The generally conservative Powell has also taken his time with technology that his competitors long ago embraced. Only last year USA Truck began installing Qualcomm on-board telecommunications computers on all of its 1,000 trucks. The equipment is now significantly cheaper than it was two years ago, and the company has had the chance to learn from others' successes and miscues.

"We don't want to be the test pilot," Powell says. "We're not prepared to do that."

There's not a lot of flash to Powell, who seems to tolerate being interviewed rather than particularly enjoying it. Even as we discuss his background and his plans for the future, Powell's mind seems to be focused on his business.

And in an industry where keeping one's cards close to the vest has become an art form, Powell is well known for his candor.

"Publicly-held companies are a little better disciplined [than private ones]," he observes. "The requirements ... are pretty stringent. You have to run a pretty tight ship, with everything above-board. You don't have any hidden skeletons, because if you do and it's disclosed, it's bad for you.

"If you looked at the [companies] that failed, they're the ones that violated those rules.

"I think that's good. You complain about the rules you have to live by, but it's the best way to be."

Powell knows the toughest issue facing the truckload industry is driver retention, and he doesn't mind saying he has been watching the results of J.B. Hunt's 33 percent pay raise.

"They've been able to hire drivers, but I'm not sure they're as productive now," he says. "It's a big expense, and you can't cover it from the shipper. If we could, we'd do it. But you can't do it. There's too many guys out here that are paying 80 percent of what we're paying and hauling the business for lesser rates. But they may not get there when they're supposed to."

Powell is the quintessential realist; the trucking industry has its share of philosophers, but there's not a speculative bone in Powell's body. He's more interested in what is than in what should be.

I asked him whether analysts should have as much power as they do over public companies' fortunes. His answer: "Well, I don't know. But they do."

Low profile, low multiple
USA Truck's 1997 earnings figures made a happy contrast to 1996.

In January 1997, USA Truck reported a depressing 44 percent slide in net income for 1996. Earnings fell to 35 cents a share - down from 60 cents in '95 and 80 cents in '94.

Even USA Truck's difficult periods say something about the company's personality.

True, in early 1996 many truckload carriers were still reeling from the overcapacity/driver shortage/high fuel prices triple whammy that began to hit the industry in mid-1995.

But USA Truck was reeling perhaps a bit more in the short term than some others, mainly because of the company's essential character, which can be summmed up in three words: Conservative, stubborn, and disciplined.

As some analysts have noted, in 1995 USA Truck responded to aggressive pricing on the part of its more marginal competitors by holding its rates steady, instad of "going with the flow." A.G. Edwards' February 11 research report suggests that this strategy may have hurt USA Truck.

Still, the company didn't sit on its hands once the slump materialized. Management expanded the sales force from 12 to 20, brought its management information system in-house, and shifted some of its fleet to 53-foot trailers (from 48-footers). These initiatives, combined with improved industry-wide conditions, helped improve USA Truck's utilization by the end of 1996, analysts say.

But despite great improvement to the bottom line recently, the company's stock has been trading at a 15 percent discount to its peers and a 30 percent discount to the market. With a 1997 price/earnings ratio of 16.5, the stock price is suffering from a low corporate profile and the need to prove that 1997 wasn't a flash in the pan.

"The multiple is low," Powell concedes. "It will improve. It takes a good solid year of improvement quarter-to-quarter to get a lot of interest. At one point our multiple was 28, 29. Today it's 15, 16 on the triling earnings. It'll come along, when everybody sees we've stabilized on the course we were on earlier."

Powell's insistence on letting the company grow at what he considers the proper pace, despite external pressures to grow more quickly, has earned him a reputation for caution.

There's nothing trendy or particularly "visionary" about Bob Powell, unless his vision is defined as staying disciplined, being prepared for the unexpected and improving USA Truck's bottom line, slowly but steadily.

"We hope to be in the top 5 percent of truckload carriers, profit-wise, margin-wise," Powell says. "We're set up to grow internally to double [revenue] every five years. An acquisition could change things ... [but] you can't count on that. You budget for it, but if it doesn't happen, we'll keep our course straight instead of s-turning."