ATRI President Rebecca Brewster to Retire in 2027

Rebecca Brewster has been with ATRI for 34 years, 25 as its leader. (American Trucking Associations)

American Transportation Research Institute President Rebecca Brewster will retire in early 2027 after 34 years with the organization, including 25 as its leader.

“Serving the trucking industry through ATRI has been one of the greatest privileges of my life and I sincerely appreciate the board’s longtime support of and confidence in my leadership,” Brewster said. “The ATRI team is well-positioned to carry on ATRI’s mission of research to improve the industry’s safety and productivity and I look forward to working with the new leader on the transition.”

ATRI’s Board of Directors, led by Werner Enterprises Chairman Derek Leathers, has appointed a search committee comprising board members to identify Brewster’s successor. Iowa Motor Truck Association President Brenda Neville will chair the committee, which will begin its search in May.

During Brewster’s tenure, ATRI has claimed numerous awards for its research.

“Rebecca’s leadership of ATRI has made a lasting impact on the trucking industry,” Leathers said. “We are grateful for her three decades of leadership and the legacy she will leave behind.”

For years, ATRI has helped shape the national transportation debate, providing data that industry leaders and policymakers rely on to evaluate infrastructure needs and freight mobility challenges.

ATRI this month announced a new round of research priorities aimed at improving safety performance, evaluating regulatory impacts and addressing operational challenges facing the trucking industry. ATRI said the agenda is designed to deliver data‑driven insights that support safety improvements, policy decisions and operational efficiency.

One initiative will examine the outcomes of coaching practices and front‑line management on safety. As carriers increasingly adopt proactive safety models, ATRI plans to use data collection and statistical analysis to identify which coaching strategies and management approaches yield the greatest safety benefits.

ATRI also will advance research into “Beyond Compliance,” a concept first explored by the institute more than 15 years ago. The framework is intended to encourage voluntary safety investments by motor carriers through incentives tied to proven safety technologies and programs. The research will evaluate potential participation incentives and develop a pilot testing and evaluation methodology.

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Additional priorities include state benchmarking to identify the best business climates for trucking, assessing the costs and benefits of federal and state regulations by stakeholder groups, and quantifying the relationship between medical card status and operational impacts.

The institute also will study the effects of major weather events on trucking, such as hurricanes, wildfires and winter storms. Through case studies, ATRI aims to identify best practices for motor carriers, state departments of transportation and trucking associations in preparing for and responding to extended freight‑route disruptions. Such closures are “extremely disruptive and costly for supply chains and in particular, the trucking industry,” ATRI said.

Also this month, ATRI sought input from motor carriers as part of a survey aimed at identifying how fleets use telematics applications to support data‑driven performance metrics.

The data collection is part of a study titled Capitalizing on Telematics, which ATRI’s Research Advisory Committee identified in 2025 as a research priority. The study is designed to document best practices as well as assess emerging capabilities and uses of telematics data across trucking fleets.

ATRI also tracks the industry’s most pressing business and regulatory challenges. The organization’s 21st annual Top Industry Issues report, released last fall, found that the economy ranked as the trucking industry’s top concern for the third consecutive year. Lawsuit abuse reform and insurance costs and availability rose one spot each to rank second and third. A lack of available truck parking ranked fourth on the list.

“ATRI’s annual analysis is so critical for our industry to not only quantify the issues, but more importantly, to understand what we can collectively do as an industry to address each,” said Andy Owens, president of A&M Transport.

ATRI’s annual list of the nation’s worst truck bottlenecks remains one of its most closely watched reports, highlighting congestion points that the industry says most hinder freight movement on the interstate highway system.

In its latest analysis, ATRI identified Chicago’s Interstate 294 interchange at I‑290/I‑88 as the nation’s top freight bottleneck for 2026, surpassing the long‑standing congestion hotspot at the George Washington Bridge linking New York and New Jersey. Atlanta’s I-285 at I-85 (North) ranked third.

“Congestion delays inflicted on truckers are the equivalent of 436,000 drivers sitting idle for an entire year,” Brewster said in February.