20 Oregon Trucking Association, Inc. Oregon Truck Dispatch OTA Carrier Member GROWING UP IN rural Washington County, Erik Zander always envisioned himself becoming a rancher or a farmer, but he jokes that he realized pretty quickly that if you don’t have land or equipment, that’s a tough path to take. Instead, after college, he found himself working for a fuel and lubricants distributor, primarily selling to large fleets and construction companies. Omega Morgan was one of the companies he worked closely with and soon realized his real passion was in the machinery moving and rigging work they do. “For me, every day is something new and different (at Omega Morgan), whether it’s a new commodity we’re hauling or a new building we’re helping with the install of equipment,” said Erik. “It’s constantly changing, and for me, that allows me to not get stagnant or bored with what I’m doing. It’s different every day. You have a set of tools you’re trying to apply when coming up with a solution, but people are reaching out to us because they have a problem they can’t solve, which is exciting to me.” Erik’s first role at Omega Morgan was in sales and estimating, specifically heavy haul trucking moving a lot of yellow iron and blue iron lifts, an easy transition since he had been selling fuel and lubricants to many of the same companies for years. Since then, he’s done a little bit of everything at the company from helping them transition away from general heavy haul into more specialized heavy haul, to starting a renewables division to offload and reload wind components in railyards, to starting a truck brokerage and a crane division. For the last few years, Erik has served as Omega Morgan’s COO, handing the company’s overall operations. “One of the biggest surprises I found when I started in the trucking industry is there’s a tremendous amount of regulation that can be tough to wrap your head around,” said Erik. “Certain states allow for certain axle weights, you need certain permits on certain routes, some require police escorts…they don’t do it all the same and there are so many variables that exist out there.” I hope more people will get involved to see just how much is being done for our industry on a daily basis. Omega Morgan’s Erik Zander Erik attended every OTA event in 2023, bringing many of his colleagues from other departments with him By Jennifer Sitton | OTA Communications Consultant
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