Trucking announcements: leadership changes at Bot Auto, DHL Supply Chain; Owen to lead three TFI companies. Each week, trucknews.com lists notable events, promotions and awards in the trucking industry. This week, Robert Owen was appointed president of Vitran, Clarke Transport and Kindersley Transport, while Diane Gray received CentrePort Canada's Footprint Award. Bot Auto taps three industry veterans, appointing Brett Suma as company's president and chief operating officer, as David Stemm and Jessica Kane join as vice presidents of commercial operations and commercial finance, respectively. KSMTA named Brad Heisterkamp vice president. Meanwhile, DHL Supply Chain appointed Jim Monkmeyer global head of LLP and supply chain orchestration, promoted Adam Ruff to president of transportation for North America, and named Dave Moss head of real estate solutions for North America. TFI names Owen appointed president of three companies. Robert Owen was appointed president of Vitran, Clarke Transport and Kindersley Transport by TFI International. He joined the organization in 2023 as vice president of sales at Vitran and has since demonstrated strong leadership and industry expertise, according to the company. In a LinkedIn announcement, TFI said that Owen brings extensive experience and a proven track record of leadership to his new role overseeing the three carriers. Before joining Vitran, he held leadership positions with Remco, Bison Transport and spent more than 17 years with Purolator, leading sales and business development teams across the transportation and logistics sector. Bot Auto adds trucking, autonomy veterans to leadership team. Autonomous trucking company Bot Auto has expanded its executive team with the appointment of Brett Suma as president and chief operating officer. He brings nearly 30 years of trucking and logistics experience, having started his career at Knight Transportation before founding Loadsmith and later TrailerHawk.ai, which was acquired by Wabash in 2025. He is joined by two former TrailerHawk.ai colleagues: David Stemm, who has been named vice president of commercial operations, and Jessica Kane, who becomes vice president of commercial finance. The company said the appointments strengthen its operational leadership and the three have deep roots in carrier operations, fleet management, and network design. "This industry is complex for good reasons, and building a scalable autonomous freight product requires humility, flexibility, and relentless creativity. That is the challenge I am most excited about. Brett, David, and Jessica understand freight at the operating level, and they give Bot Auto the practical leadership we need to turn a first-of-its-kind milestone into a real commercial network," said Xiaodi Hou, founder and CEO of Bot Auto. DHL Supply Chain announces three leadership appointments. DHL Supply Chain has announced three leadership appointments as the company advances its global growth strategy. Jim Monkmeyer, who joined DHL Supply Chain in 2016 after serving as vice president of supply chain management at England Logistics and most recently served as president of transportation for DHL Supply Chain North America, has been appointed global head of LLP and supply chain orchestration, effective immediately. In the role, he will oversee the company's efforts to integrate transportation, network design and supply chain management capabilities across regions. DHL also promoted Adam Ruff to president of transportation for North America. Ruff most recently served as vice president of strategy, product development and mergers and acquisitions for DHL Supply Chain North America. He joined the company in 2010 after holding business development leadership roles at Schneider Logistics. In a third appointment, Dave Moss has been named head of real estate solutions for North America. Moss most recently served as chief financial officer for DHL Supply Chain Latin America and brings nearly 30 years of experience with the company. Moss will lead DHL's real estate strategy at a time when warehouse availability, costs and customer demand for flexible logistics facilities continue to evolve. KSM Transport Advisors names Brad Heisterkamp vice president. KSM Transport Advisors (KSMTA) has appointed Brad Heisterkamp vice president. The industry veteran has more than two decades of experience in truckload operations, pricing, sales and network strategy that he brings to the new role. Heisterkamp will work directly with carrier clients using KSMTA's FreightMath analytics and advisory platform to identify opportunities to improve profitability and operational performance. Before joining KSMTA, Heisterkamp held senior leadership positions at several truckload carriers, including Ascend, where he served as senior vice president of specialized services, network and sales, and previously as president of asset operations. He also held leadership roles with NFI and Transco Lines, advancing to senior vice president of operations, and began his truckload career with CRST. "Brad's experience as both a carrier executive and a longtime FreightMath client gives him a unique ability to connect strategy with operational execution," said Chris Henry, president of KSMTA. "He understands firsthand the challenges carriers face every day, and he knows how data-driven decision-making can strengthen profitability, improve network balance, and create long-term value." CentrePort honors founding CEO with Footprint Award. CentrePort Canada has presented its second annual Footprint