Powell to retire as USA Truck chairman

Robert Powell’s 51-year career in the trucking industry will soon end when he retires his position May 4 as chairman of the board at Van Buren-based USA Truck.

According to a statement from the trucking company, Powell has served as chairman of the Board since 2000, was CEO between 1988 and 2007, and has been a director of the Company since 1983.

He is one of the original participants in the group that acquired the Company from Arkansas Best Corporation in December 1988.  Prior to that, Powell was employed 28 years by ABF Freight System Inc., a national trucking company and a subsidiary of Fort Smith-based Arkansas Best Corp.

"Bob Powell is a true visionary and recognized leader in the transportation industry. He has been a valuable contributor to our Company since it was founded and has been a continuous source of sound advice,” noted a statement from Cliff Beckham, USA Truck’s president and CEO. “Bob’s commitment and dedication to this Company during his tenure established USA Truck as one of the industry’s leaders, growing it from just a few tractors at its founding to one of the 20 largest dry van truckload carriers in North America. USA Truck will be forever grateful to Bob for his contributions and we wish him well in his much-deserved retirement."

Powell began as the USA Truck president when Arkansas Best formed the company as a truckload subsidiary. Part of a leveraged buyout in 1988 required the company to be sold, and in 1989 a group of Arkansas Best managers, including Powell, bought the operation. It went public in 1992.

Lane Kidd, executive director of the Arkansas Trucking Association (ATA), said Bob Powell was easily one of the more active and longest-serving member of the association’s board.

“Since the early 1980s, Bob Powell has been an active decision maker until recently on our board of directors. His opinions always carried weight and he was always politically active, and that was especially helpful in an association where you don’t need people sitting on their hands,” Kidd said.

A 1997 story published by the ATA reported that Powell graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1956 and was commissioned in the U.S. Navy the day he graduated. He served as a pilot on board the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid until almost 1960, where he flew a plane known as "The Flying Dump Truck," which could carry more than its own weight in bombs.

In the story, Powell said military experience helps in the business world. The story quotes Powell: "I learned you’ve got to have respect for people and demand the proper discipline to get the job done. You don’t set your own schedule in the military. We have a lot of ex-military drivers, and they make some of the best drivers. If we had our preference, we’d like to have everybody with military experience."

OTHER PERSONNEL MOVES
The company also announced Tuesday that Terry Elliot would succeed Powell as board chairman. Elliot has served on the USA Truck board since 2003.

He served as chief financial officer of Safe Foods Corp., a food safety company in North Little Rock, Arkansas from July 2000 to August 2009, and served as a director of Safe Foods from 2000 to 2003. Elliott also was a director of Superior Financial Corp. until Superior was sold to Arvest Bank in August 2003. Elliott was with Ernst & Young from 1968 until 1994 when he retired as managing partner of the Little Rock Office.

Also, the company announced that Garry Lewis, 65, will retire as executive vice president and chief operating officer effective April 30, 2011. The company statement did not mention a replacement.