RIGGED AND READY FOR THE NEXT 15

BY RENNAY CRAATS

Every kid loves a big truck, but very few get to grow up and work with them every day. Greg Stahl learned about trucks – and business – on his father’s shop floor in Edmonton and after college his love for trucks took him throughout the United States working with huge players in the industry including Cummins, Freightliner and Detroit Diesel. Then he returned to Alberta and entered the market here with the acquisition of the Southern Alberta Freightliner dealers Calgary Freightliner and Lethbridge Freightliner in 2008.

Stahl was eager to build the business and envisioned the limitless range of his new enterprise. As he introduced his company, renamed New West Truck Centres, to the market, he set out to put together an incredible team to help him soar in the booming economy. But as is all too common in Alberta, that boom turned bust not long after Stahl took over.

“I picked a hell of a time to buy a truck dealer: oil was at $145 a barrel and then it tanked to $28 a barrel less than six months later. We were in a facility that we had already outgrown and our customer base was fairly impatient about the service levels we were able to give out of a smaller facility,” says Greg Stahl, owner and CEO of New West Truck Centres (NWTC).

Despite the challenges, Stahl hunkered down and used the first two years to fix the things that were broken, bring people on board to create the kind of management team that he wanted, and then build onto that strong foundation to make NWTC a force in the industry.