How One Exec Went From Growing Up Poor in Tennessee to Leading a $100 Million Shipping Business

When Johnny Jones was a 12-year-old boy growing up poor in East Ridge, Tennessee, he had one pair of pants and one shirt.

Later, when Jones got out of the Army, he was so worried about hanging on to his savings that he drove to Tennessee from California, got an hour's sleep, and then strapped on his tool belt to get back to work as a carpenter building houses.

Then there was the time when Jones, the father of three sons, had to sit his oldest boy down and explain the family needed to sell the son's motorcycle and use the money to replace their home's broken heating and cooling system.

Those hard times are behind Jones, now.

He's the president, co-owner and co-founder of Lipsey Logistics and Lipsey Trucking, a fast-growing shipping and trucking company headquartered in Brainerd's Eastgate Town Center that has about 100 office employees, a fleet of 100 semi trucks and drivers and revenue of almost $100 million in 2016 — up from $2 million when the company launched in 2010.

Jones has a home in Ooltewah, Tennessee, on acreage that is bought and paid for. He and his wife vacation at such places as Bar Harbor, Maine. Jones, a welterweight Golden Gloves boxer in his youth, donates to charities now, including the Chattanooga Y-CAP Boxing Club.

But he's still driven by the memory of growing up in a loving, happy — but financially stretched — family of three kids raised by their single mother. It left Jones with the desire to create what he calls a "Leave it to Beaver" lifestyle for himself, his family — even his employees.

"My drive was for my sons and my family," Jones said. "And now, this is my extended family."

If you've got a full-time job, work is where you spend the better part of your waking hours, so it should be enjoyable, Jones said.

To that end, Jones says he doesn't micromanage, he gives employees paid time off for family emergencies and he has an open-door policy under which any employee "can come in and close the door and we speak as equals."

"I believe people will give you what you expect," Jones said. "Expect them to fail; they'll fail. Expect them to succeed; they'll succeed."

Playing basketball together at a church gym is one way employees bond, Jones said, and employees — who include athletes and former Chattanooga police officers — have entered trail races together, too.

"We work together, we play together," Jones said. "We have very little to no turnover with our office employees."

Trucking companies are notorious for high turnover of longhaul drivers.

Annual turnover generally is at least 100%, Jones said, since truckers — who tend to be wanderers by nature — get lured from company to company by signing bonuses and promises of higher pay.

But driver turnover at Lipsey Trucking is around 60%, Jones said.

"That's great, actually," Jones said.

David Virgen, who moved from Seattle back to Chattanooga to be director of business development at Lipsey Logistics, felt secure enough at the job that he and his wife bought a house here and started having kids.

"It's big-time like family," Virgen said of Lipsey Logistics' office culture. "I've seen Johnny do a lot for so many people in this organization."

Lipsey Logistics hired one man with experience in the industry who suffered from high blood pressure, Jones said.

"Four months later, he came off blood pressure medication," he said. "It was the difference in cultures and atmosphere."

Jones and the company's vice president in charge of operations, Stephen Grace, whom Jones calls his "right-hand man," set the tone by starting every work day — by hugging.

"Stephen and I are closer than brothers," Jones said.

They met at U.S. Xpress, a Chattanooga-based trucking company where Jones learned the trade. U.S. Xpress ranks No. 19 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.

"I started out at the very beginning as a broker. I was new to logistics. They gave me a tremendous amount of opportunity," Jones said.

Jones' tenure at U.S. Xpress also led him to Joe Lipsey, the Atlanta-area businessman who bankrolled Lipsey Logistics and for whom the company is named. Lipsey, the CEO of Lipsey Logistics, is also the CEO of the privately held companies, Lipsey Satellite & Cellular, Lipsey Ice Co. and Lipsey Mountain Spring Water.

Lipsey has contracts with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and state agencies to supply water and ice to people during natural disasters and emergencies, Jones said. U.S. Xpress Enterprises, the Chattanooga-based trucking giant, helped Lipsey deliver water and ice. The trouble was, Jones said, Lipsey's passion to help people sometimes manifested itself as screaming and yelling.

"He ran everyone off," Jones said, which led U.S. Xpress owner Max Fuller to ask Jones to take over the account. Jones remembers Fuller telling him, "If you can't work with [Lipsey], tell him to pound sand."

Jones and Lipsey worked side by side after a hurricane hit Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. They used trains, trucks and airplanes to get water and ice to victims. Their relationship had a turning point when Lipsey became "very passionate" — at which point Jones said he closed an office door so the men could be alone.

If the yelling and cussing continued, the former Golden Gloves boxer told his client, "I'm going to get really upset with you, and we'll be out in the parking lot for a second."

They became friends. And after Jones left U.S. Xpress to work for Hub Group, the U.S.'s largest intermodal shipper, Lipsey recruited him to help launch Lipsey Logistics. Hub ranks No. 8 on the TT100 list of the largest carriers.

Lipsey Logistics has brokers who arrange to ship goods on third-party carriers. It also has its own fleet of about 100 semi trucks. The privately held company only had $2 million in sales at the start in 2010. But that's grown steadily. A milestone came in 2012, when the company crossed the $15 million revenue mark.

"If a logistics company makes it to $15 million, odds are very high they'll be successful," Jones said. That's because it's big enough to survive losing a big account or two. Now, at around $100 million in revenue and growing, Lipsey Logistics is big enough to whether any storm, Jones said.

Andy Ellington, the president of Avenger Logistics, a new logistics company in town, who previously worked as a vice president at Access America and an operations manager at U.S. Xpress, is impressed with how well Jones has done at Lipsey Logistics.

"He's very good at what he's doing. Johnny's a very hard-working guy," said Ellington, who worked briefly at Lipsey Logistics after Access America, a Chattanooga startup business, was sold for millions in 2014 to Coyote Logistics.

Grace said, "Our service is what gets us business." He and Jones both answer phone calls around the clock from clients, he said.

While about half of Lipsey Logistics' clients are Fortune 500 companies, the business has a low public profile in Chattanooga. The only signage at the Eastgate office is an 8.5-by-11-inch piece of office paper taped inside the glass front door.

"Our marketing spend is virtually nothing," Grace said.

But the company may take on a higher profile and move downtown in the future.

"Last year, we made three different offers to buy buildings in Chattanooga," Jones said.

In the meantime, Jones says he stays humble — and grateful for how far he's come.

"My life's been a dream," he said.