J. B. Hunt

In a banal tribute, Schwartz ( In Service to America ) spins an American success story: with hard work, a devoted wife and an eye on the Bible, Johnnie Bryan Hunt, a Depression-era Baptist sharecropper, has parlayed a rice-hull poultry-litter business into a 5000-unit national tractor-trailer network employing 7000 drivers (who all get home for Christmas) and grossing some $600 million per annum. Reagan-era Interstate Commerce Commission deregulation caused problems for some truckers (accidents increased 29%) but Hunt found opportunity in the new availability of routes, customer access and free-market rates. Today, as a ``core carrier'' for Ford Motor, Champion Paper, General Foods et al., this Forbes 400 company's 65-year-old owner/executive still preaches dress-code morality to new employees (``I want to make millionaires of 100 employees before I turn 75'') and looks forward to becoming ``a major provider of transportation services in a global arena.'' (July)