California Dump Truck Owners Association (CDTOA) - California Construction Trucking Association (CCTA)

Hello to our AADT clients and CCTA members and affiliates! My name is Rudy Navarrete.

Lee asked me to write my first article as the new Regional Sales Manager for AADT and the Southern Membership Services Director for CCTA about myself, so here it is. My first day on the job was January 6, although Lee has been sending me emails to read, and I have been reading through the last year of the magazines and familiarizing myself with the content and layout of our websites.
I was born and raised in Southern California, although both my parents were from Mexico. They moved to Los Angeles in 1952. I’m one of eight children, five girls and three boys.

At a very young age, I started working around construction sites with my father and brothers. We mostly built room additions and did general home repair and remodeling. After graduating high school in 1976, I joined the United States Naval Construction Battalion, where I completed training as a journeyman plumber. During this time, I married my wife of now 35 years and started a family. Once I fulfilled my military obligations in 1980, I began a course of studies in the Joint Carpenters Apprenticeship Program. It was after three years there that I received my Journeyman status. In my quest for higher knowledge in the construction industry, I attended and successfully completed courses in construction estimating, budgeting, scheduling, and code and safety enforcement.

This is where I discovered my interest in general engineering (earth moving). After a few years of working as an estimator and project manager, I began to focus on the transportation side of the construction world. For the past 15 years, I have been involved in the trucking industry, mainly overseeing trucking operations. This includes low-beds moving heavy equipment, loading and hauling aggregates such as sand, gravel, and dirt with bottom-dumps, super-tens, and low-side end-dumps.

The trucking industry has faced so many changes due to all the strict regulations from agencies across the state of every shape, size, and authority. In order to stay in business, I have had to play lawyer as well as a salesman. As a result of my very fortunate career, I feel a strong obligation to help others navigate the red tape and stay in compliance as an owner-operator or truck broker. Being bilingual (Spanish/English), I also feel a responsibility to help translate documents and act as a spokesperson breaking the language barrier with those I work for and around.

Now as the Regional Sales Manager for AADT and the Southern Membership Services Director for CCTA, it is time to put all my work experience, knowledge of the trucking industry, and my passion for helping educate those who need it the most. I will work to support the individuals who feel they are being ignored in the battle of injustice toward the small-business person, the trucker. As a representative for the Association and our drug-testing business, I will seek out, identify, and collaborate with all those who can most help our association and industry, as well as help grow the support network that CDTOA had already established.

I encourage anyone to call me at any time. Feel free to come to me with any issue, and I promise to do what I can to solve the problem.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to meeting everyone and growing with this association and its committed staff. Call me on my cell at 909-329-5673.

Rudy Navarrete