The story of Gordon Truck Centers begins across the street. Literally.
The company known today as Gordon Truck Centers (GTC) was founded in 1986 as Valley Freightliner, a single-dealer location opened to serve the greater Seattle-Tacoma region and one customer in particular, next-door neighbor Gordon Trucking Inc. (GTI).
Both owned by the Larry and Virginia Gordon family, Valley Freightliner and GTI enjoyed one of the most successful partnerships in the dealer channel for nearly three decades. On the dealer side of the street, Valley Freightliner’s success serving GTI was observed throughout the region and over time the facility grew its operational capabilities and customer base. A second location was added in Mount Vernon, Wash., in 1999, with a third following in Olympia, Wash., in 2013.
Business was strong at GTI, as well. Thanks to the relationship between the operations, the dealership says it provided GTI a “great opportunity as a ‘lab’ to try new innovations … and give feedback to the dealership about best practices.”
The Gordon family would eventually sell GTI to Heartland Express in 2013, but the decision to exit the carrier community was not the end of the family’s strong run of transportation industry success.
Since selling its trucking company and dedicating its resources entirely to the dealer channel, the Gordon family has quadrupled the size of its dealer business. Nine locations were added through three acquisitions in 2015 and two years later the various operations were united under the Gordon Truck Centers banner. Today, GTC operates 10 Freightliner Northwest locations across Washington and Oregon, a Western Star Northwest facility in Ridgefield, Wash., and Freightliner of Hawaii in Kapolei, Hawaii. The company employees nearly 600 people and, for the first time, is a finalist for the Successful Dealer Award in 2018.
Pat Gendreau, chief operations officer at GTC, says this year’s award nomination is validation of a leadership strategy the Gordon family has used for decades. Both GTI and GTC are strong believers in corporate culture. The better employees communicate and cooperate, the better experience they can provide for their customers. And in an industry like this one, he says customer service is everything.
“One of the things that makes us unique is many of our people came over to this business from the fleet side,” says Gendreau, who has more than 25 years of experience between GTI and GTC. “From a customer empathy standpoint, we relate to what our customers are going through. We’ve been in their shoes and we know what they need.”
Similar to the aforementioned best practices, many of GTC’s most valuable customer initiatives have roots in its carrier partnership past. GTC’s sales and service associates are required to complete all training offered by Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) and select third-party courses the company deems appropriate. Nine of the businesses are DTNA Elite Support certified and the remaining trio are scheduled to achieve certification later this year.
When it comes to daily operations, Marketing Manager Haley Becklund says the GTC dealer family is focused on “quality, professionalism, service and complementing the brands we represent to the best of our ability in every way.” In addition to Freightliner and Western Star, the GTC dealer family also sells Fuso trucks, is an authorized Detroit and Cummins engine distributor and sells new and used trailers. In its service department, GTC supplements its drive-in service with body shops, towing and roadside services.
Though it doesn’t currently have a lease or rental fleet, Gendreau says “at some point [GTC] will get into the lease/rental business.” And when it does, the business will have many experienced fleet professionals to rely on. But GTC’s knowledge of fleet operations doesn’t mean the company is unfamiliar with the dealer business. Gendreau says the company also retained nearly all of the employees it added during its acquisition period in 2015. The result is a veteran team with decades of transportation industry experience and long-standing customer relationships. When GTC refers to itself as a dealer family, it means it.
“We talk a lot about our employment brand. What is the value of coming to work for us?” says Gendreau. “We believe this is a place where you can spend your career. Where you can come and grow and move up the company ladder.”
It’s also a place where employees can give back. Gendreau says each GTC location chooses how it supports its community and today the dealer group has existing relationships with community centers, youth organizations, school districts, holiday charitable causes and other civic organizations throughout its network. It has developed a two-year renewable scholarship “designed to support future diesel technicians with tuition in a qualified diesel program,” Becklund says, and is active in donating funds and equipment to area technical programs.
“We want to take care of everyone,” says Gendreau.
This is the second of five profiles on our 2018 Successful Dealer Award finalists. Four Star Freightliner was featured last week; The Larson Group will be featured the next week.
