DID YOU KNOW?* David Parker, Chairman and CEO of Chattanooga-based Covenant Transport, is step brother to Max Fuller, co-chairman of Chattanooga-based U.S. Xpress, a competitor.* The two, along with U.S. Xpress co-chairman Pat Quinn, worked together at Southwest Motor Freight under Max Fuller’s father Clyde Fuller, a car salesman turned trucking magnate who pioneered the cross-country, 48-hour team drive.* Covenant is publicly traded on the Nasdaq; U.S. Xpress delisted and went private at the end of 2007.* Covanant has attempted to stay the course with long-haul trucking, while U.S. Xpress has diversified into rail and other methods of transportation.Source: Covenant, U.S. Xpress
David Parker, outspoken chairman and CEO of Covenant Transport, founded his company at age of 28 with his wife, Jacqueline. It was a leap of faith.
“I was scared, because I was 28 years old and I was signing a $1 million line of credit,” he said Tuesday at a company stockholders meeting.
Over the last quarter-century, the Parkers have grown the Chattanooga-based trucking and transportation interest into a $600 million-a-year corporation with about 5,000 employees, roughly 3,100 tractors and more than 8,000 trailers.
Parker has steered it through economic downturns and gas rationing while developing a reputation as an unabashed Christian in a dog-eat-dog industry.