Page 26 - ATR 6 2015 web 2

Todd’s partner and son of Larry way up from salesman to running the ness and his very first job right out of
Vassar, Rick also remembers Todd as Little Rock region, and Larry and his college for Lufkin Trailers in Memphis.
the guy his dad threw out of the office. son Rick were just customers. When Todd came to Rick and Larry
“The first day that Todd went in there, When news leaked in 2006 that with a dealership opportunity, Rick
he gave me his business card and said, the Barloworld owners were looking to didn’t hesitate.
I want to talk to Larry Vassar. My dad sell and get out of the country, Todd “We said, ‘Why not?’” Rick recalls.
said, ‘What are you doing here? I didn’t approached his customer with a busi- Now with two children, a son and
call you. I don’t need to see you.’ ness proposition. daughter, in college at his and his wife’s
“From that day, Todd kept call- “He came by that very afternoon or alma mater, the University of Arkansas,
ing and coming over. Finally one day, the week they made the announcement. he can look back with confidence in the
my dad called him out of the blue and “He was making one of his routine move.
said, ‘hey, we need some trucks.’ And he calls one day, and said, ‘Hey, they’ve The mail business was still steady,
stayed after it and developed that rela- announced they are putting the dealer- but slowly starting to decline. Rick says,
tionship.” ship up for sale. Would you be inter- the opportunity wasn’t as good as run-
Had he not stayed after it, Truck ested in it?’ ning his own dealership.
Centers of Arkansas, one of the largest Rick’s father Larry, a Mississippi “So I said, ‘let’s try this. Let’s make
dealership in the state, might have never man, moved to Arkansas in the early a run at it.’ That was in January 2007,
been. 70s when some mail contracts for his and so we put a bid together,” Rick
mail trucking business were changing. explains. The Barloworld owners had
tAkIng oVer truck centers Rick was only three years old then, and wanted to sell everything — all 11 loca-
of ArkAnsAs excepting a couple of semesters at Ole tions. “Their idea was to get out, and
What is now Truck Centers of Miss when he had to “get away and see they wanted somebody to come in and
Arkansas was once Barloworld with what it’s like out there,” he’s been in the buy all of them, have something rela-
11 locations in Oklahoma, Arkansas, region his whole life. Transportation has tively easy with one purchase agreement
Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas in the always been part of his story, reaching and one check. Get it gone, because
90s and early 00s. Todd had worked his back to his dad’s mail contracting busi- they had a deadline when they were

26 ArkAnsAs truckIng rePort | Issue 6 2015