Tony Brown: 35 Years of Leadership

I love the transportation business. I always have, even when I was with a prior company. And as the company has gone through the years, now, you just realize that, you know, it's a great place. Thirty-five years with Tony. Short and sweet. It's been exciting. It's been challenging. It's tons of results. When I first got to know Tony, he was their service center director in Fayetteville, Tennessee. And through the process, over the years, we had an opportunity that came about in Nashville, and I thought plumbing would be the perfect solution for our needs in Nashville. So it's been fun. I mean, Jim has been a great guy to work for. Mean you know it's I don't think I could have been at Averitt Express for thirty-five years, it hadn't been for Jim. Too headstrong. Somebody, I have to work for somebody that can let me be somewhat entrepreneurial and still keep me in check and Jim's done that. The people at Averitt Express is what makes it really enjoyable. You can see the quality of guy Tony is. I mean, obviously, he's done us a good job; he's been here for thirty-five years. You know I look back on my career with Averitt Express, you know what's special about this company. Jim mentioned people you know I'm able to use Averitt Express as a platform to do some of these other things. Think Averitt Cures for Kids is in my DNA. Was in, it was raining one day in Nashville, Tennessee. It was a cold, miserable day. And got a call from Melba that said, Gary, want you to go downtown and have lunch with Margot Thomas and I thought that can't be the same person as that girl. Well, it really was. We went down there and had lunch with this lady. I've never seen anybody that passionate about helping kids in my life. I decided that right then, and there I made a promise I was going to go back and try to make a difference. We gave seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars and one dollar this last Christmas. You got to feel good about that. You know, you just have to. When you do stuff like that, you become special. You separate yourself out. That's one of the good guys, I might add..