Longtime Arkansas Travelers executive Rusty Meeks has stepped down as president of the Minor League Baseball franchise to join the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.
The team announced his departure on Monday. Sophie Ozier will continue in her role as general manager and become the Travelers’ top executive.
Meeks’ time with the Travelers spanned more than two decades, beginning in his youth as a bat boy and later as a college intern. He joined the front office full-time in 2012 and went on to serve in a wide range of roles, including director of merchandise, sales director, assistant general manager, executive vice president, CEO, and most recently, president.
He left the Travelers in June 2023 for a job as director of Practice Plus of Little Rock but returned about a month later.
“Rusty’s passion for the Travelers and for this community has shaped who we are today,” Ozier said in a news release. “We’re incredibly thankful for everything he’s done, and the organization wishes him all the best in this next chapter.”
The Travelers, once a part of the St. Louis Cardinals organization, have been a farm team of the Seattle Mariners since 2016. The team was acquired by Diamond Baseball Holdings in 2024.
New government role
Meeks joins the Department of Finance and Administration as director of strategic initiatives with a reported annual salary of $141,125. He’ll be responsible for reviewing a wide variety of services provided by DFA, looking for opportunities to reduce paperwork and for digitizing business processes, the department said. Meeks will also lead efforts to “make visits to DFA offices pleasant and quick.”
“Anyone who has attended a game at Dickey-Stephens Park has experienced Rusty’s innovation in providing a great customer experience,” DFA Secretary Jim Hudson said. “I’m looking forward to him bringing that same approach to DFA.”
The department also announced two other leadership moves. Christy Bjornson, director of DFA’s Alcoholic Beverage Control Division and Tobacco Control Division, was named administrator of DFA’s Regulatory Division. Paul Gehring, DFA’s assistant commissioner of revenue, accepted a role as the department’s chief legal counsel.
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