A familiar face from Alabama Trucking Association meetings is asking voters closer to home for their support. Travis Williams, a Greenbush Logistics executive and member of the ATA Board of Directors, is running for the Wiregrass Electric Cooperative (WEC) Board of Trustees, District 6, against incumbent Board President Kip Justice. The seat is decided by mail-in ballot, with WEC set to send ballots to members in mid-September.
As the saying goes, all politics is local, and Alabama Trucking encourages its members to be involved in their communities, whether that’s a city council, school board, or, in Williams’ case, the local electric cooperative.
Williams said he didn’t set out to run for the board. The idea came after members he respects approached him and asked him to be a voice for them.
“That made me think hard about what I could actually offer, and I realized the same skills I use every day managing people and hard decisions are exactly what a co-op board needs.” – Travis Williams
He said the decision reflects a broader responsibility he feels as an industry leader. Trucking, he notes, depends on the same infrastructure communities rely on every day, including reliable power. “Leadership shouldn’t stop at your own industry’s front door,” Williams says, adding that a member-owned cooperative only works when members step up to lead it.
Williams drew a direct comparison between his logistics background and the demands of co-op board service — both asset-heavy operations balancing near-term reliability against long-term investment. He evaluates fleet lifecycle costs and maintain-versus-replace decisions daily without cutting corners on safety, he said, and sees the same judgment applying to a co-op’s poles, lines, and substations. “That experience translates directly to the kind of oversight a co-op board needs to provide — not just approving what is put in front of you, but understanding it well enough to ask the right questions,” he says.
Asked what he hears most from District 6 members, Williams pointed to transparency and modernization. Members want to understand how and why decisions are made, he said, not just be notified after the fact — and they want WEC keeping pace with technology, from outage reporting to grid modernization. “Staying ahead on that front isn’t optional anymore,” Williams says. “It’s part of running a co-op well.”
WEC members will receive ballots in mid-September, with results announced at the cooperative’s annual meeting in October.
