David Parker grew up in the trucking industry, starting at age 11 picking up garbage and washing trucks for the company his stepfather started and owned.
Parker’s biological father died when he was only two. And after Clyde Fuller, founder of Southwest Motor Freight, married his mother, Parker grew up in a world filled with semi-trailers and truck drivers who made long hauls from coast to coast.
Parker graduated high school at age 16, and within a year was serving as a terminal manager in Lenoir City, Tennessee, helping to run one of the trucking distribution facilities for Southwest Motor Freight while he was attending the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
“I lived on the terminal in a house trailer just work working 70 or 80 hours a week,” Parker recalls.
A half century later, the 65-year-old Parker says he has never lost his love for trucking and work ethic, even through tough times with his own company, Covenant Logistics, that he started 38 years ago after his stepfather sold Southwest Motor Freight.