Shannon Newton
President, ATA
The first few weeks of a new year, we’re all speaking our resolutions into the universe. We name what we care about, what we’re working on, the word that summarizes our aspirations, the problems we want to solve and the kind of people we want to be.
A lot of those visions and nice ideas will be abandoned by February. But sometimes, we keep repeating them. Bravely shouting into the void, “This still matters,” until our voices are hoarse.
In trucking, we’ve been resolving to address the workforce shortage and lack of safe, accessible truck parking for years. We talk about it regularly at meetings and over coffee. We pull up to roundtables and panels to share our experiences in hopes of compelling action. We tell researchers who literally publish a list of our top concerns that local and national media report to our audiences. We call on legislators in Arkansas or we get on an airplane and visit those in D.C. to tell them what we need to do our jobs better and safer.
We keep vocalizing what we are striving for. We make noise, because in some spaces—the angles, the distance, the textures--that noise is reflected.
And we hear echoes.
When the sound waves reflect off surfaces, it bounces back, repeating our message. And each bounce adds to the echo, finding new surfaces.
This year, we have had the opportunity to hear our resolutions echoed back in spaces where real change happens.