Editorial: ATA Reorganization Enters Final Phase

The top-to-bottom overhaul of American Trucking Associations entered its final phase last week with the new budget adopted by its executive committee at the Winter Leadership Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The budget is marked by two major developments: an immediate 10% cut in motor carrier dues, to be applied to next year’s payments, and the sharpening of ATA’s focus on national advocacy and policy issues.

The changes are in line with the desires of ATA’s membership stated to the Wren Committee while it crafted the group’s reorganization two years ago. Members said they wanted dramatic and fundamental changes in the organization, and lower dues.

The result of the changes, in the words of ATA President Walter B. McCormick Jr., will be a “lean advocacy machine” focused on issues of importance to the entire trucking industry, one that is “true to the sprit and intent of the Wren Plan.” By 2002, ATA dues will be lower by a compounded 51% than they were in 1999.

ATA is realigning its resources, ending services and functions that are not directly related to its core focus of national legislative, legal and regulatory issues. Alas, no reorganization is painless or easy, and the new plan will lead to the reassignment of some personnel and some internal upheaval.

The short-term disruption is intended to insure the long-term effectiveness of ATA, as the organization strives to be best in class and deliver the national advocacy its members want from their national association.

Another result of the changes at ATA is that state trucking associations, motor carriers and suppliers will now have additional responsibility to oversee — and fund — issues of local, state and regional concern.

And under ATA’s new, lean structure, some popular programs that are unrelated to the organization’s core focus — such as America’s Road Team and the National Truck Driving Championships — are going to be funded by sponsors, not by ATA. The search for funding for these programs has already begun.

When the reorganization of ATA is completed, trucking will have the streamlined, effective advocacy agency it wants and needs to represent it at the national level.