Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC)

For those of us in the transportation industry just mentioning the term TWIC will get you all kinds of heated responses. From the lack of information put out by the Ports and the Federal Government to the six to eight weeks it takes to get a TWIC Card, this is one of the worst implementations of a government program you will ever find.

First the deadline to register was set and then not announced. It was left to the individual ports to inform Port Employees, Contractors, and Transportation Providers. What the ports did was tell all the Port Employees and Contractors, and then posted a note on the bulletin board with 20 other notices for the Transportation Provider’s employees to read and inform their respective companies. Big surprise, very few trucking companies even knew about the program until less than 60 days until the deadline.

Then once a trucking company knew of the program, getting correct information was even harder. There was nothing on my state DOT web-site, or on the Port of Savannah web-site, or most of the web-sites of the ports my company frequents. Even my state trucking association had no information. So I had nothing, not who the program belonged to, no congressional committee, nothing. Finally I started looking at the web-sites for posts I don’t usually go to, and eventually found a link on the Port of Charleston to the TWIC Program. Three cheers for Charleston, which I must add the Port of Charleston was the only port to properly inform the trucking companies of the TWIC Program.

I then went to work on Washington to get help with expediting the process. Thank you to Congressman Jim Marshall and staff for their assistance in getting me in contact with Denise Krepp at the Sub-committee. Denise was very instrumental in getting my employees enrolled in the program.

Now several weeks later my employees are getting their TWIC Cards, and now I have hit a new problem. It seems that the State of Florida not only is going to require the TWIC Card, but they are also requiring that all truck drivers going into Florida ports will half to have a Florida Port Identification Card. Without both you will not gain entry to any Florida port facility. O Great three to five more weeks of waiting to get this card. And between the two cards I will spend in fees, travel expenses and wages more than $500.00 per employee for the two cards. Talk about REDUNDENCE.

This program has many problems which congress refuses to address. Let them know as I have that it is time to bring this program under control and to address the issues it has caused.

Take friends.

Gerald