Page 26 - ATR 5 2012 web 2

“Well, that job was 365 days a year, employer: J.W. Black Lumber Co., a local level when it came to math, in another
and as I got older there were Friday sawmill that produced square stock to league from me.” Considering his
night football games and the Saturday be made into furniture, broomsticks options, his interest in accounting and
nights out with friends, and I still had and such. He started out stacking lum- business lead him to a degree in general
to be up at 5:15 in the morning to ber, and eventually moved up to scaling business which would become his niche.
deliver those papers,” said Selig from his logs, or measuring the board feet they College life was much different
office at Maverick’s headquarters just contain, and keeping track of the tim- than growing up in a small rural town.
off Interstate 40 a few miles from Little ber their contractors brought in. But he And the night life for a college stu-
Rock. never worked on the cutting floor – too dent can be a job in itself, especially at
“I delivered papers on a bicycle. My young. the University of Arkansas. But Selig
brother had half the town and I had the He also came away with one very found himself haunted by his first job –
other half,” he recalled. “In the winter important lesson working at the mill. “I throwing newspapers. He couldn’t sleep
it could get very cold on that bike.” enjoyed working there. I loved the way past 5:00 or so. He had become a morn-
But here’s the thing about jobs you a sawmill smells. It’s honorable work,” ing person.
dislike, he says, particularly in a small said Selig, “but I knew right there that I And being a morning person
town where jobs for teenagers aren’t didn’t want to do that long-term.” squeezed out some of the typical late
plentiful – you keep them anyway, in Three older brothers had all pur- night/early morning carousing on
his case for six years. Although you sued the same degree in college – civil Fayetteville’s famed Dickson Street. On
don’t realize it at the time, jobs like that engineering. It sounded like a good plan the plus side, and his grades benefitted.
instill in you responsibility, punctuality so Selig enrolled at the University of
and time management. In short, they Arkansas and initially chose engineer- HEalTHy CompETITIoN
build character. ing as his major. “I think growing up in a big family,
But Selig says his second job intro- “A course called statics changed particularly when you have four broth-
duced him to the real working world. At my mind from civil engineering,” he ers, right or wrong, you have this sense
age 16, he, like his brothers before him, said, shaking his head at the memory. of competition about many things,”
started working summers at his father’s “I had classmates who were at another Selig said. “Unfortunately for us our

26 arkansas truCking rePort | issue 5 2012