Female Disruptors: Judie Nuskey of Advanced Driver Training Services On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadice
Silence has Its Own Sound ~ This is something we have all done or needed to do. Note, there are times to be silent, and times to speak up. Sitting in a classroom, conference room, or a meeting, being silent, will not get you noticed. I once was the first one in the room with the speaker, smiled, said hello, and he THANKED me, said he could go hours in a day without someone just saying a simple hello.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Judie Nuskey.
As Director of Operations, Judie is making larger companies re-evaluate the risks and costs of their current safety programs and is progressively creating custom driver training programs to lower (or keep low) their crash rates. She wants to be known for sharing the message of safety and is dedicated to changing driver behavior. With her creative ability and fresh perspective, Judie offers new areas of improvement that will provide personal, corporate, and commercial organizations with vehicle fleets, the benefits to maintain, improve, optimize, develop and implement visions and goals that will keep drivers safe on the road.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I have a knack on being chatty, especially when I am excited, so thank you for this opportunity! My background is finance, mostly corporate. I am self-taught in Canadian, Government, and Non-Profit accounting. I love balancing and crunching numbers, but I began to think more about the big picture, and I decided to look for opportunities to move into challenging executive roles. A friend introduced me to Advanced Driver Training Services, and the dance began. A successful fleet safety initiative requires a strong partnership between the client organization and the safety program supplier. I know it may sound cliché, but I am always impressed by the “work hard and play hard” mentality. It’s like a light turned on, and I knew I was in the right field.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I’m concerned. We need to raise awareness among both the drivers and their employers. Risky driving behavior continues. Unacceptable and irresponsible driving while at work is becoming a threat to many businesses’ brand and reputation, with a significant impact on its Corporate Social Responsibility commitments. I am disrupting the industry to build a relationship with these companies to take stock in their current driver safety programs and gauge the relative maturity of CSR policies across the organization. It is imperative to assess existing programs, policies, metrics, and engagements within the company. At Advanced Driver Training Services, I, as well as our dedicated instructors, whom are all current and retired law enforcement, are dedicated to teaching our program that targets any questionable driving practices quickly and helps establish the importance of maintaining safe driving habits. It is a natural fit when MVR’s discover a potential concern or liability. It doesn’t matter what car you drive; you cannot change the driver’s behavior. We can monitor, develop a baseline, coach, and educate, and most importantly, recognize and reward positive behavior.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
As I mentioned, all our instructors are in law enforcement. Oh, the stories they can tell! The evaluations they write when they perform the 1 to 1 observations of drivers are specific in what they observed and are narrated in the form of a police report. The only thing that has saved me as the “civilian” of the company is that my husband (retired) was a police officer. Trying to teach them what a federal meal reimbursement per diem is (no, you do not add the breakfast, lunch and dinner into one dollar amount and have one large meal), and that the approved mid-size SUV company rental car does not start with a P for Porsche. In order to know the ins and outs of our program, I was evaluated driving through our skill courses. I attended wearing flip flops. Yikes! Flip Flops are not the ideal footwear for one of the three courses I would be tested on, threshold breaking, not to mention acceptable footwear for any driver. To perform this skill, I had to take them off. I learned from the lecture I received why it was dangerous to drive with flip flops on and didn’t realize the dangers of them getting caught on the gas pedal. I learned a valuable lesson that day regarding safety behind the wheel, and it was also the ice breaker, that started my working relationship with our passionate instructors. We would NOT be the company we are without them. The pictures and emails that were sent throughout the company were a little hard to take, but the message was received — no flip flops.