Pictured above: ArcBest has grown over the years and now includes ABF Freight, MoLo, Panther Premium Logistics and U-Pack.

ArcBest, a logistics company based in Fort Smith that provides shipping and logistics solutions by ocean, air and ground to customers around the globe, marked its 100th anniversary this year, and as with all major milestones, a celebration was in order.

In addition to an array of celebrations that took place throughout the year, the organization hosted a gala in September that was attended by the Fort Smith mayor and by Judy McReynolds, chairman, president and CEO of ArcBest. The Fort Smith Symphony played at the company’s family day this year, and people from all walks of life snapped pics of ArcBest big rigs during the spot-a-trailer social media campaign.

Perhaps the most significant moment, however, was when ArcBest representatives traveled to New York to ring the Nasdaq Stock Market Bell.

“We took two of our longest-tenured employees. They both have been here over 50 years, and they had their pictures up on the marquee at Times Square,” said Lori Brooks, vice president of customer experience. “All these celebrations really centered around recognizing the work that our people do. We talk about people being at the heart of our success, and so that is really lived out by all of our leaders. When you think about it, if that is truly believed and people are treated in a way that they feel valued and respected, it just creates a great culture.”

ArcBest started in 1923 as a local freight hauler with two trucks and a mule, she said, and the company now has more than 250 locations, 15,000 employees and $5 billion in revenue. ArcBest includes ABF Freight, MoLo and Panther Premium Logistics, as well as the household moving company, U-Pack.

ArcBest has been named an Inbound Logistics Top 100 Trucker 10 years in a row, the company won a slew of Quest for Quality awards from Logistics Management this year, and MoLo was named a 2023 Top Food Chain Provider by Food Shippers of America.

When McReynolds became CEO in 2010, more than 90 percent of the business’ revenue came from less-than-truckload services via ABF Freight, Brooks said, adding that the company has grown to meet additional needs.

“Judy’s vision was really to have a suite of integrated solutions that our customers could use across their supply chain to keep their business moving, and so we went through a series of acquisitions over the last decade to fill out the strategic holes in the business,” she said. “In 2017, we took those and really integrated the way that we went to market to the customers so that it was easier and more seamless for them to use.”

The first acquisition was Panther Premium Logistics, an expedite provider that handles high-value and high-priority freight. When ArcBest acquired Panther 11 years ago, there was a growing need for such services because customers had begun moving to just-in-time delivery. When a supply chain operates with that level of precision and something goes wrong, having someone who can come to a facility within an hour, pick up freight and move it from point to point with no interruptions can be invaluable, Brooks said.

ArcBest acquired MoLo, a truckload provider, two years ago, she said, adding that, at the time, MoLo was one of the fastest-growing truckload brokerages in the U.S. because of its reputation for delivering on its promises. Focusing on customers and taking a holistic approach to meeting their logistics needs has been integral to ArcBest’s success, she added.

“When they grow, we grow,” Brooks said of the customers, adding that one company actually sent representatives to the Nasdaq bellringing to celebrate the 100th anniversary with ArcBest. “They are over 100 years old, but they started out of the country,” she said of the company. “When they moved to the States, they were only doing parcel delivery because they were so small. They didn’t have enough freight to need a large truck, and as their business began growing beyond parcels … we’ve enabled their supply chain to be a differentiator for them as part of their solution, and now they’re one of our largest customers.”

ArcBest stepped up to help even more customers earlier this year when Yellow, one of the largest less-than-truckload companies in the country, declared bankruptcy.

“We have customers who were faced with trying to find ways to keep their supply chains moving, and they came to us and said, ‘Can you help me?’” Brooks said. “It’s hard for the market to absorb that much freight from one carrier instantly, and being able to look, again, holistically at the customer’s supply chain and work through finding creative solutions to help them has been really, really nice to be a part of, particularly with that disruption.”

The organization’s vision statement, “We’ll find a way,” was inspired by interviews with customers about how ArcBest differed from other logistics companies.

“That was a key thing: ‘You guys find a way,’” Brooks said. “When the going gets tough, they know that they can trust us.”

The going did not get much tougher than in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the logistics industry and, in fact, the world.

“None of us had ever lived through a global pandemic before, and so we had a rapid decline in business back in 2020,” Brooks said. “Then you had a rapid rebound where, all of a sudden, people were working from home, and none of us could find toilet paper. Everyone was buying outdoor furniture and athleisure, and so you had this rapid change from people spending money on services to spending money on goods.”

While millions of Americans stayed home during the pandemic, the truck drivers and dock workers who comprise most of ArcBest’s staff continued delivering the goods others ordered online. In addition to implementing new policies and procedures to keep its employees safe, ArcBest was tasked with navigating supply-chain bottlenecks that created a backlog of cargo ships at the Port of Long Beach in California and caused other logistics disruptions, Brooks said.

She recalled hundreds of Cadillacs sitting in a parking lot, undrivable, because a microchip was delayed.

“That one piece of the supply chain being out of whack stopped that company from being able to collect revenue on a good that they had produced,” she said, “so you think about that across all the different pieces of the supply chain and just how complex it is.”

The company is not above intentionally creating some disruptions, either. Brooks said risk-taking and keeping a pulse on customer needs have facilitated technological advancements that have been game changers for ArcBest.

