The Specialized Furniture Carriers division of the American Home Furnishings Alliance has presented its 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award to Jack Hawn of Conover, N.C.
The award was presented to Hawn June 14 during the organization’s 2023 Logistics Conference in Charleston, S.C.
The Alvin W. Daughtridge Lifetime Achievement Award was created to honor executives whose contributions have left a lasting mark on the furniture transportation industry and whose leadership and character have served as a role model for others. It was first presented to Alvin Daughtridge in 2019 then named in his honor for subsequent recipients.
Hawn began his career in 1973 as an owner-operator with one truck leased to Sharpe Motor Lines of Hildebran, N.C. In 1978 he founded Carrier Freight Lines, which he sold 10 years later. However, he retained the furniture division and created Zenith Global Logistics with his wife, Debbie. In 1989 Zenith entered a partnership with Bassett Furniture to operate its warehouses while also serving as its primary carrier. Hawn opened Zenith’s first regional hubs in Texas and California in 2005 and eventually expanded to more than a dozen locations with some 800 employees across the United States. He sold the company to Bassett in 2015 but remained the leading force behind the carrier’s continued growth and expansion.
“Zenith represents the life’s work of the Hawn family,” he said when the sale to Bassett was made public. “I am very proud of the best-in-class furniture transportation and logistics services company that we have built over the past 40 years.”
That same year Hawn was presented with the Tri-State Home Furnishings Association’s “Man of the Year” Award. He was recognized for “innovation, planning, strategic vision and leadership (that) keeps the company on the cutting edge of supply chain technology.”
In 2022 Bassett sold Zenith Global Logistics to Lowell, Ark.-based J.B. Hunt, where Hawn remains an integral part of the company as a consultant. In October 2022, he received the International Home Furnishings Representatives Association’s esteemed Pillar of the Industry Award. IHFRA credited Hawn’s success to his “natural talent and passion for networking and information sharing. His unique flavor of leadership ultimately helped create a highly relationship-oriented company that has enjoyed strong loyalties with customers, employees and vendors over the decades.”