The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
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The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Ep. 87 - JB Hunt's 360 Box: Freight's Future Beyond Traditional Trucking
Supply chains are the backbone of effective business operations, and understanding this complex system can greatly benefit any professional in the industry. In this engaging episode featuring Nick Gowen, Vice President of 360 Box at JB Hunt, we delve into the evolving landscape of logistics and how one of the industry's leaders adapts and thrives amidst challenges.
Nick shares valuable insights into the operational strategies that define 360 Box, emphasizing a unique blend of traditional trucking techniques and emerging industry standards. His firsthand experiences illustrate the critical importance of agility and customer-focused leadership in navigating supply chain disruptions, particularly highlighted during the pandemic. Discover how open communication and a people-first mindset significantly enhance customer relationships and operational success.
Listeners will learn about the innovative practices JB Hunt employs to ensure efficiency, including the integration of external capacity to meet the increasing demand for reliable freight movement. The episode also highlights Nick's personal journey through various roles within JB Hunt, showcasing how his persistence and dedication contributed to the company's growth.
Throughout our conversation, Nick reinforces core values such as integrity, respect, and excellence, which underpin JB Hunt’s operations and drive their enduring success. By focusing on these principles, companies can foster strong relationships with their employees and customers, crucial for sustained growth in today’s competitive landscape.
Join us for this insightful exploration into logistics and supply chain management—whether you're a seasoned professional or new to the field, there’s something valuable for everyone. Subscribe to our podcast for more insightful discussions, and let us know your thoughts on this episode!
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in Biddenville. I'm Andy Wilson and I'm the host today and thank you so much. You know I'll say during the podcast how much you have done and we're so grateful because now, because of you, we're now viewed in over 90 countries and that is phenomenal. So, thank you, keep sharing, keep sending me messages. I want to hear from you, let me know how we're doing and any suggestions you have. I have got such a phenomenal guest today, nick. Welcome, andy. Thank you for having me here. It's an honor to be here. It is so good. Not only Nick and I have this opportunity, but we're great friends and we do something that we love and that's cycling together. I'm a Christian. Well, here's the truth. Everyone, I got to say it up front. I see Nick twice on a ride. Okay, at the beginning and the end that's where I see Nick, and in the middle I can't even see him. He's so far ahead of me. But anyway, it's fun. Nick, we have a great time, don't we?
Speaker 2:we do have a great time hitting the uh dirt work roads of northwest arkansas, I know it is.
Speaker 1:We ride road and ride gravel, but we were talking the other day. We just love gravel now because the traffic and there's so much calmer out there with the farmers I think the the traffic, the scenery.
Speaker 2:I think I was telling you last week I rode through the summer and I thought the dust would be a major issue, but I really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm so glad you're here. Nick Galvin is the vice president of 360 Box JB Hunt, one of the most phenomenal companies there is in the world. We're going to talk about this great company. We're also going to talk about Nick and his role and responsibilities, on what you do at JB Hunt and then some other things, and I think you're going to really enjoy this deep dive, if you will, into supply chain. You know supply chain is critical.
Speaker 1:We learned very at the pandemic what happens when that supply chain is interrupted, and we learned that we're going to get into all this kind of stuff and how Nick and his team keeps the product moving throughout the world now, and not only on the roadways in the US but abroad and on the trains and everything else, and we'll get into some of that kind of stuff. Nick, how's that sound? Okay, good. So, nick, vice president, 360 box operations, talk to us a little bit about that. And then what I want to do is come back and I just want to get into how you got the jb hunt and I know there's a story there and then your journey over 30 years at JB Hunt. We want to talk about that, but let's give our viewers and listeners an opportunity. What is 360 Box?
Speaker 2:Sure, andy, thanks for asking 360 Box when you think about JB Hunt, that is our legacy truck line. That's what it started with. It was Mr Hunt and it was a trailer and it was making deliveries to our customers. As he grew he added trailers and he added trailers to his network. That 360 box is the trailer portion and then we work to provide the power portion, whether that's through our own assets, through independent contractors or outsourced brokerage power.
