Editor's note: This article was changed to correct a title and spelling on Oct. 2, 2025. TPS regrets the error.
Travis Johnson, CEO and owner at Intermountain Trailer, says trailer dealers are the forgotten little brothers of vehicle sales. He’s working to change that.
His company started in 1996 as a Salt Lake City trailer dealer spun out of a truck dealership. It was then sold to national carrier C.R. England, then to a trailer rental company, adding Nevada locations along the way. In 2017, employees Johnson, Jeff Lyon and Andrew Sharon bought the company and renamed it Intermountain Trailer.
“We were the forgotten-about little brother of a trucking company, the forgotten-about little brother within a truck dealership, to now, moving forward, this is what we do and who we are,” Johnson says.
What they are is a finalist for the third annual Trailblazer Award, powered by Successful Dealer. Intermountain has operations in Utah and Colorado. The Denver dealership was formerly a Wabash-owned location. Intermountain’s owners closed on the dealership just a month after forming the business.
“I’m humbled, obviously, to receive the nomination,” Johnson says. “I’ve seen the playing field that’s out there. We’re up against some pretty heavy hitters.”
In addition to Wabash, Intermountain represents East Trailers and Capacity yard trucks.
“We like to partner with who we consider to be the best flagship brands out there,” Johnson says. Those are brands Johnson says offer the best products for Intermountain’s customer base.
Bob Kramer, sales manager, says customer loyalty is a challenge with other dealer groups expanding over ever-larger territories.
“Our mission is to focus on our customers’ needs,” Kramer says. “We want to be professional and we want our presence known through our response, our relationships with customers and our reputation, which is very, very, very difficult to maintain in a highly competitive market.”
John Hilton runs the service department in Salt Lake City. He says without Intermountain’s team of employees, it wouldn’t be able to meet its customer’s needs so well.
“It’s the details that matter,” he says. “You’re going to get your vehicle repaired correctly. When we put a vehicle back out on the road, it’s going to be safe. And you were treated fairly and with kindness and you got a great value through our company.”
Johnson says the Intermountain team listens to its customers and wants to be the go-to resource for them. Kramer says it can do that because even though Intermountain itself is less than 10 years old, the staff has decades of experience under its belt across its network.
The company’s culture also demands the best performance from each and every employee.
“It’s consistency,” Johnson says. “We’re present as an ownership group. We work on the front lines. It’s not abnormal to see Jeff [Lyon, another owner and CFO] in a forklift loading a van body. We’re arm-in-arm with our employees.”
When they need to add to the team, Intermountain lets word get out organically, by word of mouth and family and friends of team members, which is an endorsement of the company’s all-for-one culture.
“We look for grit,” Johnson says. “We look for the people that are willing to roll their sleeves up and go to war.”
Marketing to customers is much the same. Much of their marketing is done by word of mouth. The Intermountain team throws barbecues, fundraisers and joins customers’ community service programs. They’re also involved with industry organizations, locally and nationally.
“From my perspective, constantly the trucking industry gets squashed on with regulations, you name it,” Kramer says. “We get stomped on a lot. The only way we can get in there and fight for our industry is to be involved with organizations like Colorado Motor Carriers that goes up on the hill and fights for our industry.”
Lyon says it helps the Intermountain team understand what the market is doing.
“It’s super important for us to be involved with suppliers, with associations,” says Lyon. “By being involved, we’re part of the equation to fix things.”
Fixing things includes working with Utah Valley Community College to build trailers to help train local firefighters on site. They built a training trailer specifically to be lit on fire as well as other mobile training facilities.
“We’re really proud of that,” Hilton says.
Johanna Limberis, accounting specialist at Intermountain, says the company holds community initiatives such as Christmas boxes, back-to-school backpacks and a golf tournament. Each Intermountain employee gets two days to use as community service days, including at a food distribution.
“For me, this is a recognition to our team,” Johnson says. “We’ve been excluded and sold off from so many companies, but now we have our own identity. This is who we are and what we’re about. We’re owned by people who work in the building every single day.”
The Trailblazer Award was created in 2023 recognize and honor North America’s trailer dealer community for their essential support of the transportation industry. The Trailblazer Award is graciously sponsored by Hendrickson and Procede Software. To learn more about the program, go the award page.
