Northwest Arkansas Council celebrates 35 years, honors Simmons and Lindsey

The Northwest Arkansas Council at its recent annual meeting noted accomplishments over the past three and a half decades. The council also gave former Simmons Foods CEO Mark Simmons a lifetime membership award.

Simmons was on the ground floor of the council’s formation. He said around 1990, Sam Walton called together about 45 regional business and civic leaders to meet in Springdale to discuss the formation of a council that could work together to pursue actions that would benefit the region’s growth. Simmons is just the seventh person to receive a lifetime membership from the council. He joins President Bill Clinton, Alice Walton, U.S. Rep. John Paul Hammerschmidt, R-Harrison, Uvalde Lindsey, Scott Van Laningham, and Susan Barrett in receiving the honor.

Simmons became president of Siloam Springs-based Simmons Foods at the age of 26, continuing the legacy of his father, Bill Simmons. He also served as presiding co-chair of the council from 2013 to 2014. Simmons was credited with playing a pivotal role in establishing the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport (XNA), serving as its second chairman and championing its development.

“Mr. Sam basically told us what we needed to do,” Simmons said at the council’s Nov. 12 meeting. “He said there would always be plenty of challenges, but the council should focus on two or three big problems at a time and not scatter itself too thin. The airport was a top priority. Sam commissioned (his daughter) Alice (Walton) to head up the effort and she did a fabulous job leading us through those first few years of the council’s accomplishments. It was not hard because the people that Sam brought together respected him and listened to him.”

XNA opened in November 1998 after three years of construction and five years of planning. The airport achieved national status in 2019. It’s also the busiest airport in the state, surpassing in September 2024 Clinton National Airport in Little Rock in the number of enplanements. XNA enplanements rose 12.36% to 938,242 through September of this year.

Other large projects over the three decades include the construction of Interstate 49 to connect Alma and I-40 to Northwest Arkansas and adding extra lanes to the interstate highway from Fayetteville through Bentonville. The Bella Vista bypass was completed and opened in late 2021 to finish I-49 up into Missouri.

The council has since set its sights on petitioning for widening Arkansas Highway 112 connecting Fayetteville with Bentonville, and the completion of the Highway 412 bypass around Springdale. The council funded the cost analysis study for the project and supported a $25 million federal grant application.

When asked what two or three areas the council should focus its efforts on in the next few years, Todd Simmons, CEO of Simmons Foods and long-time council member, said roads and infrastructure like wastewater and water treatment are crucial to the region’s continued growth. He said the collaboration between the 30 cities in the two-county area is also critical because it will take everyone to ensure the region is ready for the next 20 years of growth.

Council CEO Nelson Peacock said the work and accomplishments of the Northwest Arkansas Council has turned a handful of cities and communities in the middle of America into one of the most dynamic regions in the country. He said it’s a place where collaboration and cooperation have become part of the culture. He said the region’s population has grown 40% over the past 25 years and is poised to surpass 1 million residents in the next 25.

“We’re dealing with growing pains right now, and that’s why planning for the future is so vital,” Peacock said. “To help with some of this planning, the council launched Growing Home NWA, a regional growth strategy designed to help cities and counties manage the future and to do it together, led in partnership by DPC CoDesign.”

He said local cities are rezoning to allow for better land use, while preserving open spaces. The people’s input is important to this project, which prompted dozens of meetings this past year and the first-ever joint meetings of the Benton and Washington county quorum courts.

The council also is working with cities, developers, and others to grow and expand affordable workforce housing ins the region. The first project, Big Emma, opened in Springdale this year, with 344 units located downtown close to jobs and amenities. He said other projects are expected to be ready in the region in the near future.

“We’re also working with the state Department of Agriculture on a regional wastewater strategy,” Peacock said. “It’s going to help us determine how we can most efficiently meet our ever expanding needs in processing wastewater. We’re going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 10 years, 20 years here and we have to make sure we do that in the most cost-effective way possible.”

This council is working with county officials to create a Regional Industrial Development Authority spanning Benton, Washington and Madison counties. The effort is enabled by Act 576 of 2025, which gives counties authority to form regional entities that plan, finance and develop industrial projects. The council said the authority will let the counties coordinate site development and issue industrial revenue bonds tied to individual projects that promote smart, long-term growth without increasing the tax burden.

The meeting also ushered in University of Arkansas Chancellor Dr. Charles Robinson as the council’s presiding co-chair for the next year. He succeeds Nick Hobbs, chief financial officer at J.B. Hunt Transport.

The executive committee for the next year are Charles Pirtle of the Heartland Whole Health Institute as presiding co-chair appointment; Rupal Poltack of Walmart Enterprises as presiding co-chair appointment; Marshall Saviers, vice chair /treasurer; Jim Walton, secretary, Cindi Marsiglio, co-chair from Walmart; Todd Simmons, co-chair from Simmons Foods; John Randal Tyson, co-chair from Tyson Foods, Brandom Gengelbach chamber representative and Adam Deckinger, nonimating committee appointment. Craig Rivaldo of Arvest Bank and Carter Malloy of Acres are rolling off the committee. Their replacements will be chosen by Dr. Robinson in the coming weeks.

The council also posthumously honored Uvalde Lindsey for his decades of leadership to the organization. Lindsey, who died in July at the age of 85, was the council’s founding executive director and first staff member. He was recognized for his lifetime of service to the council and in state and local government. Lindsey’s career also included being a member of the Harrison City Council, being an officer in the U.S. Army Reserves, and being elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives and the Arkansas Senate.