Speaker 2:But it's kind of a cool place to be. You know, if you go back and look at what JB Hunt Truckload became over the last 20 years or so, it's kind of taking a backseat to intermodal. We've seen a ton of intermodal growth. I know you're familiar with that and it's been a great product for our customers, for low cost, great service, et cetera. So the truck line took a backseat to that. It's taken a little bit of a backseat to our dedicated, which is private fleet replacement or private fleet augmentation, and a little bit to our brokerage product.
Speaker 2:And what was awesome in probably 2017, 2018, we were all sitting around kind of talking about how do we kind of revitalize, how do we put some fire behind our traditional truck line and the idea of 360 Box with Lawrence. So what 360 Box does is it looks at power that operates under our authority, but it also looks at additional capacity out there and it gave us the opportunity to grow really fast. So think about it this way If you are dealing with a traditional asset provider and you have 10 loads that are coming out of Kansas City tomorrow and you have nine trucks landing there, that's a problem. Only nine of the loads are going to get covered. You're going to be at 90% on-time service at the best. So our idea was let's not only use these trucks that run under our authority, let's open it up to basically outsource capacity. Now that outsource capacity, they've got to meet our standards, they've got to be insured properly, they have to be a safe carrier, they have to be a respectful carrier.
Speaker 2:And when we opened that up, we were really able to accelerate with growth and that kind of paired with the pandemic. So when the pandemic started, wow, what a scary time. Yeah, uh, starting up a new product, having the pandemic going on, we had sent all of our people to the house and we're all working remotely. In the first couple of months there really wasn't a lot of freight. We had had a ton of carriers flock to us and really covet the freight that we had. But as we came out of that and we saw stimulus and we saw the demand and we saw the inventories get so far behind, we had a great platform to really grow.
Speaker 2:360 box and it allowed us to. It allowed us to lean into that external outsource capacity, allowed us to grow rapidly. I think it was great because it let a lot of our customers uh see the value, uh, that value, of that model. So, um, the long story short 360 box it is the legacy truck line in j? Uh, but it's so much more now that we won't lean into that external capacity. Uh, 360 comes from our app 360, which is our carrier facing and our customer facing app Uh, but it's uh, it's been hugely successful product Wow.
Speaker 1:That. That is a great overview. Uh, we have to go back and talk about your founders a bit, because the story is so phenomenal. You know, in Northwest Arkansas we're located, we have Walmart stores, we have JB Hunt and we have Tyson Foods and our University of Arkansas, which we're so proud of. But you know, it's amazing what we have here in our area, isn't it? And now, who is your customer on 360 Box?
Speaker 2:Basically, our customer is anybody that honestly wants to move a product.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're that broad then.
Speaker 2:So we're that broad. Okay, what I would say? That's limited to truckload capacity.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:We will do multi-stop. Oh, you will. So if you're asking for LTL, I see where you're going here. Yeah, if you're asking for LTL inside 360 box, I don't have an answer for that. Inside JB Hunt as a whole, we would have an answer for that. So my customer, what I'm really looking for, is somebody that values the access to capacity, somebody that values a drop and hook product that can be on the front end of the load or the back end of the load, or both. Typically, when we're looking at customers that want a drop and hook product, they're trying to plan their staffing around unloading boxes and whatnot. So that's kind of the demographic of what we're looking for.
Speaker 2:Okay, got it, but full truckload drop and hook Good.
Speaker 1:So when you get up in the morning and go to work, maybe. So what's what's your focus? What do you work on? What are your roles, your responsibilities? How do you keep the freight moving?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think, uh, there's there's a lot uh to that. I I think the number one thing is it really starts with my people. There's one I've got to hold them accountable, but two I've got to keep them happy. So always kind of looking at that and evaluating how are we doing, how's our morale? Things that I firmly believe in is, if you take care of your people, your people will take care of your carriers. They'll take care of your customers. Your people will take care of your carriers, they'll take care of your customers and they'll take care of your stockholders.
