WOODFIELD INC.: Jimmy Starr happy to shine light of success on supporting cast

The Trucker News Services

6/15/2007

By LYNDON FINNEY, The Trucker Staff

CAMDEN, Ark. — It’s sitting there on the corner of his desk near the computer screens where he keeps track of the movement of his company’s trucks and reads his e-mail.

It’s not really very visible unless you happen to be sitting close by; sort of inconspicuous, if you will, as though not to really call attention to the man whose feat it records.

But then after spending a morning with Jimmy Starr, you get the sense that his humility and sincerity might just be the reason it’s not sitting front and center on the desk.

Yes, he did score a hole-in-one at the Camden Country Club last year, he admits.

And you quickly begin to realize that his family, his faith and the well-being of his employees are far, far, far more important to Starr, president of Woodfield Inc., than knocking that little white ball in the hole with one stroke.

Speaking of one, Starr formed Woodfield with one truck in 1993 and to say he’s aced that investment would be an understatement.

Today, Woodfield has 104 power units with six more on the way later this year, some 236 trailers and routes throughout the lower 48 states and Canada.

What’s more, the company experienced its best year ever in 2006, and every member of his family is involved in the operation of the business.

It was also family that caused the man with a lifelong love for trucking to actually take time off from the industry for several years.

“Growing up, all I ever wanted to do was drive a truck,” he said.

A native of Oden, Ark., a small town in the west central part of the state, he moved to the Camden area in south Arkansas when he was six.

“When I turned 18, I got a job from a local trucking company. As you know you can’t run over the road because you have to be 21, so I drove local until I was 21,” Starr said.  “In 1976 I got a job with Steelhaulers out of Kansas City and worked there for a couple years.”

He then took a job with Arkansas Best Freight and spent six years there until he decided the responsibility to be at home with his wife Kathy to help raise young children took precedence over being on the road a great deal of the time.

“When Greg [their second of three children] was born, I decided that I needed to be at home and help raise children,” Starr said.

Today, Greg works in customer service at Woodfield; Scotty, 27, works in maintenance; and Stephanie, 20, works part-time in accounting while attending college.

Kathy is the company’s secretary.

 “When I got off the road, Kathy and I bought a convenience store in Camden and kept the convenience store for seven years until someone came along and wanted to buy it. I got a job at an insurance company, and after working there for about a year, I messed around and bought a truck. I just needed a truck. My brother Ronald drove it.”

But soon another truck came along, then another and all of a sudden he had five trucks.

“I found that I couldn’t dedicate myself to my [insurance] job and so we started Woodfield,” he said.

The responsibility of family and running a convenience store kept him from missing the trucking industry too much during his years away from big rigs, but it’s obvious he’s glad to be back in the business.

Neither did he have a specific size company in mind when he put those first trucks on the road.

“The business has been good to us. We never have said that we wanted for anything,” Starr said. “We started with the opportunities that were available to us and we took advantage of them. It may be the fact we are 100 miles south of Little Rock and 86 miles east of Texarkana that has given us these opportunities. We’re right in the middle between Little Rock, Texarkana, Shreveport and Monroe. So we are kind of off the beaten path but with a lot of industry in this area. We’ve been providing service for many of those industries since the beginning of our company.  Today, we provide a big part of their transportation. We’ve always felt it our responsibility to help keep business here in Camden to support our home town. These companies deliver literally all over the U.S. and Canada and we handle their freight no matter where it goes.  We make sure their goods get delivered on time.”

Some of those industries include Georgia Pacific, Cooper Tire, International Paper and Domtar Industries.

Although Starr might not have had a specific size company in mind in 1993, he certainly knew what type of culture he wanted to develop.

“I’ve always loved trucks, perhaps because of the fact that I drove a truck,” he said. “The appearance of a truck is important to me. The mechanical condition is important because I’ve been out there and know the mechanical condition of a truck has to be kept in top shape for a lot of reasons — for compliance with the Department of Transportation, for service to your customer, for driver satisfaction. So I like a neat, clean, well-maintained truck.

“As for the jobs here, because of the size we are, we pretty much know everyone. Our company, even though we operate in all 48 states, has the goal for the truck to return to this area as quickly as possible when it leaves out. This allows our drivers to be able to return home every five to seven days, sometimes even less.

“My intention is to create a job for a driver like the one I would want and really had when I drove a truck. So we treat the drivers with respect, but we also require a lot from them as well. Our customer service is important to us. On time deliveries are something that we don’t give any tolerance on — we dispatch the driver with the proper amount of time to get his load there safely and on time. We try to create a job where the equipment is good and appealing to the driver and customer and also a job that provides the driver with the miles and the income he needs to support his family.

“We want our employees to feel welcome here and that they are free to come to myself, Kathy or Les Cobb, our operations manager, anytime. We just want people to feel like they are at home and not feel intimidated by anything or anyone. And if they have problems or issues they need to discuss we want them to feel welcome to come in and talk with someone.”

Faith has also played a role in the development of the company’s culture.

Starr and his wife are longtime active members of Calvary Baptist Church here, where Kathy has been organist for over 30 years.

“We want the way our company operates to bring glory to God,” Kathy said.

Starr said drivers and employees alike appreciate the environment of a small, family-owned company

“We have many drivers who’ve been with us several years and we certainly appreciate each and every one (see related article on Page 83). But we also have our problem with driver turnover as well.  You know the old saying the pasture is greener on the other side.  Most of the time it really is not.  Even though a driver gets a load that is not his favorite from time to time, other carriers have those same loads.”

Like many trucking companies, Woodfield experienced some tough times in the two years following 9-11.

But with the help of Bell and Company of Little Rock, a public accounting and business advisory firm that specializes in transportation, Woodfield is moving forward and even thinking about a second terminal.

“At the time I was introduced to Richard [Bell], we were looking for someone to help us recover from the difficult times I mentioned before,” Starr said. “They came along like a godsend.  Richard assigned Jeff Lovelady to our account and since that time, they have helped us manage our business to the extent we’ve never done before.  As far as growth goes, I would be talking about 5 to 10 percent a year. For someone our size, who created the company and grew up with it from the beginning, I think we know what our capabilities are.  Growth, yes. But I think we have to manage wisely and have the proper people on board to ensure our success.  So if we can grow, and as I mentioned we are considering a place in the Carolinas, but only when we feel that we can manage financially and operationally.”

Starr said he never realized when he bought that first truck that eventually Woodfield would have over 100 units.

“Kathy and I never set a goal to have 50 or 100 trucks. We never had those conversations at all,” Starr said. “It was the demand that drove our growth through the years. After 2001, we just held on to what we had. We experienced some difficult times then. Thank goodness, we made it through those hard times and everything is well.”

Just like it was then that little white ball disappeared into that little round up a few months ago.