Editorial: Measuring ATA's Progress

Trucking’s leaders went to Orlando, Fla., last week to check on the progress of their national trade organization.

What the 4,000 attendees at American Trucking Associations’ 1999 Management Conference & Exhibition saw was a trade group scoring advocacy victories while in the midst of dramatic and fundamental change.

ATA President Walter B. McCormick Jr. and his staff of Washington insiders are building a world-class lobbying organization that is winning victories on Capitol Hill, in the courts and the media.

The rebuilding, like anyone who has remodeled a home or restructured a trucking company knows, is not without its challenges.

Some longtime members of ATA’s staff have moved on to other jobs; trucking companies that don’t want to pay full ATA dues have seen their memberships canceled; and several affiliated groups are fighting the call to join with ATA in a united trucking federation.

The new ATA is a melding of longtime trucking experts and respected lobbyists, former journalists and former government officials who are recognized for their talent.

Carriers and other companies that have left ATA have been replaced by others who see the value in a powerful national organization that speaks with one united voice.

Conferences representing agricultural haulers and less-than-truckload carriers have affiliated with ATA, and several other groups plan to do likewise.

Much remains to be done. Trucking is a driving force in the economy. For its political clout to reach a similar level, trucking must speak with one united voice.

ATA’s strategic plan recognizes that need; hence the call for the conferences to integrate by Jan. 1, 2001. The member committee that developed the plan originally scheduled integration to occur by Oct. 1, 1999, but extended the deadline as a show of ATA’s flexibility and good faith.

As ATA enters the second half of its restructuring, the vision is clear, the direction is clear and the value to members is clear. There is little more to be learned as to what the new ATA is about. As ATA’s board of directors said last week, it is time to call the question. We agree with the board’s call to conference officers to state their intentions by the end of year. A yea or nay is sufficient for now; the details can be worked out by the deadline.

The time for debate is over. As the Nike commercial says, “Just do it.”