Speaker 2:So the mindset's always there in the morning. We want to make sure that everybody gets started, everybody has a great day, that everybody understands what our expectations are, what our goals are. There's a lot that I'm looking at. One I'm looking at our service to our customers the previous day, how we're setting up for service for our customers in the day that we're in. And then, you know, there's a lot of times that we're looking farther down the road from just more of a strategic perspective. But just in the day-to-day operations strategic perspective, but just in the day-to-day operations. It's really that people, it's the service side of it and it's understanding, honestly, the business part of the model. Are we able to take care of our customers? Are we able to make a proper return doing that? Are we able to take care of our carriers and our people?
Speaker 1:able to take care of our carriers and our uh people act this, this is 360 box the. The truck drivers that that that that pull the trailers. Are they independent or are they within jb? How does that? How does your drivers work?
Speaker 2:so, uh, our mix of that is it. It can vary why? Okay, widely okay. So you go back to the time of the pandemic. Capacity was in such great demand. We didn't have enough drivers, not at all, to do that. So that ability to outsource was great and that really ran up that outsource capacity to probably north of 50% of our capacity of 50% of our capacity Right now.
Speaker 2:You know we've got we've got the vast majority of the capacity operates under our authority, and then you've got a smaller portion and I've got two separate groups that used outsourced capacity. One is just traditional brokerage and that's kind of more just, that's kind of a catch-all. It can be very consistent, though, when I say catch-all, but it can catch that one-off load. And then I have a group that I'm also responsible for, called PCS, power Capacity Solutions, and that's where we work with outsourced carriers that don't operate under our authority. But we seek more long-term relationships. We want to bring them in, we want to run them, we want to dispatch them.
Speaker 2:We want to make sure that they always have their case load so it can ebb and flow If capacity demands and we need to go to a 50-50 model that we can do that. We typically don't live there unless it's a high demand and a high capacity situation.
Speaker 1:It sounds like Nick, you're very focused on the customer. We are, and that's wonderful. Your service there and I think that's the thing that our audience and viewers and listeners can take away the focus that 360 box JB Hunt has on that customer and you're watching that, evaluating that, communicating with that in order to get that freight from A to B, which is critical. Okay, now inside of JB Hunt and, as I mentioned, we're going to talk about JB Hunt more broadly in a moment but inside of JB Hunt, I know that you all do a lot of Walmart business or Target business and other retailer business and I know that could be somewhat outside of what you work on every day. But how does that go outside of 360 box sort of it open up, if you will, the window, how large jb hunt does and some other things that jb hunt works? So you mentioned intermodem quickly earlier.
Speaker 2:Maybe talk some about that yeah, so uh, honestly, andy, in my world, those customers, uh, the retail customers, that's a big part of what I do every day. But you do see a variety of customers just kind of smothered throughout the organization and those can be very specialty customers or they can be retailers, or the consumer product companies that are supplying those retailers. Intermodal just a little bit about that Intermodal we are the largest provider of 53-foot containers and 53-foot capacity.
Speaker 1:If I'm sitting in a train crossing, I'm seeing a lot of JB Hunt trucks on those trains.
Speaker 2:There's a significant amount of capacity, that's for sure. Um, you know, we uh it's been a incredible ride for us. It was. It was an idea that mr hunt uh had back in the late 80s and uh worked with, uh worked with the bnsf uh to to really a handshake agreement to get the product kicked off.
Speaker 2:I spent about six years in intermodal and it was crazy to watch the amount of growth that we saw. When I went there, that organization had about 23,000 containers and when I left it had about 60,000 containers and when I left it had about 60,000 containers. So just uh, it's been a rapid growth product for us. What's great about it? Once you can work the transit cause, you're going to have a little longer transit, uh, especially in a longer length of halls compared to a traditional truck, uh. But once you can work that transit into your supply chain and understand the consistency and the reliability around that, it gives you the opportunity to really have that consistency in a product, that service that you need, and it gives you the opportunity to do that really at a lower price. So when you think about the value proposition around that, it is a it's a phenomenal product.
