NATSO Honors Industry Veteran Marsha Bird During NATSO Connect 2025
NATSO celebrated the career and accomplishments of Marsha Bird who is retiring after spending 35 years in the truck stop and travel center industry. Bird spent more than 28 years with NATSN where she served in several positions, including CEO, before joining Roady’s where she served as an account executive, vice president and ambassador.
Bird chose to end her career by attending NATSO Connect 2025, and Darren Schulte, NATSO’s interim CEO, honored Bird during the Opening General Session. “Marsha has shown an incredible commitment to the industry, and we were happy she extended her retirement so she could attend one final NATSO meeting,” Schulte said.
In 1989, Bird interviewed with Doug Lozier who was the CEO of NATSN and Melvin King who owned the Bobber Travel Center and was serving as the president of the NATSN board of directors.
Bird added that NATSO’s Pamela Hayes, vice president of business development, and Schulte were two of her biggest supporters.
“I left NATSN at the end of April 2018 after meeting Matt Patterson, president of Roady’s, at The NATSO Show,” Bird said. “My almost seven years with Roady’s took me to whole new level.”
Retiring was a difficult decision for Bird, who just celebrated her 80th birthday earlier this year. “I will definitely miss my truck stop operators, the Roady’s staff, my friends at NATSO and, yes, even my friends at AMBEST and NATSN,” Bird said.
Subscribe to Updates
The NATSO Foundation and NATSO provide a breadth of information created to strengthen travel plazas’ ability to meet the needs of the traveling public in an age of disruption. This includes knowledge filled blog posts, articles and publications. If you would like to receive a digest of blog post and articles directly in your inbox, please provide your name, email and the frequency of the updates you want to receive the email digest.
