NATSN Hires New CEO
Ronnie is from Knoxville, TN and is a proud UT fan. He was born and raised in and around Knoxville and has never wandered from his hometown. He was employed for sixteen years by Pilot Travel Centers LLC as a General Manager of several Travel Centers. Ronnie joined the Lee’s Travel Center in 2011 as a General Manager and later as District Manager and worked with them until his employment with NATSN.
Ronnie became acquainted with the NATSN network thru Lee’s Oil and served on the NATSN Board of Directors from 2014 until his resignation from Lee’s. He stated that his passion is for all independent truck stop operators and hopes to be able to help with new programs and updated programs. Ronnie is married to Tracy and they have four children, three girls all in college and their youngest, Zach is in third grade. Tracy spends her time by volunteering at the school and will be an excellent partner to Ronnie as she has experience in the truck stop industry as well.
The NATSN staff welcomed Ronnie into the home office on Monday, September 12th where he spent the week getting to know staff members, Marsha Bird, Director of Operations; Amanda Zelch, VIP Administrator and Ashley West, Customer Service. “Ronnie is full of positive energy and has many ideas on how to revamp NATSN,” stated former CEO of NATSN, Doug Lozier who called to congratulate Ronnie on his appointment. He offered his counsel and advice whenever needed.
Kimball Davis, former NATSN Board President stated after the hiring process that “NATSN’s most successful CEO’s were from the truck stop industry as they understand the workings of a truck stop and the hours it entails to be successful”. The NATSN board was in complete agreement that Ronnie was the most qualified of all the candidates they had considered and they were happy with his acceptance.
Ronnie will continue to reside in Knoxville and will travel to the corporate office in Sullivan, MO on a monthly basis and work with the staff daily. His first priority will be adding new truck stops, working on fuel gallons for the NATSN network. He also plans to work with the many partners that NATSN has in the industry and last, but not least, his goal will be to visit all current NATSN members at their truck stops.
NATSN is one of the oldest independent truck stop networks in the industry and promotes their members to the trucking industry with a distinctive driver loyalty program that rewards in cash. NATSN works with trucking industry suppliers to help their membership be on the cutting edge of technology.