Supply Chain Hall of Fame

UA’s Walton College of Business set to host project.

When a global organization of supply chain professionals decided to build a hall of fame to honor outstanding contributors to the field, Northwest Arkansas was the only location considered.

The region is unusual because of the presence of three major corporations and their suppliers, and all the innovation and technology that accompanies them, said Remko Van Hoek , a professor of supply chain management at the University of Arkansas’ Sam M. Walton College of Business in Fayetteville.

Walton College will host the Supply Chain Hall of Fame, and Van Hoek will serve as its executive director.

“Through exhibits, education and events, the hall is also meant to educate and inspire future leaders in supply chain,” said Van Hoek, past board chairman of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. “By engaging our students and entrepreneurial region, we can bridge the greatest of the past with the best of the future.”

The facility will sit atop the six-story Northgate Plaza building currently

under construction in Rogers’ Pinnacle Hills area, and is expected to be completed early next year. Van Hoek said it will also serve as a multipurpose space with revolving exhibits honoring inductees as well as meeting space with movable walls to accommodate classes, seminars and other events.

The college will host the hall of fame for “an initial period of five years,” a university news release stated. Van Hoek said that was the agreement between the council and the college, but he hopes it will remain in Northwest

Arkansas much longer.

The region is “the hub of supply chain innovation and research,” Walton College Dean Matt Waller said. He added that the hall “will highlight achievements and innovations in supply chain.”

According to the news release, the project is being funded by Johnelle Hunt, chairwoman of real estate development firm Hunt Ventures and co-founder of J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc.; Gus Blass III, general partner of Capital Properties LLC; and Alex Blass, a partner in Sage Partners LLC. College officials did not say how much the project will cost.

Van Hoek said the council created a virtual hall of fame in 2016 “to shine a bright light on the greatest innovations and achievements in supply chain.” Its first inductees including Johnelle Hunt’s late husband, trucking magnate J.B. Hunt; Ford Motor Co. founder Henry Ford; and Malcom McLean, who developed the modern intermodal shipping container.

“There’ve been so many fundamental groundbreaking innovations in the field that still impact modern business so much today,” Van Hoek said.

“We as the leading supply chain association in the world need to be honoring that and acknowledging that and celebrating that, and continuing to learn from it.”