COB Met Alumni’s Passion for Finance, Unearthed Logistics

Since high school, Daniel Mankey knew he had a passion for commerce and business.

“I was fascinated with financial markets and how corporate finance was related to them,” he said.

Dividends, exchanges, indices, IPOs, volatility, yields, rallies and margins were all terms Mankey began to learn and desire to know more about. It is what led the Conway native to UCA and the College of Business in 2008 to major in finance.

Through guest speakers and coursework, he became aware of all the ways his love for fiscal matters could be applied across business. One of those areas was logistics and supply chain. He interned during his senior year at Maverick Transportation in North Little Rock as an extended operations representative.

With each day, as he helped the trucking company’s clients and ensured on-time deliveries, Mankey saw his niche in the industry forming. His work blossomed into a full-time position at Maverick when he graduated in December 2012.

“Once I graduated, I was able to move onto the pricing team, which laid the foundation for where I am today,” said Mankey

Mankey worked more than four years at Maverick as a pricing analyst completing bids and proposals, special projects, producing price recommendations and consulting with clients across the state and region.

Now, Mankey is yield manager for Wilson Logistics in Springfield, Missouri, where he ensures communication between pricing and sales teams is efficient, tracks pricing performance and the impact on profits and margins, coordinates annual pricing efforts and oversees pricing strategy developments.

His education in the College of Business paved the way for his advancement thus far, said Mankey.

“Some of the concepts were harder to grasp until you got into that first job, but it was like a delayed benefit because a lot of those concepts clicked once I saw them in my career,” he said.

Not only were the concepts and work he did in class beneficial, but the relationships he forged with professors as well.

“It was so important,” said Mankey. “They helped me get an internship with Maverick, they provided insight on possible careers, they understood what I was interested in and what best met my needs.”

Those relationships were beneficial again when Mankey returned in 2017 in the Master in Business Administration program.

“I saw an opportunity to grow through the MBA program, and have it impact my job,” said Mankey.

The faculty, including Mark McMurtrey, Ph.D., director of the MBA program, helped Mankey carve out a degree that would benefit his career.

“They guided me through the entire process,” he said. “I was immediately able to apply the concepts I learned in the program in my job.”