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NIT LEAGUE APPROVES PLAN TO OPEN MEMBERSHIP    The National Industrial Transportation League approved a plan this week to open its membership to include freight transportation providers.   

The plan, Vision 2020, was announced by the NIT League’s Executive Committee at its annual meeting last November in Charlotte, N.C., and was approved by the entire board in January. Ballots

were mailed to each current member company and were given 30 days to vote. Seventy-two percent of the membership approved the Vision 2020, meeting the two-thirds requirement for the NIT

League to activate the plan.    This is a big change for the 95-year-old group, long known as the “voice of the shipper.” For the first time, freight transportation providers, such as ocean

carriers and freight forwarders, can become full, voting members of the NIT League.    '”While shippers, carriers and third parties will continue to have disagreements, it is in all of

our interests to work together,” said Van L. Hayes Jr., manager of transportation support services for Vulcan Materials Co., and chairman of the NIT League. “In the end, the freight

transportation system must serve the needs of shippers and we believe Vision 2020 will make it easier for the league to pursue that goal.”    The Vision 2020, however, was not implemented

without some strong opposition and concern from some shipper members. “Clearly some of our members opposed the change, but I am sure the entire organization will continue to pull together to

accomplish even more than it has in its rich history,” Hayes said.    Implementing Vision 2020 will also require some operational changes at the Arlington, Va.-based group.    “The league

has long been viewed as the organization which represents shippers interests in regulatory and legislative battles,” said Ed Emmett, president of the NIT League. “Where the issues require us

to do that, we still will. But in recent years there have been fewer and fewer of such issues.”    “Now we will become much more visible in a whole range of issues that affect the daily

business lives of all parts of the freight transportation industry,” Emmett added. “Our positive impact for shippers will be far greater in a wider variety of places.”