Award to Diane Gray, the organization's founding president and CEO. The award recognizes individuals whose leadership, vision and long-term contributions have helped shape the inland port's development and success. Gray led CentrePort from 2009 to 2022 after being selected through an international executive search. During her tenure, she oversaw the development of the inland port's master plan and strategy, helping transform the concept from a vision into what CentrePort describes as a thriving tri-modal transportation and logistics hub. Key achievements during her leadership, according to a news release, included securing CentrePort's special planning area, advancing servicing plans with municipal governments, and supporting development of the CentrePort Canada Rail Park. Today, CentrePort says it has attracted more than $1 billion in private-sector investment and is home to more than 1,000 companies. The 20,000-acre inland port and foreign trade zone located northwest of Winnipeg, offers direct access to truck, rail and air cargo transportation networks. Carly Edmundson, CentrePort's current president and CEO, credited Gray with laying the foundation for the inland port's growth. "Thanks to her vision, determination and dedication, Diane built a new legacy in trade and transportation that will create economic growth for decades to come in our province," Edmundson said. Former Manitoba premier Gary Doer received the inaugural Footprint Award in 2025. Krystyna Shchedrina's work has been focusing on transportation and logistics since 2022, and she is an honors graduate of the journalism bachelor program at Humber College. Reach Krystyna at: [email protected] Have your say This is a moderated forum. 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Bot Auto recruits freight veteran Brett Suma as president and COO to commercialize autonomous trucking. June 1, 2026 Brett Suma Bot Auto has appointed freight industry veteran Brett Suma as president and chief operating officer, signaling a shift from proving autonomous trucking technology to building the operational infrastructure required to turn humanless freight into a scalable transportation business. The hire comes shortly after the Houston-based company completed what it describes as the first fully humanless commercial truckload on a U.S. public highway, a milestone that moves the conversation around autonomous trucking from technical feasibility toward commercial execution. Suma brings nearly three decades of experience in trucking and logistics, including leadership roles at Knight Transportation and as founder of Loadsmith. Most recently, he co-founded trailer technology company TrailerHawk.ai, which was acquired by Wabash in 2025. He joins Bot Auto alongside former colleagues David Stemm and Jessica Kane, who will serve as vice president of commercial operations and vice president of commercial finance, respectively. The leadership additions reflect a growing reality across the autonomous vehicle sector: technological breakthroughs alone are unlikely to determine market leaders. As autonomous trucking companies move beyond testing and pilot programs, success increasingly depends on route design, customer acquisition, fleet operations, pricing strategy, and network density - areas where traditional freight expertise becomes critical. Founder and CEO Dr. Xiaodi Hou said the company's next challenge is transforming a technical achievement into a commercially viable freight network. While autonomous driving systems have attracted most of the industry's attention, building a sustainable transportation platform requires deep understanding of carrier operations, customer requirements, and freight economics. Suma's appointment suggests Bot Auto is positioning itself to compete not just as a technology developer but as a transportation provider. His mandate includes building the operational framework around autonomous freight, including corridor development, network planning, and economics. Texas remains the company's primary launch market, offering favorable freight volumes, long-haul routes, and a regulatory environment that has generally supported autonomous vehicle deployment. The move also comes as the autonomous trucking sector enters a new phase of competition. Several companies have spent years developing self-driving technology, but few have demonstrated fully driverless commercial operations. The challenge now is proving that autonomous trucking can consistently deliver lower costs, greater capacity reliability, and improved asset utilization compared with conventional freight networks. Bot Auto believes growing shipper demand for predictable capacity and an increasingly supportive federal regulatory environment create favorable conditions for expansion. The company plans to increase its fleet of autonomous tractors, expand driverless routes, and add new freight corridors across Texas during the coming year. For investors and industry observers, the hiring of experienced freight operators may be as significant as the company's recent technical milestone. Autonomous trucking's long-term winners are likely to be determined not only by software performance but by their ability to integrate that technology into transportation networks that customers trust and use at scale. By bringing in executives with decades of experience managing freight operations, Bot Auto is betting that the next competitive battleground in autonomous trucking will be operational execution rather than autonomous driving technology alone.