To all my industry friends and colleagues,
Your past participation as sponsors or donors to the ATSS Foundation are greatly appreciated and gratefully accepted. Our goal is to get the Foundation’s message out to every ATSSA member to let them know the importance of the Foundation and its programs to their businesses and jobs. We may have fallen short of that goal in the past, but as President it is my intention to reinvigorate that message and redouble our efforts to communicate it both inside and outside our industry and association.
We all see the highway fatality statistics, and although they are at the lowest mark they have been at since 1949, the 32,885 traffic fatalities, which included576 work zone deaths in 2010 are more than just statistics. Each one of those numbers represent a person who left behind parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and friends who were devastated by their loss. The tragedy of these lost lives is unspeakable. Those that are lost in work zone accidents touch each of us personally because they were part of our industry and by extension, our lives. The deaths of those men, women and children break our hearts every time a work zone fatality becomes public, even if we didn’t know them personally.
Your gifts to the Foundation help provide scholarships to the children of those deceased, or even permanently disabled workers. I feel blessed to have met a number of those children in person, and have spoken to even more of the recipients and applicants on the phone. Their lives are often tragically affected by the loss or disability of their parent or guardian. The scholarships that the Foundation provides these surviving children are often desperately needed in order for them to attend college. Without them, I have been told many times, college might be out of their reach.
ATSSA’s Toward Zero Deaths mantra is shared by all of us. It is important to remember that the public awareness generated by the Foundation and its programs goes a long way in motivating legislatures to support the safety initiatives so important to our industry and the driving public as a whole.
What will your legacy be? Through your support of the Foundation, you can help ensure that its mission is fulfilled and that the Foundation continues to do well by doing good.
Sincerely,
Sue Reiss
Foundation Board President