J.B. Hunt Executive Defies Tradition

Journey Began in Rural Province of China

The distance between the rural provinces of China and the executive offices of J.B. Hunt is measured in more than just miles. It is a journey that requires a unique combination of exceptional talent and ability.

Jun Li could write a book about it, and probably should. He survived famine, political persecution and exile to reach the top floor of the nation’s largest publicly traded truckload carrier, just two doors down from the company’s CEO, Kirk Thompson.

Li is president of J.B. Hunt Logistics Inc., the fastest-growing of the three divisions of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. of Lowell. In July, he also was named executive vice president of integrated solutions, a new position that reflects the company’s vision of the industry’s future.

Since joining J.B. Hunt in July 1994, Li has transformed the company’s logistics business from a fledgling enterprise to an operation that is setting the standard for the rest of the industry. In fact, he’s something of a legend in the industry. The mere mention of his name has been enough to sway customers to the company.

Logistics is a recent trend in the trucking industry but one that many, including Li, believe will be the future of the industry. Companies, including some of the largest in the nation, have dissolved their own trucking divisions and hired a logistics company to handle all their transportation needs.

Hunt opened its logistics division in 1992 and now considers it a key to the company’s future. Hunt uses its own trucks and hires other trucking companies to carry the freight for its logistics customers. Often, success in the logistics business is determined by the ability to coordinate all the elements of the process and deliver the freight promptly.

“Logistics is different from trucking,” Li says. “A lot of it is more art than science.”

Li helped build the logistics division for Schneider National Inc. of Green Bay, Wis., before joining Hunt. Schneider is a privately held trucking company with annual sales of about $2.5 billion and Hunt’s biggest competitor.

“I made a name for myself there,” Li says. “We signed a contract with General Motors that shook the entire industry.”

Li was at Schneider about 13 months before he was recruited to join Hunt. He started as senior vice president of logistics engineering. Ten months later, he was president of the logistics operation.

“We are trying to convert J.B. Hunt from a traditional trucking company to a company that can solve all of a customer’s transportation problems,” he says.

The first change Li made at the company was establishing a business development process for the logistics division, which Hunt didn’t have. Li set up a process of identifying potential customers, developing a plan addressing their transportation needs, signing a contract with them and providing a level of service that keeps them as customers.

“It takes a whole management team,” he says. “We strive to establish long-term relationships with major clients.”

Li shocked other executives at Hunt when he suggested the company eliminate some of its logistics customers. Hunt can’t be all things to all customers, he says.

“We have to find a good fit for each other,” he says. “We have to share each other’s philosophy, even culture. We have to trust each other and like each other.”

The change left Hunt with some of the biggest customers in the nation, including J.C. Penney Inc., Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Stores Inc., Miller Brewing Company Inc., Anheuser-Busch Co., Office Depot Inc., Proctor & Gamble Co., Weyerhauser Co., Auto Zone Inc. and Quaker Oats Co.

“We do business with the leaders in the industry,” he says.

Li also helped Hunt make a bigger investment in technology than other trucking companies have been willing to make. Customers can track their shipment through the Internet and know where their freight is at all times during transit and when it will arrive at its destination.

“That is what separates us from the competition,” he says. “No other company has even gotten close.”

In his new position as as executive vice president of integrated solutions, Li hopes to blur the lines between the company’s divisions. The divisions must work to support each other, he says.

“There is a fundamental philosophy switch,” he says. “We are trying to transform this entire company into a new company.”

Li’s rise to the top of his profession defies the traditional climb up the corporate ladder.

He was born in China in 1958. His father, a newspaper editor, was imprisoned soon after Li’s birth for writing articles critical of the Communist government. The family was forced to relocate from Xuanching, a city about the size of Fayetteville, to one of the more rural provinces in China. There, he and his family endured demanding physical labor and hunger.

“It was a terrible thing to happen to my family but it shaped my character,” he says.

His father was released from the labor camp after two years and assigned to work as manager of a print shop about 10 miles from the village. Li and his family only saw his father on weekends, he says, but his father remained a major influence in his life.

“His biggest influence was in the way of thinking,” Li says. “He wouldn’t follow the trend. He questioned everything, which was very dangerous in China. He taught me integrity, honesty and discipline.”

His father was exonerated of his crimes in 1979 and became CEO of a company that trades in farm machinery and related products. Under his direction, the company grew to five times its original size and went from losing money to making a good profit, Li says.

When Li was about four years old, a famine swept China, claiming the lives of millions. Entire villages became ghost towns.

“I was lucky to survive,” Li says.

Two of his siblings didn’t survive the hardships of rural living. He had a sister who died at 13 months from lack of medical treatment and a brother who died at 7 days from an infection.

Li excelled at school from the beginning. He graduated from high school at the age of 16 as the undisputed top student in his class.

After high school, Li wasn’t allowed to attend the university because his family wasn’t part of the Communist Party. Li says he refused to join the party, too.

“I despised the Communist Party,” he says. “I always claimed I wasn’t qualified to belong to it.”

Instead, Li spent the next two years as a middle school teacher, sometimes teaching students older than he. At his mother’s insistence, he quit teaching and became a film projectionist for a year. He traveled to other rural areas of China where he set up a screen and showed movies at outdoor theaters.

“My mother insisted,” he says. “I made more money and it was a more respected job.”

Li didn’t want to be either. He wanted to be a scientist and never gave up on the idea of attending the university. During the three years after high school, he found college textbooks and studied them.

“The biggest problem was I had nobody to turn to when I had questions,” he says.

He also discovered the Voice of America radio broadcasts early in life. Since it was a crime in China to listen to the station, he did it secretly, holding a small radio against his ear while hidden under his blanket, he says. Even his parents didn’t know. The broadcasts helped him learn English and taught him about world events not otherwise reported in China.

When Mao Tse-Tung, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, died in 1976, the government opened the universities and held examinations nationwide for admittance. Li scored among the top students.

“The competition was fierce,” he says.

Li qualified to study English and science. The government decided he should be an English major because the country needed English teachers. He was more interested in science and engineering and studied the subjects on his own time.

In 1981, his fourth year at Hefei Polytechnic University in the Anhui Province, the Chinese government allowed several professors from universities in the United States to teach in Shanghai. More exams were given to Chinese students and 26 were chosen to study with the American professors. Li had the highest grades among the students.

After two years of study, he returned to Hefei as an assistant professor of management science and assistant director for the department of research. In 1985, he was offered a scholarship to the Georgia Institute of Technology. He borrowed money from Hefei and flew to Atlanta. He received his doctorate in industrial engineering in the summer of 1989 and was named one of the school’s top graduates.

He learned logistics from CAPS Logistics Inc. of Atlanta, his first job after college. He soon became director of operations research for the company. In June 1993, he was hired by Schneider as vice president of logistics engineering. He remained with the company until he was recruited and hired by Hunt.

Today, Li lives in Springdale with his wife and two children. He became a naturalized American citizen late last year and is excited about voting in his first election in November.

“I love this country,” he says.

Not bad for a man who shyly admits he once dreamed of being the premier of China.