TMAF Interviews Driver Ryan Ybarra, TAT Volunteer Helping to Raise Awareness and Educate Other Drivers
Ryan Ybarra has been an employee at UPS for 20 years. Throughout his career in trucking, he has driven as a professional truck driver in many roles, including local, over-the-road, and within the feeder driver class division. Currently, Ryan works in the safety department as a driver for his department.
Ryan first became involved in Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) around three years ago after a friend told him about the organization and encouraged him to become TAT-certified.
As Ryan watched TAT’s 27-minute training video, he heard the personal story of a family ruined by human trafficking and how a truck driver helped intervene in that particular situation. Ryan was deeply moved by the story, especially as the father of a young girl, and felt compelled to act. Speaking about the video, Ryan told TMAF, “You hear stories about other people being affected by it, but when she said a trucker saved my daughter, it really made you think I can be the eyes and ears to help somebody else’s kid.”
After becoming TAT-certified, Ryan felt more empowered on signs to look for while on the road. “You start noticing things…it opened my eyes.” Ryan wanted to help educate his fellow UPSers about warning signs for human trafficking and the role that truck drivers can play in combatting this crisis, so he organized a TAT-certification event in January, timed with Human Trafficking Awareness Month, for his local division of UPS drivers in Ontario, California. During the event, around 150 to 200 drivers were TAT-certified.
After the success of the event division initiative, last year, Ryan, along with another fellow driver and friend, Wayne Ponschke, reached out to their company to request that TAT be a partner for UPS’ local truck driving rodeo in Southern California; a competition and gathering that takes place for local drivers and families.
Ryan and Wayne organized to pick up and transport TAT’s mobile educational trailer, the Freedom Drivers Project (FDP), from Colorado and transport it to California to be on display at UPS’ annual truck driving rodeo. “I like to explain the trailer as a mobile exhibit of the atrocities of human trafficking,” Ryan stated. At the event, around 300 people visited the FDP trailer.
In addition to bringing the trailer to the rodeo event, Ryan helped drive the trailer around Southern California to further raise awareness of this crime visiting 11 buildings along their route, as well as making stops in downtown LA.
Given the number of people that they were able to reach by showcasing the mobile trailer, Ryan said, “It opened my eyes to be able to share it even more, so then TAT became our main partner last year at our annual event, the South Cal Regional Rodeo and Wellness Fair, which hosts our annual Truck Driving Championship.”
UPS is now one of the largest sponsors of TAT.
At the Rodeo in February, TAT will once again be a featured partner of the event with the trailer on display. Ryan estimates up to 1,000 families will be in attendance this year, which provides an amazing amount of exposure to TAT’s program.
“As UPS drivers, we call ourselves the ambassadors of the road; what greater partner is there for UPS then TAT?”
Ryan encourages all truck drivers to become TAT-certified. Speaking about the ease of getting certified, Ryan said, “For a trucker, it’s the easiest thing ever. We stop for our meals. We stop to take our breaks. Take 30 minutes of the time to watch a 27-minute video and answer the 15 questions. To save a person’s life, it’s worth it. We have to stop for 30 minutes, so you might as well stop and do something that’s worth it and then help further share the message of TAT…”