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My life has been filled with mentors, both personally and professionally. Each mentor had a unique set of talents, and I am fortunate to apply what they taught me. They helped build my confidence, and to do the right thing, and to do it sooner than later. I met Jan Peterson when I was searching for a second job to make ends meet. Jan was the owner of Peterson Kitchens and was looking for a bookkeeper. She knew the industry was changing, and was ready to adapt to change, and took the leap forward into the world of electronic emails, cell phones, and computerizing the company accounting software system. She taught me how to send my first text, how fair she was to the other designers, and what she expected from them, as they were representatives of her brand. I watched her raise her 5 children, work full time, and be a caregiver to her mother when she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, never imagining that one day I would be taking care of my own mother with the same disease. Jan took a chance on me, and we learned together. A mentor is a person who can support, advise, and guide you. A person who takes the time to get to know you and the challenges you are facing, and then uses their understanding and personal experience to help you improve. Everything Jan had accomplished was from being ahead of her competition and building her brand. I watched her passion and her attention to detail, but it was her interaction with her clients that was special. The clients walked in as clients but left as lifelong friends. She taught me anything is possible, but if you really want something, you must figure out how to make that happen. I need to be successful in getting my message of safety to new clients, to build my company brand. Like her, I will be the one that makes things happen, I will not wait for things to happen. Fast forward to 2022, and as a member AFLA’s Women in Mentorship Program, I have been paired with Corey Woinarowicz, Chief Revenue Officer at NoCell Technologies. Corey is dedicated to solving the problem of distracted driving. Our passion for saving lives, with industry leading technology, and live driver training, is a good pairing, and I look forward to a working partnership in the future with Corey and NoCell.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Isn’t it interesting in the English language how a word can have both a positive and negative (not so positive) meaning? I can almost guarantee my answer to your question will relate to many of your readers, especially the story I must tell. I had always had the philosophy to connect and work as a team, producing positive results. When you interact with those who feel empowered with a title, managers, superiors, you will be faced with a problem you have never faced before. In one industry I worked in, I tried to be a distributor in the industry:
Procedures ~ follow them as outlined in instruction manuals and in instructional videos
Knowledge ~ have the tools to complete your job duties
Innovation ~ you are growing with your company, and you offer suggestions to evolve with the growth.
This was the negative affect of trying to be a positive disruptor with what I had to offer:
Procedures → Failure → I had expressed to my supervisors concerns early on regarding the withholding of information, secrecy, and inadequate training.
Knowledge → Failure → I had been helping other employees follow a purchasing manual, and realized the manual was outdated. Suggesting updating the manual created a hostile, oppressive and intimidating working environment.
Innovation → Failure → I felt comfortable offering some suggestions, which went ignored, and new processes were created without any communication to myself on decisions that would impact the process, including my roll. Withholding information is a form of bullying.
And then the nightmare started. I was battling with bullies. I was the unlucky one for no good reason. I approached my supervisor with great caution, not to ever outshine her (or even shine), not to ever engage in any form of conflict, and to abide by the company organizational structure as my role as a subordinate and my bully’s role as a superior. I am not passive by all accounts. I am smart, have a great personality, well accomplished and extremely assertive, in a good way. I followed all the proper procedures, reported to my superior, but it was always explained as “personality conflict”. There was always a fundamental lack of respect. I was constantly having to explain myself and justify my right to be there and to do my job, AND the constant defending of myself, when I was going above and beyond. I started to prioritize and take care of myself, build up my reserves, and make the decision that I made to resign. I wanted to make a difference, but I was the one that was pushed out. With all I had endured, was my resignation a stumbling block or a steppingstone? Best-selling author Susan L. Taylor correctly observed, “Not everybody is healthy enough to have a front-row seat in your life.” In other words, the best way to deal with some difficult people is to distance yourself from them. Each new day offers countless opportunities. I had to make my star shine brighter, prove my talents were unique, and change industries. I was welcomed into the Driver Safety Training Industry, and now, I am a positive disruptor:
Desire ~ Continuously learn and take on new projects
Creativity ~ Generate solutions to different challenges
Project into the Future ~ Project how a decision may or may not impact the future. This is a critical thinking skill that is difficult to teach employees. I am in a different role, a director. I work closely with the President of our company, Karl, but most important, he respects me, and sees the value I have to offer. I have trust in the future, and yes, I AM a Positive Disruptor in the driver safety training industry.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
Silence has Its Own Sound ~ This is something we have all done or needed to do. Note, there are times to be silent, and times to speak up. Sitting in a classroom, conference room, or a meeting, being silent, will not get you noticed. I once was the first one in the room with the speaker, smiled, said hello, and he THANKED me, said he could go hours in a day without someone just saying a simple hello.
