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(Michael James - TT) Tom Strah

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chapter ended at Transport Topics last week with the departure of longtime editor and reporter Thomas M. Strah, who embarked on a sabbatical that will include extensive travel and study abroad.

But the book on Strah and his more than 22 years covering trucking for TT may not be closed for good, as he left open the option of returning in some capacity after taking extensive time off.

Following a twisting career path that included stints as a radio disc jockey, salesman, Peace Corps volunteer and oysterman, Strah joined TT as administrative assistant to the business manager in 1980 while working on a master’s degree in international economics. He said he needed a job to pay for school, “but when I got a whiff of the newspapering business, I crossed over the line to [the editorial] side.”

He started as a photographer for the newspaper, but soon asked to be a staff reporter.

“They sent me to cover Capitol Hill in 1982 as deregulation was really taking hold, and I was hooked. I loved writing about the tax bills, regulatory legislation and trying to make sense out of it for TT. I loved the political game.”

For a neophyte reporter, he said, “it was like playing The Palace.”

It’s going to be very strange not seeing Tom here every day,” said Howard Abramson, TT’s publisher and editorial director. “We’ve spent a lot of hours together over my five years here. Tom has been a pillar of this newspaper. And I hope we haven’t seen the last of him.”

TT made Strah news editor in 1989 and managing editor in 1997, but he kept his hand in reporting while editing. He said he most enjoyed reporting on the creation and development of the North American Free Trade Agreement and its ramifications for trucking.

“From the very start we knew that Nafta would be a trucking story,” Strah said. “Covering it really kept me involved as a reporter, because of my experience in Latin American from my Peace Corps days and my interest in international affairs.”

It was on the trail of the Nafta story and Mexican trucking that Strah wrote a 1992 article that current and former staffers say readers still talk about. The story chronicled his adventures as he hitched a ride with a Mexican trucker for the 1,100-mile journey from Juarez on the U.S. border to Mexico City.

Oliver B. Patton, who was editor at the time, said it was one of the “top half-dozen feature stories ever published in Transport Topics.

“It was a highly original story that conveyed how trucking was actually done in Mexico when there were significant policy considerations surrounding Nafta and Mexican trucking,” Patton said.

Many said it was Strah’s skills as a wordsmith and his attention to detail that made him such a good reporter and later, editor.

“I’ve always viewed him as a writer among reporters,” said Daniel Bearth, the senior features writer for TT and a longtime friend and neighbor. “His love of language is obvious and he often managed to bring a sense of humanity and even humor to many of the articles he wrote.”

Tom said his future role with TT had not yet been determined. He said he was planning to take a few months off before discussing future options with Abramson.

“One brother still drives a truck and another brother is a diesel mechanic. They said I couldn’t leave the industry yet,” Strah said.

n the meantime, Strah plans to do some driving of his own, around the local continent and probably some in Europe, too. He said he wants to indulge his lifelong passion for languages and history.

About the future? “I haven’t really had time to think about it,” he said. “This job has been pedal to the metal on hyperdrive since the start. It’s going to take me time to sort things out.”

This story appeared in the July 14 edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.