By Al Muskewitz
Wright Media Editor-in-Chief
 
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Dennis Oakley has always liked the idea of having every aspect of Bruce Oakley Inc. under the same roof. Now, it's getting a bigger roof.
 
Years of steady growth in personnel and services has caused the company to outgrow the current 17,000-square-foot headquarters building on its 20-acre campus along the Arkansas River. So, it has broken ground on a two-story, 22,000-square-foot building and thrown in a 2,200-square-foot state-of-the-art driver’s lounge to boot.
 
“We’ve been in this same building and kind of expanded it out since the ’70s and now we’ve just grown so much that we’re having to move and update right here on the river; that’s going to be really sharp,” Oakley Trucking director of recruiting Jeremy Kellett said. “That’s not typical of Oakley. We like to kind of be flying under the radar, low profile, but this is going to be super nice. We’re all looking forward to it.”
 
The current headquarters has an open design that keeps everybody close to the action and makes it easy to communicate with various departments, but it is a building for every aspect of the business.
 
The new building is going to be for all divisions, too, just with some elbow room. The entire trucking division – trucking, recruiting, dispatch, safety, accounting; about 50 employees – will occupy the first floor. There’s also an expanded training/orientation area. The grain, fertilizer, barge and parent divisions will occupy the second floor, which has a south-side balcony providing stunning views of the Arkansas River.
 
“Dennis is big on all of us being under the same roof to where we’re able to communicate together,” Kellett said. “He likes it to be open and we can all communicate and don’t have to go far to see each other.”

The plans for the new space have been under construction for a while and moved forward this year, then in late May/early June heavy flooding hit the region. The river overflowed onto the Oakley property and understandably the project got delayed. Work proceeded on the driver’s lounge while the water receded around the main building space and it is expected to be completed in mid-December. The office building is likely to open in June or July 2020.
 
“It’s awesome,” said Oakley office/accounting manager Tommy Mitchell, who has been on the project since its inception four years ago. “I go out there every day and check on it. It’s awesome to see it take off, especially after four years.”
 
The driver’s lounge Mitchell said “has been a long time coming” will have four and a half baths, a laundry, kitchenette and relaxation area.
 
“We’ve really paid a lot of attention to detail,” he said. “Now that people can see real construction the drivers are pretty excited. They’re asking a lot of questions.”

Oakley has been around since 1968, but the company has been headquartered in North Little Rock since 1977, in a manufactured structure that has expanded steadily over the years. It added office space on several occasions, a wash bay and service bays to the shop. Now, it’s bursting at the seams. 

When Kellett started at Oakley 25 years ago, the company had 100 trucks. Today, it has more than 850 dry bulk owner-operators. That may not seem a lot over that extensive a period of time, but the growth has been measured by the company’s exacting code of qualifications for its end dumps, hopper bottoms and pneumatics drivers.
 
Purposing plans for the present building once the new structure is completed are uncertain, but there no plans to demolish it. The main scales are there, so it’s likely to remain as a standing legacy to the company’s growth.
 
“We’re real excited,” Kellett said about the new building. “What we’ve been in, it served a purpose, but we’re ready for (this). It’s going to be really nice. I’m so excited. Dennis has really stepped it up to be able to give us all the amenities, the technology. The new building is going to be equipped with top-notch stuff. I’m looking forward to it.”