Shannon Newton was named president of the Arkansas Trucking Association in June 2014. She has been with the ATA since 2003, having previously served as vice president 2008-2014.
Since joining ATA, Newton has filled a range of leadership roles with expanded responsibilities in the development and implementation of strategic initiatives including planning, finance, member services, governance, regulatory and legislative affairs and advocacy. In 2018, she was recognized by the American Trucking Associations with the President’s Trucking Association Executives Council Leadership Award for her regional and national advocacy efforts.
Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson tapped Newton for various statewide transportation campaigns, including his Working Group on Highway Funding, Arkansas’s Economic Recovery Task Force in 2020, and the Council on Future Mobility in 2022. Newton served as chair of the Vote for Roads committee that successfully campaigned for voters to pass a half-cent sales tax in November 2020 to fund infrastructure. More recently Newton served on Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ working group to prevent human trafficking in Arkansas.
Newton currently serves as chair of her peer group, the Trucking Associations Executive Council. She has held a number of association and national industry leadership positions and currently serves on the boards of directors for the following groups: Arkansas Good Roads Foundation, Arkansas Self-Insurers’ Association, Arkansas State University – Three Rivers, Be Pro. Be Proud. and Project Zero, a statewide non-profit organization raising awareness about adoption from foster care.
Additionally, in 2022, Newton was named to the Transportation Industry Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to provide valuable feedback of the economic conditions of the trucking industry.
She is a member of the Trucking Association’s Insurance Council, Arkansas Society of Association Executives and Arkansas Society of Professional Lobbyists.
A graduate of the University of Central Arkansas, Shannon lives in Bryant with her husband Josh and their two children, Nash and Nyla.