Full Speed Ahead Shannon Newton guides state’s trucking industry around obstacles

By Angela Forsyth

Pushing for better policies and a better image for Arkansas truckers, Shannon Newton manages the large and small of the Arkansas Trucking Association. Her’s might not be the face you picture when you first hear the title, “president of the Arkansas Trucking Association,” yet Newton has held this position for a couple of decades. And although she’s not a literal truck driver, she has steered the organization through multiple economical ups and downs while driving Arkansas’ trucking business forward.

The native Arkansan came to work at ATA in 2003 shortly after having obtained her bachelor’s in accounting. So how does a young woman with an accounting degree end up as the leader of the Arkansas Trucking Association? The answer is, with a good head for business, a thirst for industry change and a little bit of coincidence.

After attending high school in central Arkansas, Newton attended the University of Central Arkansas in Conway and completed her accounting degree. She had clicked with a recruiter at a job fair and gone directly to work as an accountant at Maverick Transportation in North Little Rock. Maverick happened to be a very engaged member of the ATA, and Newton was consequently exposed to the organization. Maverick’s chairman at the time was also on the board of directors of the association.

By association, she came to know the current issues board members were working on and details about what was involved. After working at Maverick for one year, she was offered an opportunity to work at ATA.

Newton was the perfect candidate for the job. The association needed someone with an accounting background to manage its insurance group. To this day, ATA still offers an insur- ance package for its smaller members. It allows small business members to pool their risk together and cover their own insurance. The association manages bookkeeping and accounting for this program.

In June of 2023, Newton will celebrate her 20th year with the association. In her current position as president, she leads a small staff while taking on the greatest responsibilities of the nonprofit. ATA is owned and governed by more than 300 trucking companies and suppliers — some with less than five trucks and others representing the nation’s largest fleets. The agency works to advance the trucking industry’s image, efficiency, com- zation does have contract lobbyists,” she explained, “I’m still the face of the trucking industry at the capitol for every policy that is proposed that impacts our industry — whether it be insurance issues, tax issues, transportation issues or the rules of the road. From January until April, I’m at the beck and call of policymakers.” petitiveness and profitability. It works with leaders in Washington, D.C., to push the industry’s interest forward while organizing tradeshows, member-led industry groups and corporate services.

For Newton, collaborating with policymakers includes engaging on issues that could benefit the trucking industry, in which case she wants to be there in person to weigh in, support and advance those regulations. In other cases, policies proposed by others outside of the trucking business might have unintended consequences. In those situations, ATA goes to the capitol to educate and advocate on behalf of the industry.

For this married, working mother of two teenaged kids, those months of high-level legislation can feel “all-consuming.” But when the season ends, the immediacy and demand for multiple hours a day dedicated to that part of the job ends. There may be some scheduled follow-up conversations over the next few months, but for the most part, the days are cleared up for her other responsibilities.

It’s a big job, and one about which Newton feels very passionate.

“One of my favorite things about this job, and the reason that I’ve been here 20 years, is that every day still feels like a new adventure because there are no two days that are the same,” she said. “I would say that I could best describe it as seasonal.”

Newton found herself smack dab in the middle of the recently concluded legislative season, and is heavily involved in governmental affairs outside of the office. “While the organi-

One of her other main responsibilities includes covering public relations. If there’s ever any sort of breaking news story or accident — such as the crack in the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River a couple of summers ago — whatever she had planned for the workday goes out the window.

When she’s not running to Washington or putting out PR fires, she’s managing the association the same way a business leader would manage a company. She oversees seven employees and all the “regular” work — planning, budgeting, managing personnel, signing checks, reviewing contracts.

“It’s similar to running a small business in that aspect,” she noted. “One day, I might be approving a social media campaign or hiring someone to do a video … and then, I still have the selfinsurance.” Newton still oversees the books for the insurance trust, although now, she has help from her team in handling the day-to-day aspects of it.

After being a part of the trucking world for 20 years, Newton has had plenty of chances to ride the highs and lows of the industry. One of the challenges she currently deals with is the significant workforce shortage that has plagued the trucking industry even before the pandemic.

“The problem is complicated,” she said. “There’s a perception problem. There are industry image issues to overcome. I know people of my generation, and at least one generation behind me, we’ve had a sort of doctrinal belief. We define success as going to a four-year school and getting a job. There are so many opportunities in our industry. We have to reprogram that way of thinking. You can actually get a really great job in transportation without a four-year degree. Making parents, educators, counselors, teachers and young people all aware of the opportunities that exist and what the actual path from education to employment looks like in our industry has been a challenge. It’s something we’ve taken on pretty aggressively over the last four to five years.”

