MATS Expects More Than 71,000 Visitors as Prosperity Draws Truckers to Louisville

By Jonathan S. Reiskin, Associate News Editor

This story appears in the March 28 print edition of Transport Topics.

In March 1972, Riva Ridge was training to win the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes, Col. Harland Sanders was still making appearances at his Kentucky Fried Chicken empire, Transport Topics reported that the Secretary of Transportation proposed the “Busting Road Trust Fund,” and a truck tire salesman turned lobbyist hosted the first Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.

What started as just another regional truck show that year celebrates its 40th year March 31-April 2, at the Kentucky Exposition Center.

Paul Young, the Kentucky Motor Transport Association president and former salesman, hosted 83 exhibitors and 4,000 visitors in 1972; this year, the largest annual trucking show in North America expects at least 1,000 companies to display their products to more than 71,000 visitors.

Last year, MATS had 965 exhibitors and 70,650 visitors from all 50 states and 60 nations prowling the 1.2 million square feet under the exposition center’s roofs, with more going on outside.

While heavy-duty tractors are the stars of the show — including Freightliner, Volvo and Mack, Kenworth and Peterbilt — visitors also can see medium-duty trucks, diesel engines, trailers, auxiliary power units, windshield wipers, Bluetooth headsets, lubricants, radiators, tires, tarps and transmissions.

Also scheduled are educational seminars, a beauty contest for trucks, vehicle test drives, country music and pork chop sandwiches.

On April 1, the Heavy-Duty Manufacturers Association will hear Daniel Ustian, chairman and chief executive officer of Navistar International Corp.

When Young started Mid-America, he did not relinquish the presidency of KMTA. He held both posts until 1984, when he began to concentrate solely on MATS. His grandson, Toby Young, now president of MATS operator Exhibit Management Associates, said his late grandfather didn’t set out to start a large national event.

“I think that was the furthest thing from his thought process at the time. He started a regional truck show for Kentucky and adjoining states,” Young said.

Before MATS, there was the International Trucking Show in California. “ITS was much larger than us at the time and even into the early 1980s, but at some point in the mid-’80s, we began to surpass them,” Young said.

ITS evolved into the Great West Truck Show in Las Vegas and has declined from a national show into a regional one.

Young said he and his father, Tim, now CEO of EMA, want to expand Mid-America in coming years so it will be easier to bring in more related events.

“The big difference between then and now is that, in 1972, MATS was solely a regional show. Back then, there was a series of regional shows with no real national, high-ceiling show-hall shows,” said Mike Pennington, longtime ArvinMeritor Inc. spokesman and now an independent public relations consultant.

“But now, MATS is the go-to show, the premier event. It’s the annual homecoming and let’s-get-together show for the industry,” said Pennington, who attended his first MATS in 1974 as a reporter for Southern Motor Cargo magazine.

The social aspect is undeniable — this year, Mid-America features performances by musicians Keith Anderson and Randy Houser in Freedom Hall — but behind the veneer of sociability, there is money.

The show offers substantial opportunities for sales and revenue, as well as aggravation and humiliation. James Hebe, Navistar Inc. senior vice president of North American sales, said that, over the decades at MATS, he has been harangued about product quality, seen drunken reporters capsize a press conference, worn a motorcycle jacket, sold a very large number of trucks and enjoyed a ritual cup of coffee with an owner-operator and his wife.

“I spent most of one Mid-America getting my [tail] chewed on about seats and radios. While sitting on a plane coming back from that, I told our engineers that I don’t care what else we do, but before the next MATS, we’re going to develop our own seat and install radios that work.

“You don’t always like the customer feedback you get sometimes, but you will get it there,” said Hebe, who started going in 1978 as a Kenworth Trucks dealer and has been a regular since. Hebe noted that there are rewards for perseverance.

“Last year, we had a customer who was adamantly opposed to our [exhaust gas recirculation] engines, but as a result of our presentation at MATS, he bought 300 tractors after talking to us, and since then, the company has bought several hundred more,” Hebe said. “If you make the effort and investment in MATS, you can sell trucks there — and I’ve done it for years.”

Cummins Inc., the only independent engine manufacturer, has displayed at Mid-America since the beginning, said Jeff Jones, vice president of sales and marketing for the company’s engine business. The Cummins headquarters in Columbus, Ind., is only about 70 miles from Louisville, he said.

“That allows a lot of Cummins people to experience the show,” Jones said.

“We start to get serious about our presentation for our overall market communication theme six months beforehand, although we commit on the space a full year in advance for our location on the floor,” Jones said.

The display used to be Class 8 diesel engines, he said, but now, there are also medium-duty engines and emissions treatment and filtration systems.

“There’s been an evolution from a show focused on owner-operators and small fleets to more of an event for large private and for-hire heavy-duty fleets, as well as medium-duty truck operators,” Jones said.

“I think it was more of a truckers’ show and has become more of a truck and transportation business event. Now it’s more of a transportation technology showcase, whereas in earlier days, it was more straight hardware,” he added.

Young said EMA retained a consultant to measure Mid-America’s effect on Kentucky’s economy and said that the event brings in $30 million a year. However, he would not comment on how much of that direct revenue is for his company.

Making a splash at MATS is “not a cheap date,” Pennington said. When he supervised ArvinMeritor’s presence at MATS through last year, the company’s budget was in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” making it the costliest event of the year for the manufacturer of brakes, truck axles, drivelines and suspensions.

Jones said Cummins spends a similar amount on the show. Hebe would not say what Navistar’s budget is for Mid-America, but he did stress its importance.

“At Navistar, what we have been doing, and what we will continue to do, is to make Mid-America our major medium for communicating with our customers,” Hebe said.

“The entire dealership community, our customer base and our competitors are there. MATS brings out the best in your competitive instincts,” he added.

“You’re totally exposed to everybody there. If you have any sense of competition in you, you have to plan for Mid-America and worry about what the [competition] will do. It’s all guns on deck,” Hebe said.

Pennington said MATS requires an intermediate supplier, such as his former employer or its rivals Eaton Corp. and Dana Holding Corp., to use a double-headed approach, addressing both truck buyers and truck makers.

“You want to say to the people there that you’re a technology leader. Whether it’s to an OEM or to an end-user, you want to let them know buyers can spec your products and that you’ve got the best axles, brakes or suspensions. You want them to know you and remember you,” he said.

Pennington and Jones also said that, while the hardware and video presentations might be the most visually compelling aspects of a display, having knowledgeable representatives who can give customers the information they are seeking is just as important.

“We have to train our booth workers to anticipate questions. Preparation by your people is as important as what you display,” Jones said.

“The displays used to be so simple, but now you’ve got monitors and high-tech presentations. There used to be more celebrities, such as NASCAR drivers giving autographs,” Pennington said. “Now, people attending want information. They want you to give them answers in person, not through an 800 number. It used to be more carnival-like, but now it’s a business.”

Hebe has produced multimedia spectacles for unveiling new trucks before 1,000 invited guests, but he also has taken time for the quiet, personal approach. Over the years, he has attended MATS as an executive for Kenworth, Freightliner and Navistar and said he started having coffee there with a particular owner-operator and his wife.

Hebe recently learned the man’s wife died, so regrettably, he said, that tradition will end. But, he said, it shows that “you can end up talking to anyone. You have to be prepared.”