Speaker 1:Right, it really is. I don't think I ever told you about the time I got to go to Texas and Burlington, northern Santa Fe, and got to look inside and be inside their office and watch some of the movement throughout the country. I won't ever forget how phenomenal it was to be inside that space. Were you up in the control space? Yes, I was in the control tower and it was remarkable. Yeah, and so we'll have to talk more about that someday. Okay, nick, I'm 30 years at JB Hunt. Yes, sir, you went to school at University of Arkansas and you got your master's at John Brown University. Is that correct? Talk about your journey through the school and your journey to JB Hunt and some of the things, because you have a fascinating career Prior to getting there. Well, I know about it, but, as we visited, talk to us about that journey, because I think there's a lot of people that will be leaning in to have a passion for a career in this space. So talk about that, your journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's it's. It's quite a journey, but what it's funny. I was talking with my wife the other night and we were kind of laughing. We're talking about when do we want to retire? And one of the things I look back when I go back and look at my college career kind of feel like I took four years of retirement at some point during college. So it took me about eight years to get through to undergraduate. I really didn't know what I wanted to do to get through to undergraduate. I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I think law had kind of crossed my mind and the degree I was closest to was a degree in philosophy. It was a good segue into law, just from the basis of arguments and logic et cetera. So I was that guy that got the philosophy degree and uh, got out of college again after eight years somewhere.
Speaker 1:You're serious about eight years, right, I guess? Okay, that's okay, I'm not. I'm laughing with you.
Speaker 2:I, I mean this, this is good story I'm like now, but I wasn't around at the time and uh, yeah, I honestly came out of college in the middle of recession and, uh, you know, um, I wasn't that great of a student and law school was proven to be a little harder to get into than I anticipated. Uh, so we're working on a plan B for that. Long story short. You know, it was just it was running up and down Highway 71 at the time dropping off resumes at Tyson, jb Hunt and Wal-Mart, it seemed like for months and finally I got a call back from JB Hunt and I got hired by them and got actually, first job I ever took with them was called a freight handling coordinator and I was like, well, that's got a good sound to it. I like that.
Speaker 2:I can be a freight handling coordinator. And I go in and like, tell me about this job. And what they said is, well, you're going to come in at midnight. I said, okay, you're going to get off at 830 in the morning and you are basically going to help our truck drivers find people to help them unload trucks. And they did not pay a lot of money I mean, they did pay more than minimum wage but I was like, okay, I will, uh, I'll do that, uh, and and I'm I needed a job. Uh, you've kind of been working around restaurant industry and whatnot. It's like it's just a foot in the door and, uh, I'm gonna from there. I'll try to figure out what I can do to get into a management training program, decide if I'm going to go back to school or not. So I started there, andy, and it was an interesting job.
Speaker 2:You know, typically if a truck driver is hiring, they're called lumpers. They're on low trucks, they're probably not in a good mood because they're now their day has interrupted. They've got to contact some. They've got to call me. I've got to go find a lumper, have to negotiate a price with burke. I've got to make sure that lumper shows up. So it's a, it's a, it's a. It can be a pretty challenging process and, uh, you get a lot of lively language with it, and so I got into that. I started thinking, well, I don't want to do this forever. So you know what's my next move? And I found a gentleman and still around. His name's eric carolla.
Speaker 2:He runs our management training program and I went to see eric said hey, eric, can I get in this management training program? And he was like well, do you have a transportation logistics degree? It's like no, sir. He said do you have three years of transportation experience? I said no, sir. He said okay. He said did you have a three-pointer above at college? And I laughed and said no, sir, I did not. He said well, when you get one of those, come back and see me.
Speaker 1:We both know where well he's a great guy.
Speaker 2:He's a good, oh yeah yeah, so, uh, I'm pretty if. If there's one thing I am, it's I'm persistent. So, yeah, you know, wait two or three weeks and I send eric another email, or uh, we had an internal system we didn't have email, but, um, but I would, I would send him messages, I would try to catch him in the hall and I would just kind of literally wear him out and finally one day he sends me a message. He was like I'm going to give you one shot at this. He got an interview to go into dedicated contract services and I went in.
