The impending retirement of Jerry Moyes at the end of December is one more signal that an almost legendary era of trucking leadership is coming to a close.
Moyes, founder and CEO of Swift Transportation, is the latest “old school” trucking chief to announce his retirement. And by old school, I refer to hardscrabble-styled executives; ones who, in most cases, literally started out in the freight business driving tractor-trailers for a living.
The most famous, of course, is Johnnie Bryan Hunt, founder of J.B. Hunt Transport Services, who retired in 2004 and tragically passed away in 2006 following injuries suffered from a fall in his home. Forced to leave school in the seventh grade, Hunt went on to build a trucking and real estate empire while also building on the shipping container genius of fellow trucker Malcolm McLean by establishing the concept of truck-and-rail intermodal with the Santa Fe Railroad back in 1989.
J.B. Hunt’s support of intermodalism had such a great impact that the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals inducted him into its inaugural Supply Chain Hall of Fame class back in September, joining luminaries such as Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor, and the aforementioned McLean.
While Swift’s Moyes didn’t generate J.B. Hunt’s kind of historical impact on the freight industry, he did go from hauling steel as an owner-operator to creating one of the largest truckload carriers in the U.S. in just 50 years. Swift operated some 20,000 trucks and garnered nearly $4.5 billion in revenues in 2015.
Now he’ll step back and become chairman emeritus, while letting Richard Stocking assume day-to-day executive duties. Stocking joined Swift in 1992 and has served as president and COO since 2010.
A few other noteworthy leadership changes that also occurred this year include the following:
◗ Clarence Werner, 78, founder of truckload carrier Werner Enterprises, stepped down in May from the CEO position he had earlier reclaimed, though he remains executive chairman. Derek Leathers, 46, is now president and CEO. Over his 17-year stint with Werner, Leathers has held numerous executive posts, including COO. He was named president in 2011.
◗ Though he’s not retiring per se, David Parker— often referred to as the “high-energy founder” of the Covenant Transportation Group (CTG)— took a step back from his involvement with the company back in February, turning day-to-day control over to Joey Hogan, who was promoted to president. Parker, though, continues to serve as chairman and CEO of CTG.
And here’s something interesting. David Parker is the stepbrother of another well-known trucking magnate: Max Fuller, co-chairman of competitor U.S. Xpress Enterprises. Ironically, both companies are headquartered in Chattanooga, TN.
Unfortunately, U.S. Xpress experienced a much sadder “end of an era” back in 2011 when its co-founder and chairman Pat Quinn died of brain cancer.
We’ll probably not see the likes of such pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps executives again in the freight world for a very long time.
But never say never.
Some 90% of the trucking industry is made up of fleets with 10 or fewer trucks, meaning that more than plenty of hard-working entrepreneurs are making a go of it in the freight world right now. If they can survive the impact of all the impending regulations headed their way along with higher equipment costs and a dearth of drivers, maybe the next era of “trucking magnates” will take root among them.
