Trucking industry pioneer J.B. Hunt dies at 79

By John D. Schulz -- Logistics Management, 1/1/2007

LOWELL, Ark.—Johnnie Bryan “J.B.” Hunt was an Arkansas grammar-school dropout who parlayed a five-truck operation into one of the nation’s largest and most progressive motor carriers. Hunt died on Dec. 7, 2006, after suffering a fall. He was 79.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services of Lowell, Ark., was launched with just five vehicles in 1969. It now operates more than 12,000 power units and 52,000 trailers and is listed as the country’s 11th-largest trucking concern. In 2005, the company reported revenue of $3.13 billion and was solidly profitable, with an operating ratio of 89 and $207 million in net income.

Hunt (along with Don Schneider of Schneider National, Jerry Moyes of Swift Transportation, and a few others) was among the first to recognize the full ramifications of the Motor Carrier Act of 1980. That landmark law deregulated the trucking industry and freed rates from the oversight of the old Interstate Commerce Commission. Gone were the inefficient carriers of the past. In came a new breed of motor carriers that were willing and able to capitalize on innovative thinking, flexible service offerings, and the soon-to-come communications revolution.

But J.B. Hunt actually changed two industries. In 1989 he broke away from truckers’ longstanding antipathy toward the railroads and embraced them as partners. His landmark agreement with the Santa Fe Railway for hauling intermodal freight led to similar pacts between other large truckers and Class I railroads, and changed the face of surface transportation in this country.

Hunt recognized that it made economic sense to put freight on the rails on some long-haul routes where railroads offered excellent service, and to let trucks handle pickup and delivery on both ends. Today the carrier gets about 40 percent of its revenue from intermodal business.

Hunt was never wedded to one business model. If he saw the need for change, he would go ahead and change things. Once he ordered his entire fleet to switch from cab over to conventional power units after he was told that the uncomfortable but cost-effective cabover equipment was having an effect on drivers’ morale. He was one of the first trucking executives to hire a full-time economist to help him foresee where the industry and the economy were going, and the company was an early investor in Transplace, an Internet-based supply chain management company.

An entrepreneur who aligned himself early with another Arkansas legend, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, Hunt was a larger-than-life persona whose Southern twang and easygoing manner belied a hard-nosed businessman. He began working for a living at age 12. Later, after becoming chairman of a multibillion-dollar trucking concern, the man in the Stetson hat and gold cufflinks “$”-shaped would hand out a $100 bill when he saw someone who was down and out asking for change.

He was once asked why he was so generous. As a small boy growing up in rural northwest Arkansas, he said, he had been hungry himself. “Once you’re hungry,” J.B. Hunt told the interviewer, “you’re different.”

In 1997, most non-union truckload operations were struggling to find and retain drivers. That’s when J.B. Hunt did a very unusual thing. Overnight, he ordered driver pay increased by 33 percent. Hunt’s driver turnover dropped from the mind-boggling industry average of more than 100 percent to a more manageable 30 to 40 percent a year. That’s just one way that Hunt the company reflected Hunt the founder. It was as if the old man himself was at the dock, peeling off crisp $100 bills for his drivers. Once you’re hungry, remember, you’re different.