“We have about a 500-person in-house tech team, and every year, we spend about $150 million on tech and innovation, and a lot of that’s really just to stay ahead of the curve,” she said. “We had an employee several years ago who brought an idea to leadership about what ended up being a groundbreaking innovation.”

That innovation was Vaux, a freight-movement system launched in March that changes the way trucks are loaded and unloaded. The invention helped solidify ArcBest’s fourth consecutive recognition as a FreightWaves FreightTech 100 company and received an honorable mention in Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards.

“It’s patented hardware and software that enables you to strip an entire trailer, freight, within five minutes,” she said. “The trailer has been loaded and unloaded the same way for 100 years, one piece at a time from back to front, and you can imagine how time-consuming that is.”

Vaux revolutionized shipping for one customer, the ATV manufacturer Polaris, she said, adding that the technology allows the company’s ATVs to be stacked in a way that was impossible before, cutting shipping costs in half. Vaux also allows workers to move the ATVs in and out of the trailer without touching them, which reduces damage to the merchandise, she said.

ArcBest has also utilized artificial intelligence to improve its business. Last year, ArcBest started pilot tests of its City Route Optimization project, which uses generative AI to determine the best routes for truck drivers to use. The company completed the rollout this year.

“Our employees have said, ‘They’re making our jobs easier to do by giving me the information to do my job when I need it,” Brooks said. “It’s provided a significant revenue benefit back to the company through more efficiencies, which is awesome because we also want to improve our sustainability. That’s a big focus for us, being a good steward of all the resources that we have.”

Solar panels on buildings and electric trucks, tractors and forklifts are just the start when it comes to the company’s sustainability efforts. ArcBest began working to make its trucks more fuel efficient during the 1960s, Brooks said. Trailer skirts that improve aerodynamics and speed-limiters that ensure optimal speeds help make the trucks more fuel efficient.

In addition to the City Route Optimization project, ArcBest uses dynamic pricing to reduce wasted miles, she added. The dynamic-pricing technology developed in-house helps ensure trucks are filled to the desired capacity and reduces empty miles caused by delivery trucks returning empty. The company’s efforts have garnered the SmartWay Excellence Award multiple times.

“There’s a lot of stuff we’re doing to make sure we’re improving the sustainability of our business,” she said. “Doing that before we’re asked to do that, I think, is one of the things that we’re really proud of. It’s just been a way that we’ve operated for years.”

In addition to taking care of the environment, the company takes care of its employees. Forbes named ArcBest as one of America’s Best-in-State Employers for the fourth time in a row this year. The company also took home Best Compensation and Best Perks & Benefits during the website Comparably’s Best Places to Work series this year, and ArcBest’s training and development program has been featured multiple times on Training magazine’s Apex Award List.

“We really spend a lot of time trying to pour into our people, making sure that they are developed, because if the employees are taken care of, then they can take care of your customers,” Brooks said.

She added that the company strives to foster the financial, emotional and physical health of its employees by offering on-campus gyms, fitness classes and financial-wellness classes. The company also uses a leadership-development program to identify top talent.

ArcBest received an award for Best CEOs for Women from Comparably this year, and Brooks said having a female CEO has helped the company stand out as a woman-friendly employer in a male-dominated industry.

“You’ve heard, ‘If you can see it, you can be it,’ and I think Judy’s been an inspiration to a lot of people,” Brooks said. “We’re a very professional organization that values excellence, and so when that’s a part of who you are, it’s in your DNA, I think it’s natural that you have some of that diversity come along with it. It helps when you’ve got senior leaders who are female because then I think you start from a place of diversity at the top.”

Forty percent of the board of directors is diverse in terms of gender or ethnicity, she said, and ArcBest has numerous programs geared toward diversity, equity and inclusion. The company launched six employee resource groups to increase diversity in hiring and ensure all staff members feel valued and respected, she said, and ArcBest has partnered with Integrate to hire neurodiverse employees.

ArcBest also works to recruit and retain veterans, she said, and the company was recognized with a 2023 VETS Indexes Employer Award as a 4-Star Employer.

The Fort Smith community has been a great fit for ArcBest since its inception, she added.

“We’re the largest employer in this area, and Fort Smith has been good to us,” she said. “In return, we’ve been a valued member of the community. I don’t know that there’s any other place we’d want to call home. It’s beautiful. It has lots of natural resources and fantastic people.”

ArcBest is a sponsor of United Way and made a million-dollar donation to support the Peak Innovation Center in Fort Smith, she said. The company has also partnered with the Polaris Project and Truckers Against Trafficking to fight human trafficking, she added, and ArcBest modified its employee human-trafficking prevention training program to provide to students and staff in local schools.

For its 100th anniversary, ArcBest embarked on a year of centennial giving, during which it donated to organizations that aligned with the company’s philanthropic pillars of community, education and people each quarter. The beneficiaries were Feeding America, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, St. Christopher Tuckers Relief Fund and the Fisher House Foundation.

As it enters its second century, ArcBest plans to continue its mission of positively impacting the world by solving logistics challenges, Brooks said. That goal was echoed by the company’s CEO.

“ArcBest has a rich history of innovation that has established a solid foundation for our future,” McReynolds said. “We’ve experienced a lot over 100 years, and we’ve endured because we’re constantly looking ahead and listening to our customers so we can adapt quickly to changes in our industry, in technology and in the world. I’m very proud of our values-driven culture and our people, who have helped us get to where we are today. As we accelerate into our next 100 years, we’ll continue to always find a way to get the job done.”

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