Medium-Duty Vehicles to Garner Attention as American Truck Dealers Hold Convention
This story appears in the April 19 print edition of Transport Topics.
The chairman of American Truck Dealers said the trade group will add more attention to medium-duty lines at its annual convention and exposition, scheduled for April 23-26 in Kissimmee, Fla.
“We’ve beefed up our emphasis on medium-duty trucks and have a specific track on that,” said ATD Chairman Kyle Treadway, a Kenworth dealer from Utah. “We got feedback from our members, and that’s what they wanted to see.”
Two analysts and one chief executive officer will offer the main assessments of the trucking and freight industries at the conference, said Treadway, the group’s chairman until 2012.
Consultant Stu MacKay, Lombard, Ill., will open the meeting with a State of the Industry workshop on April 23. Eaton Corp. Chief Economist Jim Meil will give the keynote address on April 25.
Dennis Slagle, CEO of Volvo AB’s North American truck operations, will speak at the opening lunch on April 24. Slagle is in charge of Mack Trucks, Volvo Trucks North America and the Hagerstown, Md., engine business.
The conference also features “make meetings” for dealers organized by specific brands, workshops on changes in federal and state laws, including taxes, and other issues.
The annual meeting will be the first run by ATD’s managing director, Albert Hulgrave. Treadway said Hulgrave took the association’s top staff job last May, succeeding longtime ATD managing director James Westlake, who retired.
As for awards, the ATD Commercial Truck of the Year is now in its second year. The three nominees in the heavy-duty division are:
The Kenworth T660 extended day cab, the Freightliner Coronado and the Peterbilt Model 384. The International LoneStar won last year in the award’s inaugural presentation.
The four nominees in the new medium-duty division, Classes 3-7, are:
The Kenworth T370 diesel-electric hybrid, the 2011 Hino 268, the Freightliner Business Class M2 112 natural gas and the Peterbilt Model 337.
Heavy- and medium-duty winners will be announced April 24.
The association also will announce its Dealer of the Year and first runner-up at the same session. The seven nominees are:
Jay Ellison, president of French-Ellison Truck Center, San Antonio; Mark Gillam, president of Floyd’s Sales & Service, Scottsbluff, Neb.; Blake Jackson, president of the Jackson Group of Peterbilt dealerships in Utah, Idaho and Colorado; Greg Lesher, president of Lesher Mack Sales & Service, Lebanon, Pa.; Ron Meyering, president of M&K Quality Truck Sales, Byron Center, Mich.; Robert Nuss, president of Nuss Truck & Equipment, Rochester, Minn.; and Jack Saum Sr., chairman of Beltway International, Baltimore.
