Jerry Kocan’s first job in trucking wasn’t with Four Star Freightliner. In fact, it wasn’t with Freightliner at all.
Kocan started with a carrier. A short time later he made his way to an engine manufacturer, then worked at an OEM. Kocan was years into his career before finding his way to the dealer channel, serving as a general manager of a facility in Atlanta. The significance of those formative years are increasingly evident now, he says, because they enabled him to learn the commercial trucking industry from every angle. Kocan lived the customer experience, the manufacturer experience and then the dealer life.
It was during those years he grew to truly appreciate how valuable quality people are to a business. It was also then that Kocan decided if he ever had the chance to own a dealership, he’d lead it with his employees in mind.
Nearly 20 years later Kocan is doing just that.
For the second consecutive year, Four Star Freightliner, under the guidance of Kocan as dealer principal, is a finalist for the Successful Dealer Award.
Founded through the merging of Freightliner of Montgomery and Freightliner of Dothan in 2000, Four Star Freightliner has grown into a six-location dealer group serving customers throughout Alabama, Georgia and the Florida panhandle. Elite Support certified by Freightliner at all of its locations, Four Star also sells Western Star and Fuso trucks and is a NationaLease partner. Kocan has built the company he dreamed about, though to hear him tell it, it’s almost as if he’s just been along for the ride.
“This is a people business. They are our most valuable asset and are the ones that make everything go,” says Kocan, whose staff total nearly 200 employees. “That was the big thing I learned back [in Atlanta]. I worked with my people and learned what was important to them in their work and their lives.”
Four Star Freightliner’s commitment to its employees, customers and community is unprecedented.
When it comes to customers, Kocan says Four Star likes to focus its attention on improving uptime and educational projects that help customers better understand their vehicles. The company states it “prefers to take a personal approach” in talking its customers through all purchases, adding “we make it clear that we are always available to help them, no matter the hour. When Four Star sells a vehicle to a company, that is not the end of the relationship. We then step in to educate the actual driver of the truck to ensure maximum satisfaction.”
Within the business, Four Star invests heavily in training, safety and technology. On the matter of technology, Kocan says the dealership is quick to adopt any sales and service tools available through Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) and seeks to find other third-party resources wherever possible. New Four Star sales employees undergo 13 weeks of specialized training before being sent into the field, which gives the new associate time to obtain certain certifications from Freightliner and Western Star, as well as tour the company’s area of operation to meet their coworkers and future customers.
The company also has a full-time technical trainer on staff who works directly with the service managers at each location to make sure the company’s technician population is up-to-date on any training materials available from DTNA or any of the company’s other supplier partners.
“We conduct continuous training to ensure our employees are able to provide our customers with exceptional service,” the company says.
Then there’s the matter of community involvement, another area where Four Star truly shines.
Four Star Freightliner provided a training room and resources to a technical institute near its Midway, Fla., location and donated engines and transmissions to another technical program in Deatsville, Ala. It has offered financial support and scholarships for other technical colleges and local high schools. Four Star Freightliner supports programs for homeless veterans, cancer research and children with special needs. Each location has an annual budget to support local events important to its employees and customers. “We believe we should invest our time and money in the communities in which we operate because it is so much more rewarding for our employees,” Kocan says.
The company also supports several scholarship programs, including the Zachary Sizemore Memorial Scholarship, introduced last year to honor a former employee who died of cancer. This year Kocan awarded five scholarships in the program to children of Four Star Freightliner employees.
“Those were kids I’ve known since they were five years old,” says Kocan. “I want them to feel good about where their parents work.”
Together, Kocan believes these initiatives make Four Star Freightliner the business it is today. And he wouldn’t change that for the world.
“My theory is if you treat your people well, they will treat your customers well,” he says, “and that’s what we want to do every day.”
This is the first of five profiles on our 2018 Successful Dealer Award finalists. Gordon Truck Centers will be featured the next week.
