Robert Low

Male

Coding notes. PLACEHOLDERS: household "two-parent" (not established), originCapital "wage-savings" (the real source of the money for his first truck is not established; no matching enum for financed equipment), raisedOutsideCapital false (inferred from Forbes saying he and his wife are the only shareholders; early financing is unknown). Hardness 6 is inferred from a rural farm origin with no documented safety net, a teenage start, and a Chapter 11 mid-career. It is a judgement, not a sourced figure. headwinds 0: no structural barrier documented. Birth year 1949 derived from Forbes age 77 at 2026-10-12 (±1). Education omitted because Forbes says only that the truck was to help fund his studies, and whether he graduated isn't established. Military service: none found in reliable sources, so not included. Wikipedia and Forbes carry most of this record; SEC filings do not apply (private company).

not established

Not established in the sources consulted.

not established

Not established. No source describes a family fallback.

not established

Not established how the first truck was financed.

Prime filed Chapter 11 in 1981, after earning its first million in 1979, and downsized sharply before recovering.

The 1979 and 1981 dates come from a company history quoted in a search result, attributed to Low, not from a page I could open. Forbes confirms the early-1980s Chapter 11.

not established

Not established.

Raised on a farm in rural Missouri; his parents' occupations are not given.

not established

Not established whether the family owned the farm.

not established

No military service appears in Forbes or in Prime's own biography. Some low-quality sites claim otherwise and were not used.

Rural Missouri (farm)

His own one-truck hauling business in Urbana, Missouri, started in 1970.

not established

No co-founder named in the sources consulted.

19

0

Started the business while a student; no prior employment is documented.

not established

Prime says he was an engineering student at the University of Missouri when he founded the company. Whether he finished a degree isn't stated.

Bought a truck and ran a hauling business while a student, to help pay for college.

Hauling income from his first truck in 1970. What the truck cost and how it was paid for isn't established.

not established

Not established either way.

not established

Forbes rates him self-made 9 of 10 but does not detail family money.

Privately held; Low and his wife Lawana are the only two shareholders, per Forbes.

Forbes says he rebuilt Prime after the early-1980s Chapter 11 by converting drivers to independent contractors. The same model was later the subject of the driver class actions, where drivers alleged misclassification; Prime denied liability.

Forbes's wording; the later suits are allegations, not a finding by any court.

1

The 1981 Chapter 11 of his own company; it survived.

not established

32

Age when the company restructured after the 1981 filing, by arithmetic from a derived birth year. The inflection date is my judgement.

The 1980 deregulation of US trucking and an early-1980s slowdown pushed many carriers out; Prime downsized and focused on refrigerated freight.

19

56

1970 to 2026.

Refrigerated trucking and freight

5600000000

Forbes real-time figure as of 2026-10-12, rank 742, self-made score 9.

Journalistic estimate

Privately held; no filing to check against.

2026

not established

Not established; private company. Forbes estimates 2025 company revenue near $2.5 billion.

Held in a private company with two shareholders; how much has been taken out is not established.

Runs Primatara Farm, a 300-acre horse-breeding operation that has produced three Kentucky Derby runners, per Forbes.

Uncapped

Alleged, not found. Wikipedia reports that the EEOC sued Prime in 2011 over its same-gender driver-trainer pairing policy and that the company settled in 2016 for more than $3.11 million in compensatory damages.

Taken from a Wikipedia summary; the EEOC release was not opened. Company's position not checked.

Company-level, not Low personally as far as the sources show. In 2015 driver Dominic Oliveira filed a class action against New Prime in Massachusetts. The drivers alleged they were misclassified as independent contractors and that deductions for training, truck leases and equipment reduced their pay below minimum wage. Prime denied liability. In January 2019 the Supreme Court ruled 8 to 0 that the arbitration exemption applies to independent contractors, so the case could go to court. In July 2020 a settlement of up to $28 million covering drivers and trainees from October 2012 to May 2020 was filed; its terms say it is not evidence that any party prevailed. No court ruled on the misclassification claims themselves.

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Prime_Inc._v._Oliveira and https://www.ccjdigital.com/after-losing-supreme-court-ruling-prime-offers-28m-to-settle-lawsuits-with-drivers (search result only). The complaint, settlement agreement and approval order were not read; final court approval was not confirmed.

After

The 2015 to 2020 litigation came decades after the post-bankruptcy restructuring, though the contractor model itself dates from that restructuring.

Incidental

Judgement. The contractor model may have helped the company recover, but that link is not established and the claims were never adjudicated, so this is coded cautiously.

Prime uses roughly 1,700 company drivers and 7,400 independent contractor drivers, per Wikipedia (2024).