Speaker 2:I sat down to interview with a gentleman at the time that was the president of dedicated contract services, unbeknownst to me. He had an undergraduate degree in philosophy and, uh, he sat down, he saw my resume. The first question he asked me was who my favorite philosopher was. And you know, I I didn't have a favorite philosopher.
Speaker 2:I was just getting out of college and I threw something out and we had, we had a 20-minute conversation, uh, knowing that, but, andy, honestly, the career really took off from there. I was able to get into dedicated operations. I did have a significant math background in college and was able to kind of segue that into engineering roles, spent multiple years in dedicated contract services in an engineering capacity, intermodal from a operations and a pricing capacity. Eventually to our Blankridge group had the opportunity this was kind of a wild story too, but had the opportunity to really help us establish our field footprint and was a part of opening 32 field offices for that group which was cool and uh and helping launch our 360 uh platform and then now inside this uh 360 bunks yes, sir, thanks for sharing that journey.
Speaker 1:Um, if you win it, well, no, it's really good, because not everyone immediately works. But if you were to look back and give some advice today someone young that's listening to you today and they are similar like you, okay, what would you tell them? What are a couple of things you say. These are things you have to do. What would that be?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So there's a handful of things. The first thing that I do in any job is find out what's important. What are the goals, what are the metrics that we're going to be measured by? I think that's number one, because if you don't understand that, you're going to have a hard time satisfying the needs of your leadership. So understand the metrics.
Speaker 2:The second thing that I've always done, and I still try to do now, is, outside of work, try to take time weekly, biweekly, to reflect on what it is you're working on and are you putting the effort in the right places? Does it line up with your metrics, with your objectives? Does it line up with your values? If it doesn't, how do you navigate around that? And I think a lot of that. Andy is trying to figure out how to work smarter. And if you take time to just kind of ponder, I've found that I've always been able to improve a process, improve a step, be able to accomplish something.
Speaker 2:That's probably the second thing that I do. And then I've got a saying that I firmly believe in and this happens a lot in transportation. It probably happens a lot in every environment, but things go wrong. So I've got a saying that is bad news sells best early. And anyway, what I want to do with that is, if I'm going to have a problem, if I'm going to miss a delivery, if I'm going to miss a pickup, I want my customer to know as soon as they can know. That way, they may be mad at me for missing that delivery, but it gives them the opportunity to recover it with someone else.
Speaker 2:The option is to say, hey, nick, I can reset that till tomorrow and we're going to be okay, but it gives everybody an opportunity to succeed. Maybe not the way we wanted to succeed, but if you're selling that bad news early, it is giving you the opportunity to succeed. Internally it's the same way. If I've made a mistake or if I've got a problem coming down the pike, I want my boss to know. I don't want him to be blindsided by his leadership. So that's something I firmly believe in and I would say those are really kind of the three things I would say that are important.
Speaker 1:That's great advice. Yeah, and you mentioned earlier that you're persistent. Yes, and I think that's critical.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know you got to keep at it and you know you got to keep at it, yeah, and you know that brings us to, you know, your founders, uh, mr hunt, uh, mr jb hunt and, um, his and john l hunt, his partner.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, when I moved here a long time ago, northwest arkansas, uh, actually, the church I attended I attended was Mr Hunt was there. He was a member, and Mrs Hunt and I I was, you know, in my early thirties, and I remember the first time I met him he was a towering guy with a big, a tall guy with a cowboy hat on and boots, and, and I don't think I quite ever seen one like that, a hat on and boots, and and I don't think I quite ever seen one like that. But what I began to admire and watch Mr Hunt, you know, from afar, and and and then, um, you know, unfortunately, his passing it and, uh, you know it was devastating to this area, but it's amazing how everyone at JB Hunt, along with Mrs Hunt, has stepped up and continued the growth. And then later in my career, I got the opportunity to meet Mrs Hunt and spend some time with her and what she's done for this area has been amazing, oh yeah, and for the world.
