Corley?s Vision Keys Ventures? Longevity

Carl D. Corley can drive any business on wheels.

A Fort Smith entrepreneur and transportation industry visionary for 45 years, the Paris, Ark., native has built an empire out of lease trucks, rental cars, vehicle sales and servicing, parts sales and even trading tractors.

Corley keeps his companies rolling, he said, by studying the road ahead and learning from potholes along the way. The result is Carco Capital Inc., a diversified holding company with more than 170 employees and 2004 revenue of about $83 million.

Corley is one of Arkansas’ most private multi-millionaires. The most recognizable of his businesses is probably Carco Carriage Inc., through which Corley quietly owns all 16 of the Hertz Rental Car franchises in Arkansas.

Pouring over trends in The Wall Street Journal and The Value Line, Corley gets philosophical in his spacious, lamp-lit office just off Midland Boulevard. In addition to the photos of his four children and 10 grandchildren, the voracious reader keeps daily reminders of his ventures that went kaput.

Grabbing a box of Bill’s Skillet Cookies, a failed low-fat cracker product that featured a likeness of Bill Clinton with crackers in an iron skillet, Corley laughs out loud at himself.

“We nearly just went under with this one,” he said.

The Wortz Cracker Co. had been a downtown icon for decades, but by 1989 it was dried out. Corley and some friends bought the facility in 1989 and turned it into the Fort Biscuit Co. They landed a military contract to supply crackers for meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) in the fall of 1990 when the first Gulf War broke out. The business was going great guns, but Operation Desert Storm ended by March 1991.

“America was too efficient and our cracker business went back in the hole,” Corley said. “So we came up with the idea when Clinton was running for president to get in early on the low-fat craze. It turned out that the president and his associates didn’t think much of it, so it failed.

“I lost money on that, but you learn more from your defeats than your victories.”

Another office exhibit is a framed quote by Robert Smalley, the former president of the Hertz Corp. “The opportunity for distinction lies in doing ordinary things extraordinarily,” it reads.

Doug Smith, a partner at the Warner Smith & Harris law firm, said Corley is not “persuaded by ego or the flavor of the day.” Sam M. Sicard, chairman of Fort Smith’s First Bank Corp., added that “watching the small things” is quintessential Corley.

“Carl controls his costs very well,” Sicard said. “He’s not a CPA, but he might as well be.”

Sicard said Corley is also a steward of the community serving on the boards for Sparks Hospital, the Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club, Hardscrabble Country Club and the College of the Ozarks.

Fleet of Interests

Corley, 69, had two other businesses led by bell-cow Carco Carrier Corp., which he sold to publicly traded USA Truck Inc. in November of 1999 for $37 million. That fleet included 550 tractors, 1,200 trailers and had revenues of about $50 million, according to the Van Buren long-haul carrier.

Corley also sold his Fort Smith John Deere dealership in 1999 for an undisclosed sum.

Carco Capital’s three main subsidiaries today include:

• 16 Hertz offices with a combined fleet of about 1,600 vehicles at four locations in Fort Smith, two in Little Rock and one each in Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville, Highfill, Harrison, Hope, Hot Springs, Texarkana, Jacksonville and Jonesboro.

This segment is divided between retail branches and Hertz Local Edition shops, which cater to local insurance, car dealership and body shop replacement customers.

• Carco Rentals Inc. is a truck rental and leasing business. It’s a National Lease Rental affiliate that offers a 400-vehicle fleet of trucks and vans, primarily 10- to 12-foot vans and 24- to 28-foot trucks plus some heavier duty equipment and trailers.

Carco Rentals has locations in Fort Smith, Hope, Little Rock, Jonesboro, West Memphis, Springhill, La., and Oklahoma City.

• Carco International Inc. is a Navistar Inc. dealer that sells trucks and parts and does truck service work. A variety of truck lines are the main customers for this Fort Smith division.

Corley said Carco International occasionally sells entire fleets, which accounts for the overall corporation’s 80 percent jump in revenue during the last two years.

Carco Capital had 2002 revenue of $46 million and 2001 revenue of $44 million.

“We make sure we have enough rental cars in Highfill during the [annual Wal-Mart shareholders meeting] and we put some vans down in Stuttgart to help people coming in for duck season,” Corley said.

Carpe Diem

Corley, a 1956 graduate of the University of Arkansas’ business college, has had a knack for staying ahead of the curve. He noticed in 1962 that more manufacturers and distributors were leasing trucks for shipping, so that they could better focus their capital.

That prompted a rise in lease truck firms such as Rider Truck Rental, plus a lot of small operators such as Corley.

“I tried to learn about the truck lease business, but no one knew anything so I just started doing it,” Corley said. “I bought a company that was leasing trucks to Dixie Cup’s small plant down the street. I think I had something like four truck and six or seven trailers when I started.

“You just tried to cover your fixed costs with your monthly lease rate and your running costs with a mileage rate.”

Corley had saved about $10,000, and he borrowed about another $20,000 for the acquisition from First National and City National Bank in Fort Smith.

Another watershed moment came two years later when Fort Smith’s Hertz Rental franchise became available. Corley took on its 20-car fleet, primarily out of interest in Hertz’s truck rental division.

Longtime friend R.S. Boreham, who retired in January as chairman of Fort Smith’s Baldor Electric Co., said Corley’s ability to spot opportunities and take calculated risks is his biggest asset.

“Carl is not afraid to take a chance and work at things,” Boreham said. “That’s what good entrepreneurs do. Also, when he says he’ll do something, he does it. He doesn’t make a big thing out of it, he just does it.”

Defining Moments

Corley’s truck rental business revved up in the 1970s after he bought Hertz’s Little Rock operation. When Rheem Corp. moved into Fort Smith, he scored its truck lease for several plants.

Truck leasing proliferated, but Hertz eventually got out of that segment, and industry consolidations left only a few players.

With transportation’s deregulation in 1981, Corley said, another paradigm shift spawned thousands of independent truckload carriers such as J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc. in Lowell. Now instead of even having to lease trucks, manufacturers could get away from the freight business completely.

“That’s what got me into the truckload business, too,” Corley said. “We started CCC in 1983 just to try to maintain our market share … I don’t know about being a visionary. Being able to anticipate change is nothing more than being on the street and talking to customers. This is what they wanted.”

Corley cut his customer service teeth right out of college as a collector for International Harvester’s credit division in Kansas City. He eventually returned to Fort Smith to join his father at Crouch Equipment Co., the local International Harvester dealer.

“Dad said when he and Mr. A.T. Crouch first opened here, they traded for mules when farmers came to buy a tractor,” Corley said. “They had a large livestock facility across the street where they could handle the livestock.”

Carl M. Corley died last year at age 97. Carl D. “Chip” Corley Jr., the chairman’s son, still works for the family business as president of the Hertz Rental division.

Chip Corley said his father, an active member and tither to the First Presbyterian Church of Fort Smith, frequently stays up until midnight reading. He remembers his father being worried about financial hard times during the energy crunch of the 1970s, but said the chairman has always beat the odds by being fair and surrounding himself with good people.

“Most employees have been here for 15 to 20 years,” Chip Corley said. “Dad just started from scratch when he saw a need. I can remember him sitting at the supper table in the 1970s worrying about high gas prices. He shook his head and said we’d just have to be prepared for how ever things turned out.”