Elisabeth Barna, recently appointed
COO at ATA, says, “[Chris is] well-round- ed. He brings both Capitol Hill experience, the agency experience and the corporate experience. He has been on the front lines in Iraq, and he has had to put teams together there.”
Teamwork A new team at the American
Trucking Associations is already underway. Spear has named four executives to the senior leadership team. “We decentralized the leadership
structure here,” he says. “The type of peo- ple that I’m bringing in are folks that have not only depth and understanding of the industry like Elizabeth Barna, who will be my new COO, but we have brought in Jennifer Hall from the House Transportation Committee, where she served as deputy staff director and general counsel, and had worked prior in the Department of Homeland Security. She has the legislative and regulatory experience and is a great attorney.” Spear also recruited Bill Sullivan to
lead advocacy efforts. Sullivan comes from working with Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) on appropriations, prior to work- ing at the Department of Justice with Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) The executive vice president of com-
munications and public affairs role will be filled by Sue Hensley. “Sue has basically checked every box
you could want for this role. She comes to the table with a tremendous rolodex,” Spear says of Hensley. She will be strategizing with Hall and Sullivan about how the ATA tells its story in Washington publications, in social media and in national media. “She has worked in all of those venues extensive- ly. I’m tired of conceding message points to anti-truck groups that basically give a one- line soundbite, and it gets picked up by all these media outlets. “We need someone like Sue that can
make certain our side of that story is also being told equally. Our media relations is going to really up its game going forward,” Spear continues. Spear expects the advocacy and com- munications strategy of the association to
30 Issue 3, Fall 2016
change, to be more aggressive with the new team. First, the approach to telling truck- ing’s story is going to go beyond the national-level, Spear says. Recent decisions by California and Rhode Island have made it necessary to take the message of truck- ing’s economic impact to states that may be making regulations that interfere with the industry’s ability to grow. “We will add support of state associa-
tions . . . if they have an issue that has national implications, we will come in and help advocate. We are seeing a lot more states step up and do things in the absence
“I’M VERY MUCH LOOKING
FORWARD TO PUTTING SOME WINS ON THE BOARD AND SHOWING MEMBERS THAT
THEIR HARD-EARNED DUES ARE PAYING OFF.”
—ATA PRESIDENT CHRIS SPEAR
of the federal government taking a role. “Some of that can be good,” Spear
says, “but we have also seen instances where that can be really damaging to our industry. We are interstate commerce. We would like to maintain one standard just for the flow of commerce…So we need to go where the battles are and fight them at that level. If the state associations want our help, we are going to be that resource.” One state issue is at the top of ATA’s
priorities this year. Language in the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 stated that individual states could not institute rules governing the trucking industry because the whole industry should operate under a single federal system, rath- er than a patchwork of state laws. Recent lawsuits over meal and rest break state laws that contradict the federal laws are threat- ening to create that patchwork regulation that the FAAAA should prevent. Spear says the ATA is advocating for
one standard—a federal standard to super-
sede state labor laws. To ensure the efficiency of interstate
commerce is protected in the trucking industry, ATA is most focused on the spending bill that funds the Department of Transportation. “In that bill, we have a per- manent fix to the hours of service rulemak- ing, as well as the FAAAA issues,” Spear says.
The hours of service and FAAAA are
the two big victories Spear says trucking should expect this year, “probably around the time frame of December is when we’ll see that bill get wrapped up and sent to the president.”
Long term leadership Beyond that, the American Trucking
Associations went into their annual meet- ing in October setting the tenor for what to look for going forward. According to Spear, the longer term
concerns are the driver shortage and auton- omous technology. “Autonomous technology is a five-to-
ten-year-out issue that is being largely driv- en by the auto industry. The commercial sector shares the same roads. If we are talk- ing connected vehicle, connected to infra- structure, what is the regulatory frame- work? I don’t want that being designed and handed to the federal and state regulators by the auto industry,” Spear says. “I want to be at the table and make
sure our industry has got a voice, and whatever is adopted in the future is good for our industry and not harmful. That requires just stepping up our game and focusing on what the trends are. Here is a technology that could possibly deal with safety, emissions and the environment. It could deal with productivity. It could deal with driver shortage. There are a lot of defined gains from it, but we need to understand what that’s going to look like and what is required of our industry to make that happen. That’s not clear, so I’m not quick to embrace that as the future, but I’m quick to say that we need to be at the table and drive the outcome.” The regulatory front is always key for
trucking, but without a voting majority on the Hill, Spear says, ATA has to exert some push back on the agencies and try to find
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