration from Furman University in Grenville, SC.

Michele Rodgers is the Director of Business & Product Development for Dynacraft, a diversified global manufacturer of PACCAR medium and heavy-duty truck parts.

Previously, Rodgers was Director of Program Management for Peterbilt, where she had more than twenty years of experience at Peterbilt on the engineering and program management teams and has held several positions of increasing responsibility. She also served as a member of the Peterbilt Women’s Initiative Group (PBWIN) steering committee. PBWIN’s mission is to serve as champions for the empowerment of women at Peterbilt. 

Rodgers holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of North Texas, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington. Additionally, she is a licensed professional engineer. Rodgers lives in the Dallas area with her husband and two children and enjoys spending her free time with her family.

Kelly Rooney is the Director of Operations at Waste Management Illinois Missouri Valley Area, the leading provider of comprehensive waste management environmental services in North America. In her current role,  Rooney oversees the day-to-day operations of Waste Management’s Illinois Missouri Valley collection fleet comprised of more than 800 drivers servicing 500,000 residential and commercial customers throughout Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. With 30 years in the transportation industry, Rooney is charged with leading a team to integrate technology to improve safety, efficiency, and world class service for Waste Management’s customers.     

Rooney earned a bachelor of arts degree in Psychology from Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia. She also earned a master of arts in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University.  She resides in Olathe, KS.

Kary Schaefer is the General Manager of Marketing and Strategy for Freightliner and Detroit Brands, as well as overall vehicle platform strategy at Daimler Trucks North America.  Schaefer joined Daimler Trucks North America in 1995 after holding engineering positions at Pacific Testing Laboratories and Boeing Aerospace in Seattle, Washington. During her career at Daimler Trucks, Kary has filled the roles of design engineer, project planning engineer, engineering project manager, director of engineering services and chief engineer. Between 2012 and 2015, she led an engineering group within United Technology Corporation responsible for the development of autonomous flight controls and stabilized camera systems used in commercial unmanned aerial vehicles.

In late 2015, she returned to Daimler Trucks as the General Manager of Marketing and Strategy for Freightliner and Detroit Brands.  In this role, she is responsible for market analysis, product planning, brand management, and marketing operations. She leads the organization in the creation and execution of product roadmaps from evaluation of customer needs and market trends to early business case development to new product launch and on-going product management.

Kary earned her Associate in Arts & Engineering Science degree from Bellevue Collegeand her Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Washington State University.