Crete Carrier Corp., Lincoln, NE, has bought Omaha, NE-based Hunt Transportation.

Not to be confused with Arkansas’ J.B. Hunt, Hunt Transportation is a 72-year-old trucking company with 335 trucks and 700 flatbed trailers. It will continue to be operated under the Hunt name, and all Hunt employees are expected to remain with the company.
Hunt owner Matt Butler told the Omaha World-Herald that although the company could have continued to operate successfully, increasing pressures to lower costs and the slim likelihood of rate increases made him feel that the company would do better as a subsidiary of a larger organization.
The acquisition will make Crete, owned by Duane and Phyllis Acklie, one of the largest privately owned trucking companies in the country. The Acklies also own Shaffer Trucking of New Kingston, PA, HTL Truck Line of Council Bluffs, and Sunflower Carriers of York, NE.
With the latest acquisition, the Acklie group will grow to more than 5,000 trucks.