Former Southwest Airlines chief financial officer Laura H. Wright has been elected to Daseke’s board of directors.

Wright retired from her position of CFO and senior vice president of finance at Southwest in 2012 after 25 years with the company. During her time at Southwest she also served as the treasurer, director of corporate finance and the director of corporate tax. She is the fourth independent director to be named to the Daseke board.

“We don’t want to just grow, we want to grow profitably. We don’t want to just be big, we want to be the carrier of choice for our people and our customers,” said Don Daseke, founder, chief executive and chairman. “To do that we need the insights of business leaders like Laura Wright who have dealt with the same issues we face as a growing company.”

Wright is a certified public accountant and holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of North Texas. Prior to her time at Southwest, Wright was a tax manager for Arthur Young & company. She currently serves as an independent trustee at Pebblebrook Hotel Trust and as a director of CMS Energy Corp., Consumers Energy Co., and TE Connectivity Ltd.

In addition to Wright, Daseke recently added Brian Bonner from Texas Instruments, Tom Hund from BNSF Railway and Ron Gafford from Austin Industries to its board.

Daseke is a Texas-based flatbed, open-deck and specialty trucking company serving North America.