Travis Jones, a night and weekend dispatcher for Dickey Transport, LLC — headquartered in Packwood in Jefferson County — has been named the 2026 Dispatcher Professional of the Year by the Iowa Motor Truck Association, receiving the award at the association’s annual Management Conference in Des Moines, according to a social media post from Dickey Transport.
Jones has been with Dickey Transport for 36 years, originally hired in 1990 as the diesel repair foreman for night and weekend shifts. In that role, he oversaw all trailer maintenance and kept busy mounting tires and servicing trucks every Monday, Thursday, and Friday evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. “Travis has been our night and weekend dispatcher for the past 36 years,” Dickey wrote in the nomination. “Every Monday, Thursday, and Friday evening and all-day Saturday and Sunday, Travis oversaw all the maintenance on our trailers and when time allowed, he would keep busy mounting tires and servicing trucks.”
About 20 years ago, the company asked Jones if he would also be willing to dispatch trucks and serve as a freight planner for the entire fleet in the evenings and on weekends. He agreed without hesitation — and then refused to let the trailer maintenance work go unattended, insisting on handling both roles simultaneously. “While his main responsibilities switched to being behind a desk, he refused to let the trailers go unserviced and insisted that he would be able to do those tasks as well,” Dickey wrote. “Having an employee asking for more to do is a rare commodity, and our trailer maintenance program has never suffered with his dual roles.”
Over the course of his career with the company, Jones’ responsibilities have grown to include dispatching for the entire fleet, overseeing the maintenance program for 200 refrigerated trailers, managing the company’s tire program, and scheduling all road repairs that occur at nights or on weekends. Dickey credited Jones for the safety and reliability of the company’s fleet. “Over the past 36 years, Travis’s responsibilities have grown, but nowhere nearly as much as his value has been to our company,” Dickey wrote. “The safety of our fleet and the maintenance of our equipment is due to Travis’s professionalism, leadership, and dedication to do things the correct way.”
In his nomination, Dickey Transport owner Adrian Dickey said Jones is far from a typical employee — and that distinction was apparent from the very start of the nomination process. “Typically, I would let our Director of Safety handle this nomination, however the individual I would like to nominate is not a typical employee,” Dickey wrote.
Dickey also noted that Jones makes the commute from 65 miles away every day he works. “Oh, did I mention that Travis lives 65 miles away and he makes that drive every day to be a part of our family,” Dickey wrote. He also highlighted the deep respect Jones has earned from the company’s professional drivers. “While our professional drivers greatly enjoy working with Travis and all of them have the highest level of respect for him, what really sets Travis apart from other dispatchers in our industry is his loyalty to being with the same company for 36 years.” Dickey closed the nomination with a personal endorsement. “For his 36 years of service to our industry, it would be most deserving and of the greatest honor to select Travis Jones to be the 2026 IMTA Professional Dispatcher of the Year.”
