A great run

July 2, 2014
After a wonderful 38-year career, Tom Duncan is leaving the Fleet Owner family

After a wonderful 38-year career, Tom Duncan is leaving the Fleet Owner family.

In June of 1978, Tom Duncan joined Fleet Owner as an associate editor.  This June he retired as vice president/group publisher of Penton’s Automotive and Trucking Group, which in addition to Fleet Owner, includes Ward’s Auto, FleetSeek, Trailer Body Builders, Bulk Transporter and Refrigerated Transporter.

During that 38-year span, he’s gone from an era where digital meant something to do with fingers to a media environment that’s exploded with new ways of serving our audience.  Tom has followed a similarly exponential evolution.  He excelled as a journalist covering an industry he loved, eventually taking over as chief editor of this magazine. 

Tom then transitioned to the business side as publisher, where his intelligence and dedication not only brought Fleet Owner to new levels of success, but also led to the acquisition of American Trucker and trucking’s leading data business, FleetSeek.  And recognizing his ability to apply those talents in a broader arena, management subsequently asked Tom to take on additional Penton brands in the automotive and aviation industries.

Through it all, his first priority was editorial quality.  Tom believes that the only way to succeed in a media business is to give your audience content that informs them, that surprises them and above all else makes their businesses better.  That perspective led him to invest in Fleet Owner’s first online project, live web coverage of the International Truck Show back in the digital dark ages of 1995.  And over the last 19 years, his roots in editorial quality have helped Fleet Owner embrace digital media without damaging an 86-year-old magazine or abandoning its loyal readers.  His unwavering support for editors and what we do to produce Fleet Owner in its many forms has made all of us who worked for him proud to be part of his team.

Those of you who’ve managed your fleets through one or more economic downturns know how wrenching it can be to make the difficult decisions needed to push through to the recovery side of the cycle.  Finding the right balance between choices that save the business and those that doom it in the long run takes great skill and finesse.  In his long career, Tom not only shepherded Fleet Owner through a number of deep business cycles, but also positioned us to emerge each time stronger than ever.

More importantly, in navigating difficult times he always brought a human perspective, never losing sight of the fact that his biggest decisions impacted the real lives of those who worked for him, of people with families, aspirations and responsibilities.

The loyalty he’s earned in response has built a staff with stability and tenure that’s become quite rare in the modern business environment—I’ve worked with Tom for 30 years, and the majority of our other editors and support people also have been part of his team for decades. 

That kind of longevity—both Tom’s with Fleet Owner and the staff’s with Tom—says far more about his career accomplishments than I ever could in 600 words.  So let me just say it’s been a real privilege to work with him.  Watching him lead has taught me the most valuable lessons about the power of true conviction, the value of perseverance, and the strength that comes from bringing humanity to all our interactions with others.  And above all, it’s been a joy to see a truly good guy succeed on his own terms.

Good luck, Tom, and best wishes from all of us here at Fleet Owner.
 

About the Author

Jim Mele

Nationally recognized journalist, author and editor, Jim Mele joined Fleet Owner in 1986 with over a dozen years’ experience covering transportation as a newspaper reporter and magazine staff writer. Fleet Owner Magazine has won over 45 national editorial awards since his appointment as editor-in-chief in 1999.

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