One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. This is a key message that Followmont Transport Managing Director, Mark Tobin, and Country Trucker Caps owner, Brett Hanly (known as ‘Knuckles’), are aiming to amplify through their new charity initiative.
Get Yourself Checked is encouraging all men over the age of 40 to take charge of their health early with a simple blood test. Led by Mark and Brett, the foundation’s main purpose is to promote awareness around prostate cancer and the importance of getting checked before it’s too late.
“We’re really good mates with the same attitude of just getting things done,” Mark says. “We are both passionate about the cause and wanted to create something to make a difference, so we leveraged our strengths to start Get Yourself Checked.
“Prostate cancer is the second biggest killer and something a lot of men shy away from checking up on. The methods of identifying prostate cancer have come so far and early detection is key to staying healthy – it now only requires a simple blood test. That’s the message we want to get across with this initiative.”
Mark and Brett’s first major fundraising event will be taking place at the Royal International Convention Centre in Brisbane on 11 October with a goal of raising $1 million to fund essential medical equipment, support research and raise awareness particularly in regional communities. The Get Yourself Checked event will be marking the beginning of a new chapter in the fight against prostate cancer with over 700 people expected to attend.
In the meantime, the Get Yourself Checked team has unveiled a specially built truck and trailer combination which, travelling the Bruce Highway in north Queensland as a “rolling billboard”, is serving as a visible reminder of the importance of early prostate cancer detection.
“The first thing I thought was, ‘I’ve got close to 200 trailers, so I might as well use one as a billboard to get the message out there’,” Mark says. “A number of my suppliers are on board and we’ve got people jumping at us wanting to be a part of it all, so we’ve seen so much support for what we want to do.”
The trailer combination is a 38-pallet quad tri-axle B-double drop deck built to specification by Vawdrey in Dandenong, Victoria. With ‘1 in six’ and ‘Get Yourself Checked’ written on custom-designed curtains, the trailer is showcasing a powerful message around the statistics of prostate cancer.
“The trailer runs on a specialised run from Brisbane to Mackay every day carrying all types of freight from medical products to breakdown parts,” Mark says. “I also built a custom truck for this combination – a Kenworth T909 with an IT bunk which has blue lights and a ribbon all over it. You can definitely see what it’s about when it’s treading up and down the highway.”
Vawdrey, a major supplier for Followmont Transport, has played a critical role in the Get Yourself Checked operation by getting this B-double set on the road. The unit is the latest of its 173 Titeliner combinations built for the fleet which have all been designed with maximised cubic capacities and lengths to take more trucks off the road.
It’s also a symbol of the powerful relationship between both businesses which extends far beyond just fleet equipment.
“Paul Vawdrey has been a great support to me,” Mark says. “Paul has gotten behind every idea I’ve had without even questioning it. He was very big on Get Yourself Checked so he’s been supporting it wherever he can.
“We aren’t just suppliers and customers to each other. It’s all about our relationship and it has been for 25 years. I’ve never signed an order with Paul – I just ring him and say I need a trailer built. We’re good friends and it’s great to do business with people that you trust and care about.”
Mark says it’s relationships such as these which make Get Yourself Checked possible.
“I wouldn’t be able to do this without my foundation partner, Brett, and the support of all our suppliers and friends,” he says. “We want to make a difference. It’s not hard to count six males and think that one of them is going to get very sick with prostate cancer because of their lack of awareness.
“So, this isn’t just about the billboard on the truck or the merchandise that we’re planning on releasing. It’s actually about something much bigger than that.”