Speaker 1:But the country, country, but it's just what. So, as we look at the leadership, the foundation, talk about the principles of JB Hunt. The culture Talk about that yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, when we really kind of talk about the principles, the things that let us get things done, we really talk about people, we talk about capacity and we talk about technology and the people side of it. Andy, I think and you coming from really the people side in Walmart, the people side is something that I think is critically important. And I think, JB Hunt, you know you look at me at 30 years and, honestly, if you look across that company, there are so many people that have been there 20, 25, 30, 35 years. It is a great place to stay. I have my best friends who are there. I don't know and I've said this before, I don't even know if I should say it on a podcast, but I don't know that transportation is that intriguing. I mean, you're moving a load from point A to point B. The thing that's kept me there is, honestly, it's been the people.
Speaker 1:And you know actually the people.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, and we talk about that is is really kind of one of our four tenants. Uh, we, when we talk about our values, we um, I got a great story on one of these values here in a minute, but, uh, we talked about integrity. Uh, you know how we want to come across, how we want to behave. Uh, we talk about respect. Uh, and not that we want to be respected, but we want to behave. We talk about respect and not that we want to be respected, but we want to. We want to be respectful of our carriers, we want to be respectful of our customers. We talk a lot about innovation. Innovation, you know, you look at the company. It started as a. We started Holland Chicken, Haltz, right, and now five divisions and a ton of technology. It's, it's definitely really had a lot of innovation.
Speaker 2:We talk about safety and when you've got as many trucks on the road, when you've got as many loads on the road, it is inherently important for us to be a safe carrier.
Speaker 2:You know, that's our wife, that's our kids, that's our friends, that's our family that's running down the highway next to an 80,000 pound truck. So, no matter whether it's our truck or the side that I work on the brokerage side. I want to make sure that that carrier is being safe. And then the final thing that you'll hear us talk about a lot is excellence. We want to be excellent in what we do. We want to be excellent not only in the service that we give to our customer. We want to be excellent in our billing. We want to make sure that we bill right the first time. We want to be excellent in our communications. You know that bad news sells best early, so when you talk about it, those are a lot of the kind of values and principles that you, that we, talk about and that we hear about and that we define as kind of our values.
Speaker 2:But I think the you know the most important thing of course is the people side and I've seen that early in England since I started at JB Hunt the people when I started. I think about the Kirk Thompsons of the world.
Speaker 1:Great guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, former CEO, former chairman of the board, Kirk, had been there.
Speaker 2:it seemed like forever when I started, but I noticed that a lot the Mike Taylors, the Jeff Francos of the world. There were people that had been there a long time and we did a great job taking care of our people. I talked about the pandemic early on and I remember sending people home and I remember one gentleman in particular. He'd been with the company for two weeks and, uh, you know I was telling him hey, we're going home. I know you don't know how to do this job, I know you're brand new. Uh, and I can't imagine the you know the fear. He's right, how am I going to do this remotely? But we landed, leaned into him, gave him the training we need. We did that for several people, but people's always been at the forefront of what we do.
Speaker 1:You know, nick, as I think about your company and the people that you have mentioned, and you know, walmart and JB Hunt have a lot of similarities. You know, founded by two individuals in our area and then and then grew to be the size, but yet the focus, what you talked about is critical people, and that is what it's all about. And taking care of your people, making sure that they're ready and equipped, and you know it's really about servant leadership, isn't it? At the end of the day, it's being a servant to your people and that's what you're talking about. The culture and you side your organizations by serving others.
Speaker 1:You know, we see that. You know, I see that visibly. You have a wonderful president CEO now and she does an excellent job of you know what I see her on LinkedIn and or wherever we're talking about those truck drivers, talking about and honoring those truck drivers. Same with all the employee associates inside the organization. Shelly continues to drive that message associates inside the organization. Now shelly continues to drive that message down inside the organization. It's great when you have a company that loves their people and cares and takes care of the people, and that's what jb hunt is it is, and you know I can't say enough about that.
