Industry mourns passing of Paul Rubak

On Friday, May 29, the commercial transportation industry lost one of its most storied voices.

Paul Rubak was long involved with the Alberta Motor Transport Association’s various initiatives and remained actively involved with association events including the 80th Anniversary.

“A common thread runs through (this industry),” Rubak said. “These people are entrepreneurs, they work long, hard days, are self starters, and, in most cases, will go out of their way to serve their customers, to help the motoring public and other truckers in trouble on the road.”

According to his obituary, Rubak Paul was employed at Canadian Freightways from July 1955, until 1993 ending his career as Vice President of Transportation and Director of Safety.

In 2003, Rubak published Big Wheels Across the Prairie, A History of Trucking in Alberta Prior to 1960. The book chronicled the lives and stories of Alberta’s earliest commercial transport families, many of which still thrive as businesses today.

In 2019 he was presented with the American Truck Historical Associations “A Historian of the Industry Award”. Paul was involved with the Alberta chapter of the American Truck Historical Association for 19 years. The History room was named in his honour.