It’s the ultimate recruiting success story. Paccar needed dealers for its newly acquired truck brand, Kenworth. World War II was ending and the truck maker was eager to expand beyond its West Coast roots.
W. Jay Treadway wasn’t a Kenworth employee, but as a fleet manager, he valued the brand. Kenworth approached him, asking if he’d be willing take it on as its newest dealer in Salt Lake City. Treadway lived in California at the time, but he accepted the challenge, moving east and opening Kenworth Sales Company with his wife Veda and son Gene.
It was just the three of them at the start, third-generation Dealer Principal Kyle Treadway says. But the plucky, hard-working trio didn’t let that discourage them, laboring day and night to lay the groundwork for their dealership and Kenworth in the intermountain region.
To say their efforts paid off would be a gross understatement.
Now standing 38 locations strong, Kenworth Sales Company was recently honored as Kenworth’s 2025 Dealer of the Year for the U.S. and Canada and is the longest-tenured dealer in the OEM’s entire network.
Kyle Treadway, Gene’s son, says his family takes great pride in the dealership’s continued success. But he’s also quick to note it’s not a three-person team anymore.
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Kenworth Sales Company has 1,400 associates across 10 states, and Treadway says all are essential to dealership’s continued accolades, which this year includes being named a finalist for the Successful Dealer Award for the first time.
“Our mission says we believe business goes where its invited and stays where it’s welcome,” Treadway says. “We measure success by how our customers succeed. Our job is to help them succeed. And if we’ve done that, then that builds a strong relationship and they’ll continue to patronize us. So, we really focus on what it is that they need.”
It’s a culture rooted in values, specifically, to provide premium products and services to the trucking industry while employing fairly, transacting ethically, profiting reasonably and sharing generously, Treadway says.
He adds “the handshake is the heart of the deal,” which at Kenworth Sales isn’t a motto so much as an edict for honesty and integrity in any interaction.
“In 35 years in this industry I’ve never seen anybody hold the truly personal approach that ‘the handshake is the heart of the deal’ the way Kyle does,” says Mike Carwile, who joined the company six years ago and was elevated to president in May. “It is unheard of in 2026 but it is alive and well in this company.”
Carefully developed corporate processes and procedures across the dealer’s workforce enables the company to maintain such high standards.
Beyond OEM and vendor-provided training, Kenworth Sales uses specialized courses for individual departments and roles, and regularly “cross contaminates” employees into other roles to strengthen their malleability within the business as promotion from within is a core tenet of the dealer’s leadership development strategy.
“The more you train, the more loyal and dedicated employees become,” Carwile says.
New hires aren’t overlooked either. Kenworth Sales uses partnerships with vocational schools to bring students into its part-time technician internship and mentoring program, educating them on the business and the skills needed to join the company full-time after graduation, says Corporate Service Director Sara Shaw.
“It’s a test drive for us and for them,” she says. “They get a taste of the industry and what it’s like to work for Kenworth Sales Company and we get an opportunity to highlight the mission and values we have as a company that creates such a culture that people want to stay for 25, 35, 45 years.”
Treadway acknowledges never ending training is an investment — “Our training budget. Oh, my word. Over the last decade it has quadrupled” — but it is one he deems essential.
“We put as much effort into our employees as we do into our customers anymore, because that’s who is representing us on the front lines,” he says.
The company also supplements all its training with structured, consistent messaging, says Martha Mills, corporate communications director. Showcasing the company’s mission and values is vital to ensuring customers recognize the level of service they can expect from Kenworth Sales, she says.
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“We want our customers to understand who we are,” she says.
But Treadway also notes customer interactions are never a one-way street.
“If we are listening as opposed to just talking, we actually become better at serving our customers,” he says. “We understand more about what drives them, what their
what their priorities are, what their values and mission are.”
Kenworth Sales’ generosity makes its mission clear. It directs 1% of all profits to charitable causes, and each store has a say in where funds are directed locally. Mills says in one recent year it donated a book to every student in a local school district.
Last year, in honor of its 80th anniversary, it challenged employees to donate their time to community service organizations with the goal to donating 1,945 total hours. Employees who volunteered more than 80 hours were dubbed Service Heroes. “I had to order the trophies twice because we had so many,” Mills says.
The Successful Dealer Award is sponsored by Automann, Interstate Billing Service, National Truck Protection and Premium 2000 and Procede Software. The 2026 Successful Dealer Award will be presented Oct. 6, at a private awards banquet in Nashville.
