ATA Foundation Turns to Science

Keeping in step with their parent organizations, several foundations affiliated with trucking trade groups are changing their emphasis.

To buttress American Trucking Association’s focus on advocacy, the ATA Foundation has completed its decade-long move away from the image-building business and toward more research.

The National Private Truck Council’s Private Fleet Management Institute is considering dropping its broad-based industry research in favor of increased emphasis on education and research specific to private fleets.

Meanwhile, the Natso Foundation, which is affiliated with the organization of truck stop operators known simply as Natso Inc., published the first issue of a transportation journal May 25.

And the Intermodal Association of North America has created a foundation to fill a void in intermodal freight research.

The evolution in trucking foundations is not surprising, said Marsha Rhea, executive vice president of the American Society of Association Executives Foundation.

Trade associations create foundations for specific purposes — often to provide education and training for members within the industry or to conduct research. Unlike membership dues, contributions to foundations are tax deductible, she said.

“Foundations are a good mechanism for associations to do very specific work,” Rhea said.

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