Never Stand In The Back Of The Room ~ I loved the Zumba group class at my local gym, so much that I went through the certification process and became an instructor myself. My instructor for the certification taught me dance steps and music selection, but she taught me how to get the Zumba class out of their comfort zone when they were selecting the same “spot” to dance in each class. In my class, each row would move up during several songs, so they would eventually be in the front of the class. I adopted this in my own life. How am I going to stand out and introduce myself and promote my company if I am standing in the back of the room? It makes it a lot easier to shout out “Let Me Tell You About My Company” from the front of the room.
What Can I Do For You Today ~ I make my message be the star: what can ADTS do to help lower your company crash rates, traffic infractions, insurance, etc. I can quote statistics, but they are based on a formula. Clients don’t want to hear a sales script; they want to know what we can DO to get the results they are looking for.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Yes! Love this question! I have a catch phrase, ready? Wait and see what we are going to do in 2023! ADTS will be in business for 40 years, and we have survived the market crash of 2008, and more recently, Covid and the Government shutdowns. Not only did Covid affect our company and our live training programs, but our clients and their fleet divisions, and the new protocols they had to adhere to. 2022 we rebuilt, 2023 we market: Our Strategic Plan, Framework model, Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility, GSA contract, trade show presence. Updates to our existing programs, changing driver behavior, as well as creating a customized electric vehicle safety program ~ THOSE are the future! Whew, I KNOW that sounds like a lot, but this is what I went back to school for! Did you know by the year 2028, 76% of the workforce will be millennials? We need to be a part of the social media platforms they use, technology and infrastructure they will implement. I have the qualifications, and the motivation, so stay tuned!
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
Women lead with ears, not egos. I was in Tucson this past October for a conference. The audience was mostly male, and I was finding it difficult to engage in the conversation with my male counterparts, as I didn’t speak their “language”. There was a question-and-answer section during one of the keynote speaker’s presentations, and I had the opportunity to ask a question. Later that evening, I spoke to the President of a large fleet organization, and he remembered me because of my question. As we sat and spoke, once he felt more comfortable speaking with me, and I with him, it felt more like a conversation amongst friends. We will always be faced with challenges, but we do share the same message with our male counterparts in whatever industry we are in.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I went back to college, West Chester University in Pennsylvania, at the age of 52, and I wouldn’t be honest if I said the adjustments were easy, but they weren’t as difficult as I expected. The effort has been more than rewarding. I needed to adapt to new technology. I stood out in class, but I set goals ~ I always sat in the front of the class, I participated with professor and students, and I have maintained straight A’s. I will graduate in May of 2023 with my BA in Communication Studies, and I can assure you, to me, it is not just a piece of paper. It is gratification, finishing something I had started years ago. For those that are reading this, it is possible, go beyond any excuses you try to make, a far better strategy is this: do the work, enroll, go to class, study, and engage with your classmates and professors. You will be rewarded for all your hard work, a college degree in your name.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Is the sky really the limit?” Why put a limit on how high I can go? I learned at an early age what grief was, how to a single mother, and find love again. I have taken a burlesque class, went to WrestleMania at the age of 45 (please don’t pass judgement, I am a HUGE wrestling fan!) I have not done everything I want to do in life yet. Whatever success I have reached, I know I can achieve more. Maybe I will continue school further and get my master’s degree (I just got accepted to travel abroad for the winter semester, stay tuned!). Perhaps I can become a Vice President of ADTS (hope you are reading this President Karl!) travel to many foreign countries, or even something so simple, retire and spend the rest of my life with my family…..I just know, actually I am confident, there is no limit.
How can our readers follow you online?
Please, connect with me on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/judienuskey
I love to meet new people!
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Judie Nuskey of Advanced Driver Training Services On The Three Things You Need… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.