HDA Truck Pride offers organizational update at 2023 annual meeting

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Updated Apr 17, 2023
Tina Hubbard, HDA Truck Pride President and CEO
HDA Truck Pride President and CEO Tina Hubbard speaks during the general session at the 2023 HDA Truck Pride Annual Meeting in Denver.

Last year was a good year for HDA Truck Pride. A great one actually; best in the organization’s history. But President and CEO Tina Hubbard says HDA Truck Pride doesn’t intend to rest on last year’s laurels in 2023 or beyond.

During Thursday’s general session at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting in Denver, Hubbard shared how HDA Truck Pride remains committed to “Collaborate, Learn and Engage” with its members and help support the independent aftermarket in the years to come. Truck parts was a great business in 2022; Hubbard says HDA Truck Pride expects it to be a very good business in 2023 as well. But it’s not an industry without its challenges. Hubbard says HDA Truck Pride wants to meet those challenges head on.

The independent distribution channel is a vital cog in the North American trucking industry. Maintaining that position in the years ahead will require distributors to adapt, evolve and withstand disruptions entering the industry.

“We want to make sure your customers understand the value of your relationship with them,” Hubbard says. “We believe we can accomplish that if we all work together.”

Several disruptors HDA Truck Pride anticipates will transform the aftermarket are vehicle technologies (including alternative powertrains), digital ecosystems and the shrinking workforce. Hubbard says HDA Truck Pride is investing time and resources to understand these changes and how the group can educate and help its distributors in addressing them in their operations. She says the aftermarket can no longer sit back and wait to decide how to approach these disruptive forces. Customer expectations are changing no matter what, HDA Truck Pride and its members need to be proactive in progressing to meet and exceed those expectations.

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She also notes distributors need to accept a future where they’ll be expected to leverage technology to do more with less. She says the generational inversion occurring in the North American workforce — in which more Baby Boomers are retiring than Millennials and Gen Z are entering the workforce — will only make it harder for distributors to recruit and retain talent in the years ahead.

“The bucket of people who are available to work is shrinking every year,” she says, adding the available employment workforce could shrink by up to 10 million people in the U.S. (and a million in Canada) by 2040.

“We will have to bring people into the industry to help each other,” she says.

Fortunately, HDA Truck Pride’s members are able to address these changes from a position of strength.

The network grew by 30 stores in 2022 and has already added another baker’s dozen in 2023. Last year, when MacKay & Company market research estimated the independent aftermarket grew by 11% and the OES dealer channel was up 12%, Hubbard says HDA Truck Pride member sales were up 21%. The company’s five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.8% is tremendously strong considering the pandemic recession of 2020, and Hubbard says HDA Truck Pride anticipates sales to rise by 6.5% again in 2023. Industry forecasts peg the entire independent aftermarket to grow by 3 to 4%.

Thursday’s general session also featured presentations by AWDA’s Ted Hughes and CVSN’s Edward Kuo, who shared how their two industry associations are working to help HDA Truck Pride and all independent distributors to find solutions to these upcoming problems. WyoTech’s Cindy Barlow also shared the vision of the immersive tech school, and how WyoTech hopes to strengthen its relationships with HDA Truck Pride vendors and distributors to supply trucking next generation of entry-level technicians.

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The session concluded with a keynote presentation by Dirk Beveridge, who spoke of how essential warehouse distributors are to North America’s economy and how distributors can create internal business cultures to thrive in competitive years ahead. Beveridge agrees with Hubbard that disruption is coming to truck parts distribution — “everything about your business is being redefined,” he says — but says distributors who accept that reality and use their culture to combat it head on are mostly likely to thrive.  

“If you believe your culture is one of family, that’s your superpower. Double down on it,” he says.

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