Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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COVER STORY | CAREER LEADERSHIP AWARD 54 commercial carrier journal | march 2018 If Hilton wasn't to be found with a ball, fi shing pole or rifl e in-hand, there was one other place you might look: the garage. "When we had problems with vehicles back then, we fi xed them," he says. "We didn't have the money to have them fi xed. We didn't tow it to the shop. We towed it home." While a young Hilton displayed a budding mechanical aptitude and a strong work ethic, the calls of tennis, baseball, football and golf were dif- fi cult to ignore. In the late '70s, if you were an all- around athlete looking for a path out of a town with a population of about 2,000 people, college was a popular way to fi nd it. Hilton enrolled at Henderson State University "for a couple of years," he says. Having taken all his basic courses, Hilton still hadn't found his calling, so he decided to leave the classroom in search for it. "I got tired of going to school," he says. "I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do in life." Hilton worked at a handle mill from 1982 to '83, making garden tools. He was the supervisor for the second shift before moving to a sawmill from 1984 to '85. It was at the sawmill that Hilton's raising – and that "tow it home and fi x it" mental- ity – stood out. "If you've ever worked at a sawmill, when things break, you fix them," he says. CALLING BECOMES CLEAR At the sawmill, Hilton ran a stack track machine that consisted of a Briggs & Stratton motor with hy- draulics that ran up and down a track system to pick up and stack crossties. "It would develop leaks occasion- ally, and we'd have to tear the engine down and take it out, and the hy- draulic pump, and replace all the O- rings in that system," Hilton says. "I watched an ol' boy do that one time, and I was thinking, 'I can do that.' " Hilton says following one break- down in particular, the mechanic came by to make the usual repair but left before completing the job. "He took off," he recalls. "He left all his tools laying there. I kept waiting and kept waiting, and fi nally, I said 'To heck with it,' and I jumped over there and started fi xing it myself. I'd seen him do it before. I fi xed it and got it going, and that's when I fi rst thought being a technician might be my calling." From 1985 to '86, Hilton went to work for Fafnir's bearing plant, heat- treating bearings and learning the basics of metallurgy, and spent much of his downtime working on his car. "During that time, I had an old '65 Volkswagen," he says. "Of course, I jacked it up like a dune buggy, and the thing would constantly burn out clutches. I got pretty good at replac- ing them." In 1986, Hilton's career in trucking got underway when he joined Gur- don-based Rickett's Trucking. After a crash course in changing oil and tires, Hilton's work quickly became much more complex. "We would rebuild those old 6V and 4V Detroits," he says. "We built bolt trailers. We would fabricate those from scratch. We worked on anything from engines to bushings on trailers. I learned a lot at that location. I really got my feet wet." MAKE-OR-BREAK OPPORTUNITY About two years later, a friend told Hilton that his company – a small Little Rock-based fl eet named Maver- ick Transportation that had about 15 trucks and 75 trailers – was hiring. After surviving a two-week "prove yourself " period, Hilton hasn't worked anywhere else in the last 30 years. "I interviewed with Mike Jeffress," Hilton recalls. "Mike hired me, and I've worked for him ever since." "Brent was the fi rst tech I ever hired," recalls Jeffress, Maverick's vice president of maintenance. At the time, Maverick only had one shop in Little Rock, which meant Hil- ton's job change came with a change of address — a move about 90 miles north of Gurdon. Hilton's career with Maverick started on the ground fl oor — as a C- level tech, changing tires and oil and doing brake and grease jobs. In the late 1970s, Hilton was an all- around athlete looking for a path out of town, and the calls of tennis, baseball, football and golf were dif- ficult to ignore. As a child growing up in Gurdon, Ark., Brent Hilton may have displayed a budding mechanical aptitude at a rather early age.