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Maverick Transportation Opens $4M Driving Training Center

2 min read

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe was on hand Thursday as Maverick Transportation LLC of North Little Rock opened its $4 million driver training center.

Maverick, a subsidiary of Maverick USA Inc., is predominantly a flatbed trailer company, and founder Steve Williams makes his drivers go through specialized training to deal with load safety and other issues. The new training center expanded Maverick’s previous facility by more than 13,000 SF and has space to train 210 drivers at any one time.

Training is important to Williams, who has been at the forefront pushing for the trucking industry to adopt hair testing for drugs and various safety technologies. Williams said training drivers is expensive — $10,000 a driver at Maverick — but said the last thing he wanted to do is lower his standards despite being an industry with a noticeable lack of drivers.

“Steve Williams and Maverick are the best I’ve ever seen at what they do,” Beebe said. “He’ll pay more, he’ll do more, he’ll respond more.

“It’s easy for folks to take the low road. It’s never been an option for this company.”

Williams said the training center has seven classrooms, one of which has sound-proof, adjustable walls to fit specific class-size needs. The center added five bays for a total of eight so students can train on each type of truck and various types of loads.

Polk Stanley Wilcox of Little Rock was the architect and Clark Contractors of Little Rock handled the construction.

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