Brenny scores in message to Women in Trucking

Joyce Brenny with 4 million miler Heather Hogeland
and Linda Caffee with WIT -- all OOIDA members.

Guest speaker at this year's Women in Trucking Salute to Women was WIT member Joyce Brenny. If you haven’t met Joyce, she’s a surprise.  She’s a pretty, confident young woman whose success in what’s long been a man’s world can’t be denied. She started out as a driver and in 1996 opened her own trucking company in Minnesota. Turnover at Brenny Transportation is less than 10 percent, which says a lot about how she runs her business.



Brenny said she first thought "why am I up here speaking?" Then when she thought about it, she realized all she's done in her trucking career, and it made sense. Attendees liked her simple answer: "I'm up here because I have a lot to say."

She promised her speech would not be sophisticated and wouldn't be full of big words. She also promised Ellen she'd try not to drop any "four-letter words."

Brenny stilled the exuberant crowd when she told a story that she rarely tells. She was assaulted early in her trucking career by a man she worked with and trusted. Although traumatized, she turned the awful experience into one that pushed her to refuse to be a victim, but to choose instead to be powerful. She urged the women at the event to do the same and when life becomes negative, turn it into a positive force.

Joyce is the owner of Brenny Transportation, chairman of the Minnesota Trucking Association and OOIDA member. She was recently named Influential Woman of the Year.

This was Women in Trucking’s third year to celebrate professional women truck drivers behind the wheel. It drew more than 200 women to the MATS event to be honored for safe driving awards. 


On Saturday, President and CEO Ellen Voie told the crowd that of the 205 women honored, 81 had logged fewer than a million safe miles, 67 were million milers, 35 had logged 2 million miles, and 15 had trucked 3 million miles. Seven women proudly claimed 4 million safe miles on the road.