CONGRATULATIONS

New West Truck Centres on 15 years of business relation!

It is a remarkable milestone that speaks volumes about our commitment to maintaining long-term partnerships and our ability to navigate the ups and downs of the business world. Our dedication to building strong relationships and providing excellent service has undoubtedly been a key factor in our success together. It has been an honor to work with New West Freightliner and to be a part of the journey over the past 15 years.

New West Freightliner’s unwavering commitment to forging strong and lasting relationships with customers and suppliers alike has resulted in a culture, where everyone at the company considers us as their valued friend and partner.

We look forward to many more years of collaboration and growth together.

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“The survive mode was the first few years trying to scrape by, and then we had a drive phase where we started to actually measure things like metrics and key indicators about whether or not we were proficient, and now it’s the thrive phase,” he says.

And the company is definitely thriving. Stahl nurtured it from the start, adding fertilizer and water so he could reap the harvest down the road as the company grew.

“Greg has reinvested everything back into the company,” says Adam Asplund, president of New West Truck Centres. “He has been willing to take risks so we were able to grow segments that never would have grown. Not everybody would have been that aggressive in those start up days.”

He was equally aggressive with building the reputation of the company. The team got to know the customer base well and implemented ways to better meet their needs, all the while broadening the company’s scope and reach. After five years in the business, New West joined the Elite Support program and five of its current locations are certified with that program with plans to have all eight on board this year. Daimler Trucks North America’s collaborative program focuses on improving the customer experience at dealerships by delivering fast diagnostics, rapid turnaround and effective communication. With 330 dealerships under the Elite Support umbrella, New West’s clients benefit from that network of professionals across the U.S. and Canada.

Now after 15 years in the market, New West Truck Centres and its unparalleled leadership team have earned a stellar reputation for their commitment to quality and service and NWTC has become a trusted leader in the industry.

Building Strong Leadership

Stahl knew he needed to surround himself with the best people to be successful. Since day one, he’s relied on his vice president of sales, Bryan Hutchinson, to help him build the company. Then the addition of Adam Asplund, who is now New West Truck Centre’s president, nine years ago really set in motion the changes that needed to occur to get where they wanted to go.

“Adam was the catalyst for inspiring amazing growth within the company and building a cohesive senior team,” says Stahl.

The leadership team is rounded out by vice president Manny Sidhu, director of Parts Dean Pavlik, chief financial officer Dave Aikenhead and director of Corporate Services Bronaugh Curley. This collaborative group represents a merger of complementary skillsets to create an effective team that’s perfectly aligned with the company’s mission and culture. The norm is to promote from within to fill managerial and ultimately executive leadership positions whenever possible, so everyone in the room believes in the vision completely and is dedicated to bringing that vision to life.

“The nice thing about promoting these people internally to leadership positions is we know they are part of the culture, and we know that we’re not bringing someone in who is going to change that culture or who doesn’t fit. It’s so important,” says Dean Pavlik.

It is no surprise that most of the senior leadership team also worked their way up in the company and are proof that hard work, drive and a great attitude pays off. While the majority of the senior team has been with New West for more than five years, Dave Aikenhead is coming up on his one-year anniversary as CFO and is the rare example around the table of an outside hire. He fit in well from the start and he felt the difference between New West and previous employers right away.

“When I met with Adam and Greg and the rest of the leadership team, I felt that I was coming to a place where my opinions would be valued and that I would be part of the strategy,” Aikenhead says. “In finance sometimes you get shuffled off to the side and told ‘you deal with the dollars, we’ll do the rest.’ I didn’t get that sense from them. I’ve worked for 10 organizations and it’s not that common.”

That’s fitting, as New West is anything but common. The leadership team is driven to succeed and grow the company in a thoughtful, caring way that elevates people over profit. The past 15 years are the proof that this philosophy is a successful one.

TAKING P.R.I.D.E. IN THE BUSINESS

The entire team at NWTC has been carefully curated to ensure the positive, collaborative culture Stahl envisioned when he started is embraced and protected. The values of the company inform everything employees do every day, and a “we not me” attitude is something that is preached from the top down. In the early days, Stahl did the hard work of digging into exactly what he wanted from the company and how he wanted to achieve his goals, and he came up with the acronym P.R.I.D.E. to express his expectations for himself and his team: Professionalism, Responsiveness, Integrity, Dedication and Energy.

