A new boss can drive employees to distraction. Thomas Thayer admits he may have done just that. About three years ago he left a job in Atlanta managing sales in a 10-state region for International Truck and bought a Richmond-based dealership, Dolan International.

Offering truck-fleet owners "total transportation solutions" helped Thomas Thayer build his Richmond-based business to more than $81 million in revenues in 1999. Photo by Mark Rhodes

Thayer proceeded to put his own stamp on the company. First he changed the company’s name to International Truck Sales of Richmond. Then he revamped the company’s business plan to push for more revenue in service and support for the company’s big customers, which include some of the Richmond area’s major truck fleets. "We’ve basically changed our business model to focus on the long-term needs of our business customers," he says. "We’ve gone away from, ‘Here’s your truck, here’s your price,’ to providing the whole myriad of services."

At times, the pace of change may have been a bit of a strain for the employees. "I think my team is tired of me pitching" new ideas, Thayer says. Yet, doing so has paid off. The company won the award this year for the highest overall revenue based on information it disclosed for purposes of the contest, but not for publication. "I’ve got a good group of employees that look at me and shake their heads but they’re still there to support me," Thayer says. "You can’t do it alone."

Another strategy that has worked is tapping into a growing interest among big-fleet owners to pay someone else to keep their fleets running. His business has a body shop and a frame and alignment shop and takes an active approach in marketing them. "We’ll go to customers and say, ‘We need to help put you on prevention maintenance schedules,’ because downtime in the trucking industry will kill them," Thayer says. Some customers just want a reminder when service is needed; others pay the company to make sure their fleet stays in service, which includes providing substitute equipment when needed.

To take fuller advantage of the trend, Thayer opened a full-term lease and rental company called Ideal Lease of Richmond, a wholly owned division of International Truck Sales. It is also part of a national co-op of leasing companies. The company has done extremely well, handling fleet maintenance for companies such as Office Max and Nabisco, Thayer says. In some instances, Thayer’s leasing company’s employees have gone in and taken over the parts departments of major customers.

The company’s recent growth as been fueled as well by the Richmond area’s healthy economy. Major customers include Estes Express, Performance Food Group and Dominion Virginia Power, among others. The company’s revenues more than doubled from 1996 to 1998. Growth slowed in 2000 but still falls within a 10 percent to 20 percent range, Thayer says.

The company’s 70 employees have weathered the changes of the past few years, but they haven’t seen the end of it. Thayer promises to reinvent the business again as the marketplace demands. "I get bored very easy," he says. "Four years from now we’ll probably be doing things differently again."