Rush Truck Centers has won the 2026 Successful Dealer Award. The award was presented Tuesday during a private awards banquet in Nashville.
“In honor of our people, the 8,000-plus that make it happen every day, I accept this and I appreciate it,” said Rusty Rush, president, CEO and chairman said Tuesday. “I normally don’t focus on a lot of this, I just like to run the business. But for my dad, who would have been 88 this coming Saturday, he would be so proud to have accepted this award. Just as I know every employee is in the organization.”
Now in its 14th year, the Successful Dealer Award recognizes and honors North America’s strongest medium- and heavy-duty truck dealer operations. Dealers are evaluated on their business success, customer service excellence, industry engagement, market and industry leadership, workforce development, community engagement and more. The award program is sponsored by Automann, Interstate Billing Service, National Truck Protection/Premium 2000 and Procede Software.
Rush Truck Centers was a finalist for the Successful Dealer Award for the first time this year but as the nation’s largest dealer group, its position as one of the trucking’s strongest dealers has never been in debate.
Founded as a single GMC dealership in 1965, Rush now stands 167 stores strong across 24 states and Ontario, Canada. With more than 8,000 employees, Rush is a business that grows when it can, but always in service of its customers. The company’s landmark decision to go public in 1996 makes it an outlier in the dealer industry, but its focus on customer service, comprehensive solutions and acceptance of new resources to drive uptime echo the stories of many prior Successful Dealer Award winners.
[RELATED: How Rush Truck Centers continues to grow North America’s largest dealer network]
Other finalists for this year’s Successful Dealer Award were first-time honorees California Truck Centers, Kenworth of Pennsylvania and Kenworth Sales Company, as well as two-time finalist Excel Truck Group.
Though undoubtably known for its size, Rusty Rush says Rush Truck Centers’ go-to-market strategies haven’t changed much since his father Marvin Rush opened his first store more than 60 years ago. Truck dealers serve commercial customers; fleets, municipalities, owner-operators. Companies use their trucks for business purposes, and need them to be in peak operating condition to profitable and successful.
The Rush business model is built around offering every product or service necessary to enable that success, and with a level of service customers value and can depend on.
Rush Truck Centers ensures service is consistent across its network through ongoing training across all areas of the business, with dedicated curriculum for new hires, technicians, sales associates, prospective leaders and more. Rush associates completed more than 385,000 hours of training in 2025 — equivalent to more than four hours per associate per month — and Vice President of Human Resources Michelle Zormeier says all training is tracked, measured and tied to a development cycle to ensure it is benefiting the workforce in the field.
The company also works tirelessly to remain connected with customers to ensure its training and total solutions meet and exceed the needs of its expansive customer base. As COO Jody Pollard puts it, “Our very centralized mantra is the customer is the boss.”
But he’s also quick to note recognition matters — especially to the associates supporting the Rush name in the field every day. That’s why the company invests so heavily in its Skills Rodeo, Star Awards internal recognition program and other events where associates are praised for their hard work and excellent performance.
[RELATED: TLG wins 2025 Successful Dealer Award]
“People sometimes get so caught up, we’re a public dealer and all that, but we’re still a family. That’s still my name. And my name carries more than my family; its 8,000 plus people who work for Rush,” Rush said Tuesday.
“Some people may say they don’t want recognition. They’re lying. Everybody likes recognition,” he says. “People want to know they are doing their best and part of the best [teams].”
And Rush believes recognizing the best only makes people better.
“If I can recognize a guy who’s pushing a broom, maybe he goes home at night and has a beer in town with some other broom pushers. But if he feels he’s been recognized and his boss rewards him and as treats him as the best, he’s going to go out there and tell everybody he’s the best broom pusher in the world. … And he’s going to go out there and give us that extra effort day in and day out because he knows he works for a business that supports and appreciates him.”
