Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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INNOVATORS Maverick puts all company functions in full view BY DEAN SMALLWOOD W hen a company is born, there may not be an easy way to predict its future success. But climbing to the top requires a clear view of the critical steps needed to get there – and stay. Maverick USA's roots go back to the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 that deregulated the trucking industry. Steve Williams – who had begun his trucking career five years earlier with Steel Haulers Inc. in Kansas City, Mo. – seized the opportunity to pursue his dream of company ownership and started Maverick with friend and co-worker Larry Leahy in a one-room office in Texarkana, Ark. In 1983, he purchased his partner's interest in the company and became the sole owner of Maverick Transportation Inc., and today serves as president and chief executive officer. Today the Williams family still owns 100 percent of the Maverick companies. The flatbed carrier's history over the past 30 years has been anchored by "The Maverick Way" – Williams' principles and values centered around integrity, respect and commitment. Growth has come from reinvestment of earnings in company-owned equipment and five acquisitions: Kissick Truck Lines in 1994, Jewett Scott Truck Line in 2002, Parrett Trucking in 2004, Schneider Specialized in 2006 and Crossover Transportation in 2010. Maverick Transportation Inc. became Maverick USA Inc. in 2005 and now owns and operates Maverick Transportation, Maverick Logistics and Maverick Leasing, hauling steel, building materials, flat glass and temperature-controlled products. Today, from the corporate campus in Little Rock, Ark., Maverick operates more than 1,400 tractors and provides services throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico. MAVERICK USA Little Rock, Ark. Measuring up With separate entities tasked with their own functions and large teams of employees fulfilling many disparate responsibilities at each, a top-notch technology infrastructure was deemed critical to keeping closer tabs on the overall enterprise. Even small changes to processes in one entity might lead to swings of hundreds of thousands of dollars on the bottom line; changes in routes, driver training, gas mileage and accident rates all affect profits. Maverick also wanted a better way to keep track of routine paperwork such as data from its electronic onboard recorders and renewal dates for commercial driver's licenses. Until about five years ago, however, the company couldn't visualize real-time trends easily or predict future outcomes accurately. "People were running a lot of reports, but not getting real-time information," says Wayne Brown, vice president of information technology. "They were basing decisions on data that was days or weeks old." Maverick's IT team was tasked with helping the company aggregate all of the data it had to help enhance the company's business intelligence and support its corporate objectives to drive business value. This goal, however, was not a simple one to achieve. "One of the complexities we faced is that there's not one big software company The company's IT team develops dashboards for virtually every department of its separate business entities so users can get a wider view of the overall enterprise. COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | MARCH 2013 CCJ_0313_Innovators.indd 47 47 2/20/13 10:58 AM