Page 31 - Arkanas Trucking Report Volume 22 Issue 5

good drivers. Thompson tries to focus “WE HAVE 210 EMPLOYEES; THAT’S 210 FAMILIES
their business on lanes that get their
drivers home every few days instead of THAT DEPEND ON THIS COMPANY’S SUCCESS. SO I
every few weeks. Though he says they REALLY TRY TO PUT ALL MY HEART AND SOUL INTO
do have lanes that require a driver to be IT AND THINK ABOUT EVERY EMPLOYEE ON EVERY
out for a week or two at a time, “In the
majority of our lanes, the driver’s out DECISION I MAKE. HOW IS IT GOING TO AFFECT EACH
and back within two days at most. So PERSON?”
that helps us get quality drivers.”
After washing trucks and direct- —JOSH THOMPSON, PRESIDENT OF
ing yard traffic for a couple of years, LEW THOMPSON & SON TRUCKING
Thompson moved into the maintenance
shop at 16. There, he worked mainte-
nance on the trucks until he graduated like you’ve been in a fight when you Today, the company has two main
high school. get done. I did that and I realized real customers, Butterball Turkey and Ozark
The few months immediately before quick, ‘That’s not the future for me.’” Mountain Poultry, and they do a little
and after graduating, he worked on the Though Thompson has done it all, bit of everything for those customers.
crew catching turkeys. To illustrate how he says it’s washing trucks that, look- They’re involved from start to finish,
difficult the job is, Thompson explains, ing back, he enjoyed the most, likely first collecting the baby poults or chicks
in one year their seven-man crew went because he could see his progress from from the hatchery and delivering them
through 87 different employees. “It’s a start to finish. That pride in well- to farms. Next, they haul feed from the
very tough job. When you go to grab a maintained vehicles continues into the feed mill to the farms, before picking
40-pound turkey and try to put them in fleet’s care today, where, he says, “We up the grown poultry from the farms
a coop, those things will flog you and take pride in our vehicles looking good and delivering it to the processing
hit you in the face. You come out pretty as you can tell out here. We try to keep plants. Finally, they haul the finished
scratched and beaten up. You look them shined and polished.” product in refrigerated trucks to the
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ARKANSAS TRUCKING REPORT | Issue 5 2017 31