Johnelle Hunt has come a long way from stuffing envelopes and swimming against a tide of red ink.
One of the leading business women in the nation, Johnelle DeBusk Hunt helped found J.B. Hunt Transport Inc. of Lowell, a business she and her husband grew into one of the biggest companies in not just the transportation industry, but the world.
With husband and company co-founder Johnnie Bryan Hunt, she began their humble operation in 1961. Today it is the world’s largest publicly traded transportation company.
The Hunts were innovators: They took a poultry litter company, figured out a way to deliver their products to customers, and from there grew one of the world’s largest trucking firms.
Following her husband’s death in 2006, Hunt developed Hunt Ventures, a leading development firm in northwest Arkansas, solidifying her role as one of the state’s leading business women.
Hunt currently ranks No. 7 on the Forbes list of American self-made women with an estimated net worth of $2.3 billion. Forbes also ranks her No. 284 on its list of U.S. billionaires for 2015 (she is No. 810 in the world).
The story behind the Hunts’ success begins soon after their marriage in 1951. The Heber Springs natives had met when Johnelle was a junior in high school (she later attended the University of Central Arkansas in Conway) and married four years later.
In 1952, J.B. Hunt began driving a commercial truck for Superior Forwarding Co. in Little Rock, and in 1961, the Hunts set up the J.B. Hunt Co. in Stuttgart, producing poultry litter and selling it to poultry companies in Arkansas.
Meanwhile, Johnelle Hunt helped her husband get started in the business, helping with correspondence, financial statements, bookkeeping and even collections.
Although the company lost more than $20,000 its first year, the Hunts turned it around and eventually shipped poultry across the country. In 1969, they founded the trucking company we know today as J.B. Hunt Transport, with five trucks and seven trailers, as a sideline business to support the poultry feed company.
Today, J.B. Hunt is all about transport, hauling across North America with a fleet of more than 14,000 semi-trailer trucks and 70,000 trailers and containers. The company has revenues of more than $3 billion and employs more than 16,000. It is the largest publicly held trucking company in America.
Johnelle Hunt played an important role in growing the company. Cost-cutting efforts implemented by the Hunts in the 1980s following the deregulation of the industry played a major role in the company’s development during the decade. And the company’s lucrative contract to haul merchandise for Wal-Mart didn’t hurt.
Meanwhile, cost-cutting efforts increased profits dramatically and became an industry-wide standard. Examples included the practice of buying the company’s trucks instead of leasing them and keeping labor costs low and enabling drivers to carry more freight than their competitors.
In 2013, Hunt told Arkansas Business that the J.B. Hunt success didn’t come about by accident. It was the result of hard work.
“It didn’t just all fall from the sky one day,” Hunt said. “People need to know the struggles. And it should give them hope when they do hear the stories from the past. It shows them what is possible.”
After the passing of J.B. in 2006, Johnelle Hunt remained active with the company and retired from its board in 2008.
She is active with Hunt Ventures, which developed the 700-plus acre Pinnacle Hills project in Rogers. It includes 1.4 million square feet of retail/restaurant space and 960,000 square feet of office space with more under development.
Hunt, who remains J.B. Hunt Transport’s largest shareholder, is still actively involved with other projects started with her husband including Northwest Arkansas Quarries, Haskell Sand and Gravel and Central Mortar and Grout in Oklahoma, J.B. Hunt Gas and Oil Drilling in Midland, Texas, and a rock quarry project in Honduras. Other projects include BioBased Technologies, Pinnacle Hills Promenade and Pinnacle Memorial Gardens with the accompanying 3,000 square-foot Hunt Chapel.
Hunt’s community activities are almost too numerous to mention but include seats on the Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute Advisory Board, chairmanship of the United Way Alexis de Tocqueville Society for Washington County and executive board membership with the Ozark Affiliate of Susan G. Komen.
Hunt was treasurer for the University of Arkansas Campaign for the 21st Century, a major fundraising drive launched in 2000 that raised more than $1 billion. Following the campaign, she served on the executive committee of its advisory board. In addition, Hunt co-chaired the university’s Campaign Arkansas Steering Committee in 2013 and continues to serve on the campaign.
She has served on the board of directors for The Beau Foundation benefiting prenatal care in northwest Arkansas since 2003, and she previously served on the UAMS Foundation Board.
Hunt has been recognized for her business and philanthropic contributions as well. In 1990, the Hunts were chosen as the Arkansas Easter Seal Arkansans of the Year, the first couple to receive the award, and in 1996 the March of Dimes honored them as Citizens of the Year.
Hunt was one of four women to receive the Worthen Professional Women of Distinction Award in 1992 and she was included in “The Top 100 Women” list for Arkansas from 1994 through 1998.
In 2001, the Hunts were inducted into the Arkansas Business Hall of Fame, and Johnelle Hunt received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Arkansas in 2009.
Last year she was honored by the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce with the Dick Trammel Good Neighbor Award.
“This is truly an honor for me,” she said at the Good Neighbor awards banquet. “If Johnnie could just be here standing beside me, because he is the one who started it all. I just always tried to follow along and keep it going. … People in northwest Arkansas gave us our start, we owe a lot to this region.”
The Hunts were enthusiastic Arkansas Razorbacks supporters, and head football coach Bret Bielema personally delivered a statement from University of Arkansas Chancellor David Gearhart at that Rogers ceremony.
It read: “Johnelle is one of the most gracious and generous people I know. She is thoughtful, very smart, kind and considerate and a joy to be around. Jane and I are so blessed to have her as a dear friend. She loves her community and has been so generous to many charitable endeavors, including the University of Arkansas, where she has an honorary degree. At the same time she is a very savvy business woman who wields considerable influence on the business community throughout Arkansas. She is literally one of the finest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Her legacy as one of Arkansas’ true gems is very, very strong.”
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