On the positive side, Newton is happy to see the increased interest in truck driving post-pandemic. As bad as it was, she’s grateful for one silver lining. It gave truck drivers the opportunity to display what they do while the world watched.

“We received some positive attention on different levels, and it has been nice for people to think of the industry more positively.” Even with the gained interest in trucking, finding drivers remains a challenge. “We still have unseated trucks, but definitely the trend has been more positive for us coming out of the pandemic.”

One of Newton’s desires for the trucking industry is to normalize seeing women in the business. She noted that “it’s not really that different” from changing other perspectives about the industry. “A lot of people who think about trucking, think about white males.”

Although the industry is overwhelmingly made up of that demographic, she sees an opportunity for improvement. “Organizations are attuned to the fact that that’s not necessarily the best way to run an industry or business. There is actual value in diversity and value in difference of opinions. Having different perspectives at the table actually contributes to a more innovative, evolving and profitable business. The data backs that up.”

ALWAYS LOWER EMISSIONS. ALWAYS .

Walmart makes strides to reduce emissions with alternative fuel vehicles

By Dwain Hebda

As one of the nation’s largest retailers, Arkansas-born Walmart, has pioneered a number of industry firsts. Its latest achievement may well be its most impressive and lasting yet, as the Bentonville-based giant makes good on its commitment toward more sustainable operations, introducing the first truck in its fleet to run on natural gas.

Unveiled last month, the rig runs on the inaugural X15N, a 15-liter compressed natural gas engine built by Cummins and fueled by Chevron. The Walmart truck, the first of an initial lot of five, will make its inaugural trip from Indiana to California, making pit stops along the way to refuel at Chevron stations.

At the end of the first run, the truck was at the Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo in Anaheim, Calif., May 1-4. There, the vehicle was displayed and made available for attendees to experience firsthand.

“Walmart transportation is focused on the continuous piloting of solutions that aren’t just changing the industry, but are having a lasting impact on the world,” said Fernando Cortes, senior vice president of transportation at Walmart in introducing the rig. “We are proud to team with Cummins and Chevron to develop industry-leading advancements that pave toward a lower carbon future.”

The news is the latest in a string of announcements by Walmart over the past 18 months that underscores the retailer’s commitment to going green throughout its transportation operations. In 2020, Walmart announced a bold new initiative to achieve zero emissions across global operations by 2040, and the natural gas truck is just one of several first-of-their kind initiatives.

“As the world’s largest retailer, with a world-class transporta- tion network, we have the ability to make a meaningful difference when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Cortes wrote in a blog post last June.

“This includes our last mile delivery fleet, an area that is uniquely positioned for innovative solutions. But there’s another fleet we’re committed to transforming, one that will have an even bigger impact on achieving our zero emissions goal: our Class 8 transportation fleet.”

Of all the measures Walmart is taking in this initiative, overhauling its trucking operations represents the gold ring in lowering the company’s carbon footprint. Walmart reports having one of the largest fleets in the U.S., comprised of 12,000 drivers, 10,000 tractors and 80,000 trailers driving 1.1 billion miles every year. At that scale, Class 8 trucks made up about 24 percent of the company’s Scope 1 emissions in 2020.

Walmart is targeting this substantial segment of emissions via threefold technologies — natural gas, hydrogen and electric — for over-the-road (OTR) and yard trucks. Besides the justdeployed Cummins natural gas engine, to be used for long-distance hauling, Walmart is positioning itself to be among the first to utilize hydrogenengine technology for yard trucks.

Using an engine that’s considerably lighter and faster to refuel, hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks are a promising, if prohibitively expensive, option. Company officials said as the technology develops, they expect to see wider deployment of such vehicles as the price comes down. Even before that happens, Walmart has already begun transporting liquid hydrogen to its various grocery distribution centers to power forklifts, and the company is testing hydrogen fuelcell yard trucks, made by Texas-based Capacity, in the coming months.

Electric engine technology is also playing a major role in Walmart’s emissions reduction efforts. While limited current range and lack of reliable charging infrastructure makes allelectric OTR hauls impractical at present, the company ran a battery-electric day-cab proof of concept of Freightliner’s eCascadia and Nikola’s Tre BEV for short-range runs between suppliers and its distribution center in Fontana, Calif.

Walmart is also introducing refrigerated semi-trailers that run on electricity rather than diesel.

“We use 10,000 of these refrigerated trailers to safely distribute fresh and cold groceries to stores,” Cortes wrote. “Today, they rely on diesel fuel to keep them cold, which contributes to our overall CO2 emissions.

