One thing stood out to Stuart Scott when he moved to northwest Arkansas in 2016 to become chief innovation officer at J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. in Lowell.
Scott noticed that J.B. Hunt, and the business community at large, did not have a robust partnership with the region’s entrepreneurial community. The company hired Scott in large part to improve that, as the company announced in 2017 it would invest $500 million in “disruptive technology,” and opened the J.B. Hunt Innovation and Center of Excellence on the campus of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville.
“One of the first things we did at J.B. Hunt was partner with the university to create the Innovation Center of Excellence,” Scott said Thursday. “We set up a site in their research [center] with our employees and their students. That was our first stab at bringing in ideas and talent from the outside into the company.”
Scott made the comments during a panel discussion at the State of the Northwest Arkansas Region luncheon at the Fayetteville Town Center. The luncheon was hosted by the Northwest Arkansas Council in partnership with the Center for Business and Economic Research at UA’s Walton College of Business.
Heidi Solomon, vice president of global strategy at Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale, and former Walmart executive Chris Sultemeier with NewRoad Capital Partners in Bentonville, were the other panelists. They addressed the need for increasing the breadth and depth of innovative companies to keep northwest Arkansas competitive.
“I think we still have a marketing challenge in northwest Arkansas,” said Sultemeier, who called the region a “hidden secret” to outsiders. “For the folks who live here or visit here, they fall in love with northwest Arkansas. It’s exposing others to northwest Arkansas and continuing to get the word out of what an incredible place this is.”
J.B. Hunt recently announced a partnership with UP.Labs of Santa Monica, California, to create a logistics venture lab to help launch as many as six startups over the next three years to tackle problems in the transportation industry. Scott said J.B. Hunt isn’t a venture capitalist company, but will provide funding to help other independently run companies find solutions to its problems.
“Just giving someone money is not really our strength; our strength is understanding logistics,” Scott said. “Our goal is to start a couple companies a year. We will provide seed funding.”
Council CEO Nelson Peacock said the area needs to strengthen its ecosystem to help keep its entrepreneurs home.
“We still have a lot of work to do if we are going to be one of the best regions in the nation, and that is ultimately our goal,” Peacock said. “We want to make sure if the next Sam Walton or J.B. Hunt or Don Tyson are in this room or are a student at the University of Arkansas or they are one of the 30 or so people who come here each and every day, we want to make sure they have every tool at their disposal.”
Solomon said it is important that the region has everyone “singing from the same song sheet” because cooperation leads to better results. She worked for Kimberly-Clark Professional in Atlanta where it was tied in with the educational community that included Georgia Tech, Georgia State and Emory.
“You have to have all the engines running together,” Solomon said. “We have that here with the University of Arkansas. We have to make sure we are plugging that into the ecosystem. You have to be able to attract the entrepreneur, give them the infrastructure and the resources in which to do business and then your companies need to be pulling for some of the innovation.”
Panel host Serafina Lalany of the council asked what the region needs to do to have better results in the field of innovation. Scott said if he had a magic wand he would use it to pump up the energy being put into the startup culture of northwest Arkansas.
“Go faster and keep doing what we’re doing,” Scott said. “I think we know what we need to go do. I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong.”
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