Arkansas Business

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.

J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell was founded in 1961 by the husband-wife team of J.B. and Johnelle Hunt. The trucking and logistics company is now among the largest publicly traded trucking companies in the country.

Over its lifetime, the company has led the industry in intermodal transportation and the use of computers. It was one of the first transportation companies to enter the Mexican market. It also expanded into hazardous material hauling, parcel management and logistics management.

A landmark intermodal joint-services deal was reached in 1989 between Burlington Northern Santa Fe and J.B. Hunt. Following the agreement, rail freight volume increased by an annual rate of 3.6 percent from 1990-2002, gobbling up the excess capacity built following industry deregulation in 1980 and spawning a free-market model now imitated around the world. The company went public in 1983.

The late J.B. Hunt, born in 1927 in Arkansas, retired from day-to-day operations in 1995. At age 79, Hunt died in 2006 in Springdale due to complications from a head injury.

Johnelle Hunt retired from the board of directors in 2008.

J.B. Hunt Transport has annual revenue of more than $4 billion and employs more than 14,000 people -- 6,200 in Arkansas.