“We recently worked with Thermo King to haul Walmart’s first-ever refrigerated trailer operated on battery electricity in the U.S. The trailer is designed to run on 100 percent electricity until the batteries are fully depleted. If the electricity is depleted mid-haul, the refrigeration unit cuts over to diesel.”

As Cortes noted, the trial has been more than promising; over two months, Walmart ran 18 routes hauling groceries between its Shafter, Calif., distribution center and stores in the surrounding areas, whereby the test trailer ran electricity-only 83 percent of the time.

The company generated even more buzz last year with the summertime announcement that Walmart would be purchasing 4,500 all-electric delivery vans from EV manufacturer Canoo, with an option to buy up to 10,000 vehicles.

Canoo modified its Lifestyle Delivery Vehicles to the retailer’s specifications, offering

120 cubic feet of cargo volume and boasting a range of up to 250 miles. Just one month after the announcement, a handful of the vans were on the streets of the Dallas-Fort Worth market, delivering orders via Walmart’s InHome delivery service for online orders.

Walmart also made headlines on the delivery front for its 2022 announcement it would be expanding its drone delivery service by year’s end to customers in Tampa, Orlando, Phoenix and Dallas market areas. While that fell short of original projections that it would make the service available to up to 4 million customers over six states, it’s a quantum leap forward toward bringing drone technology into the everyday lives of consumers.

Some industry observers are quick to write off Walmart’s efforts as merely keeping up with the Joneses. In a July article announcing the deal with Canoo, Business Insider sniffed the shift to alternative fuel vehicles had as much to do with the competition as it did a carbon footprint.

“The latest news from Walmart could be viewed as a response to Amazon’s 2020 unveiling of electric delivery vehicles,” wrote Áine Cain. “The two retail giants have long been in heated competition, with Amazon dethroning Walmart as the biggest retailer in the United States for the first time in 2021.

“In light of that growing rivalry, Walmart has begun using 3,800 stores as online fulfillment centers. As competition with its online rival Amazon continues to heat up, the brick-and-mortar company touts its ability to ‘reach 80 percent of the U.S. population with same-day delivery on a growing assortment of items.’”

While market pressures have always demanded response, the company’s most recent announcement related to EVs shows the company’s innovative vision goes beyond its own use of the technology. Last month, Walmart unveiled a plan to greatly expand EV charging stations at its retail stores and members-only Sam’s Clubs, a move officials hope will push EV

sales as well as generate sales.

“By 2030, we intend to build our own EV fast-charging network at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations coastto-coast,” said Vishal Kapadia, Walmart’s senior vice president of energy transformation. “This would be in addition to the almost 1,300 EV fast-charging stations we already have available at more than 280 U.S. facilities.

“We are uniquely positioned to deliver a convenient charging option that will help make EV ownership possible whether people live in rural, suburban or urban areas. Our goal is to meet the needs of customers and members where they live and open the road to those driving across the country.”

The move to bring low-cost reliable charging is a good example of the company balancing a potential revenue stream with the greater-good initiative of advocating EV ownership in com- munities coast to coast.

“Easy access to on-the-go charging is a game-changer for drivers who have been hesitant to purchase an EV for concerns they won’t be able to find a charger in a clean, bright and safe location when needed,” Kapadia said.

“With our chargers located on-site with our Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Clubs, we can offer customers and members the convenience of being able to pick up essentials for their families or grab a bite to eat while they charge. And in line with our purpose, we aim to offer ‘Every Day Low Price’ charging, helping ease transportation costs, still the second highest household cost for much of our country.”

The advancements in transportation-related alternative energy and their related benefits to the environment further accentuates what has been an ongoing effort at Walmart for nearly two decades. The results have been impressive; in 2020, the company reported it powered nearly a third of its operations with renewable energy and diverted about 80 percent of waste from landfills and incineration.

In announcing its zero-emissions initiative, the company also illustrated how such practices have accentuated operations, not hindered them. Walmart’s fiscal year revenues grew about $200 billion between 2006 and 2020 while simultaneously cutting CO2 equivalent emissions by about 3 metric tons. And that was two years before the company’s testing and deployment of alternative fuel vehicles began to gain traction in 2022, suggesting the company’s most dramatic reductions in emissions are yet to come.

“We want to play an important role in transforming the world’s supply chains to be regenerative,” said Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon in a statement. “We face a growing crisis of climate change and nature loss, and we all need to take action with urgency.

“The commitments we’re making … not only aim to decarbonize Walmart’s global operations, they also put us on the path to becoming a regenerative company — one that works to restore, renew and replenish in addition to preserving our planet, and encourages others to do the same.”