Speaker 2:The culture is great. It is, Honestly, it's a fun place to work at. And I love to have fun, I love to make money and it's just a great place to do it, nick.
Speaker 1:Just a great place to do it, nick. Okay, thank you for sharing about Box 360 Box. Thank you for sharing about some of your roles and responsibilities and your customers, and then, of course, always enjoy the culture discussion we just had around your company For our viewers and listeners. If you were going to summarize a few things, how would you summarize what we talked about today? How would you prioritize and summarize around what you do, what your company is all about?
Speaker 2:Well, I hope I understand the question. So really just a summary of the conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here's another way. If you were to summarize our conversation, here are three things that are most important, that I do every day or our company does every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll go back to things that at least I think are important. Okay, sure One. I think it's our people. We have to, we have to do an excellent job of taking care of them Right, that's given them, you know, it's taken care of them during the pandemic, and not only in people. It's giving them the opportunity to develop, to grow, to give the resources they need to move up in the organization. And then it's making sure their morale is intact. It's making sure they feel good and they feel recognized about what they do.
Speaker 2:I think our people's a big part of that. Second thing is, I would say it's about our customers. You know, I want to make sure that they have a great experience. I want them to feel like they get for what they pay for, that they get a value out of that and that it's market, competitive and that they understand if it costs more. I want them to really understand the value of the service, the value of the experience. You know, if they're looking for something that costs less, I want that to be able to serve up for them as well.
Speaker 2:Just whatever it is they're looking for. And then the third thing I would say is our carriers. Whether it's a driver for us or it's an outsourced carrier, I want them to have a great experience as well. I want them to be a place where they're like my next load needs to come from JB Hunt. So how do we do that? We treat them with dignity. We treat them with respect and we make sure that they're compensated fairly for the work they do.
Speaker 1:You know, I think you, rondo, you summarized that perfectly during our conversation. I mean, that's exactly how you talked about everything, yeah, and so thank you for that, you know. I think the takeaway for our viewers here is that if you're working in a company, or you want to build a company someday, or you want to be part of a company, what Nick has done today he's really laid out this is what you look for. You look for a company that takes care of people people first and you look for a company that knows their customers and takes care of their customers, and their carriers are a big part of that. That's our thing he taught.
Speaker 1:So, as you look at companies today, listen to the wisdom that Nick has given us today around what's important to him. But that's how he operates and you talked about. You know, here's your own responsibility and, quite frankly, you said the same thing and that is how you lead. So, nick, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you this morning. I thank you. It's been so much to me that you're here. I really appreciate our friendship and I want you to know you just done a great job and you really taught us a lot and reminded us a lot what's important, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2:Eddie, thank you so much for having me here. I've enjoyed, always enjoyed talking with you.
Speaker 1:Same here and now. Okay, a couple of things before. Much for having me here. I enjoyed, always enjoy, talking with you. Same here and now. Okay, a couple of things before we get out of here. And first of all, thank you so much, our viewers and listeners, it means so much to us and, again I mentioned, thank you for that. You're taking us beyond all of our expectations, so keep that up, because our expectations keeps rising every day too. So keep that up.
Speaker 1:Uh, nick, you know what we didn't talk about. We maybe you know. Maybe we get you to come back, because there's a lot. I know you're on the board of uh, of ozark, the ozark foundation, and um, we both love cycling, but it's way beyond that. Yeah, but I want to maybe come back someday and give us an update on what's going on JB Hunt 360 Box and then maybe we can get into some community things that I think is so important for all of our leaders to. Yes, the work is that you know, but let's you know what happens outside of that, so maybe we can get into that. Love to do that. Would you do that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Okay. Well, thank you again for joining us today. I'm Andy Wilson. Again, nick Gowan. Thank you, it's been a pleasure and I'll see you on the road, on the gravel. Okay, all right, everyone, have a wonderful day, thank you.