New West operates in a professional environment where the team finds innovative solutions for clients and staff is responsive, always answering the phone and responding quickly to clients. The team acts with integrity, doing the right thing even when no one is watching, is dedicated to providing the best possible service and brings energy and a positive attitude to the work every day to ensure clients have a great experience. Through the application of P.R.I.D.E., employees feel connected and invested in the company’s success, which in turn elevates the customer service levels to create strong connections with clients.

“New West has been and continues to be industry leaders in employee and customer satisfaction. We take great pride in building long-term relationships with our customers and employees,” says Bryan Hutchinson.

The leadership team is meeting with a professional facilitator to revisit and finetune its core values to ensure the company is best equipped to continue on its current trajectory and maintain those high levels of service and satisfaction.

“It’s the little things that make a big difference,” says Stahl, and that difference has helped facilitate the incredible growth of the company.

A Focus On Growth

Stahl’s vision has always been set firmly on growth and it started with a name change. He saw his as a company with no boundaries that would be built on the strength of the team operating it, not any one individual. He didn’t want to name the company after himself, as he intends to have the dealership live on long after he’s gone. With a new name but the same strong relationship with Freightliner and other manufacturers, Stahl set out to have New West Truck Centres be the go-to company for the gamut of truck, service and parts needs across the region.

“I wanted to be beyond the envelop of Southern Alberta and really open it up to a broader potential market. We talk about our goals, and originally it was 20 rooftops in 10 years. That’s our current BHAG,” he says.

Congratulations to Greg, Adam and your team for 15 years in business!

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New West is well on its way, and that goal isn’t nearly as audacious as it seemed when the team was sitting around the boardroom articulating their vision for the company. On top of its Calgary head office and body shop, New West has locations in Red Deer, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat as well as its first British Columbia branch in Cranbrook and a brand-new location in Balzac.

The company is nimble, and its quick decision-making leads to great value for clients. The new Balzac location is a great example. That location came to fruition after a discussion about the millions of square feet of warehousing that had been built north of Calgary because of the airport’s expansion to include a runway accommodating massive cargo planes. As more of New West’s customer base was relocating to Balzac, the team identified the value of a parts and service outlet there to make it more convenient for those clients to come see them. They had the real estate agent on the phone that afternoon and established its Balzac location shortly after.

“We’ve been growing so fast that it has forced us to be more disciplined with our strategic planning. We are spending more time around the table having thoughtful discussions about strategic planning so we can map our future, because we do have big plans,” says Asplund. Those plans include opening a new body shop to better accommodate the company’s increased workload. NWTC opened the current body shop across the street from the head office in September 2019 and they quickly outgrew the space. The team found a new space down the street and is in the process of developing a state-of-the-art 25,000-square-foot shop that will have everything required to complete body work for clients, from new paint to frame straightening. New West will double its current body shop staff of 15 in the new space, and the old location will be converted into a pre-delivery inspection centre for New West’s trucking products. The leadership team is always looking for ways to improve efficiencies in the business in order to provide the best services to its client base.

What New West Truck Centres Does Best

Clients appreciate the expertise of a full-service heavy duty truck dealership that specializes in new and used truck sales, has a comprehensive parts department and performs collision repair and service for all models and types of heavy vehicles. The licensed technicians have the experience to do almost anything a customer could want onsite, whether that is a custom paint job or a total engine overhaul and anything in between.

On the sales side, NWTC’s main segment is truckload carriers, but the company also meets the needs of clients operating with any vocational application including dump trucks, utility service vehicles, refuse, hydrovac, highrail, cement mixing trucks and pick-up and delivery vehicles. The company has a great relationship with Daimler Truck Financial and can offer clients incredible financing and leasing options to make it easier for them to get behind the wheel of a NWTC vehicle.

The company stocks heavy trucks from the best manufacturers in the business including Freightliner, Autocar and SportChassis, and before COVID ushered in supply chain issues, New West was one of the largest stocking dealers in Canada; the team intends to get back to that level as supply chain challenges abate. While customers can see the inventory that’s in stock online, most prefer to work directly with the knowledgeable NWTC sales professionals who understand the intricacies of these sophisticated products and can find them the perfect piece of equipment for their business. Whether the client is new or a long-time partner, a major player in the industry or a modest operation, New West makes each one feel valued.

“We serve a broad client base, from large companies to a one- or two-truck operator. It doesn’t matter the size of the customer, we give them the level of care and attention that every customer deserves,” says Stahl.

The team understands that a client’s truck is their revenue stream. At New West, the sales professionals go above and beyond to ensure that they deliver products quickly to get that truck on the road and that the shop performs efficient service and repairs to minimize downtime that eats into the client’s bottom line. Organization wide, the sales and shop teams have the knowledge and experience to deliver superior results.