Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) announced a three-year partnership with WEX at the Truckload Carriers Association annual convention, naming the payments and mobility solutions company as the newest sponsor of its Harriet Tubman Award.
The award recognizes individuals in the trucking and mobility industries whose actions directly help identify and rescue victims of human trafficking.
Under this partnership agreement, WEX will fund the award and cover travel costs for the recipient, their guest, and a TAT representative to attend a dedicated Harriet Tubman Award ceremony at the 2026 WEX OTR Summit, scheduled for Oct. 26-28. They will keep collaboration with TAT to expand training and awareness across its workforce and customer base.
“Our customers are on the roads every day – truck drivers, fleet operators, travel centers – all of them are uniquely positioned to notice when something isn’t right,” said Matt Crumpton, vice president, OTR national account sales at Wex, while speaking to the media at the TCA convention in Florida. “Wherever commerce and mobility exist, human dignity must be protected. As a company operating these spaces, we work with fleets and operators alike, we believe we have both influence and responsibility.”
Prior to launching this sponsorship, WEX invited TAT to participate in the 2025 WEX OTR Summit alongside leaders from across the trucking industry and donated a portion of the event’s registration fees to TAT. At the end of January, WEX hosted TAT’s Freedom Drivers Project exhibit at its annual sales kickoff event, where Laura Cyrus, TAT senior director of industry training and outreach, trained more than 700 employees on human trafficking awareness.
TAT sometimes struggles to receive nominations because many drivers involved in such cases prefer not to be publicly recognized for their role, said Kylla Lanier, deputy director and senior director of external affairs at TAT, adding the organization hopes this partnership will help solve the issue.
When asked about who would qualify to receive the award, Lanier said, “They made a call. That’s really a simple action step. It’s making a call instead of turning a blind eye. And we have had both males and female victims of labor and sex trafficking recovered as a result of just seeing it, knowing that something wasn’t right, and then acting on it.”
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