American Truck Group, LLC Is Pleased to Offer its Support to the Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center

American Truck Group Rewards Trucker Safe Driving

American Truck Group: Making The Difference For Subprime Truck Lending

As part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s “SuperTruck” program, Volvo Group’s North American truck operations, which consist of Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks and Volvo Powertrain, will develop technologies designed to reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in freight transportation

Two areas that hold great promise for Class 8 efficiency gains are improved truck aerodynamics and energy conversion efficiency, the company said.

Peter Karlsten, Volvo Powertrain president and senior vice president of technology for the Volvo Group, said in a statement that the public-partnership “will help drive the development of technologies needed to maximize energy efficiency as we address the reality of a finite supply of petroleum-based resources.”

via Transport Topics »

American Truck Group LLC is co-sponsoring an exciting new program, similar to “a-rent-to-own” program, with Jacobson Companies of Des Moines, IA (www.jacobsonco.com). Both parties hope to eventually create hundreds of new jobs for the Transportation Industry. American Truck Group already puts 400+ owner-operators on the road a year and American Truck Group’s goal is for the owner-operator, in a short time, to own the truck outright – that’s right, they won’t have anymore payments! Jacobson Companies will be assisting qualified drivers with the initial down payment required to enter into a Truck Rental to Buy program offered by the American Truck Group.

Jacobson Companies has a history of supply chain innovation that dates back more than 40 years. Jacobson was founded by Richard Jacobson in 1968 in Des Moines, Iowa. Jacobson has grown dramatically from its initial 96,000 square foot, eight story warehouse building in Des Moines, to today include more than 35 million square feet of warehouse space in 35 states across the United States with approximately 7,000 employees. During the 1970s, warehouse facilities started to expand from Des Moines to other cities in Iowa and around the Midwest. This was just the beginning of the expansion in years to come for warehousing. Today the Jacobson Companies is the third largest trucking warehouse property owner in the United States. Warehousing has become an essential component for American manufacturers, and Jacobson has become a primary provider of services related to this business segment.

Jacobson Transportation Company was formed to serve the product shipping needs of their warehouse customers. Although it started with only two people in the office and two company drivers, today Jacobson’s Transportation Services serves 48 states and Canada. In the mid 1990s, Jacobson initiated a packaging division which was integrated with their warehousing and transportation divisions, allowing for quicker turn-around times to customers. Today, Jacobson’s expertise in packaging and manufacturing covers a variety of industries, including: food commodities of all types, beverages, general commodities (paper and plastics), electronics, pharmaceuticals, tools, hardware, lawn and garden, and toys and trinkets.

The driver shortage in the transportation industry has been estimated to exceed 200,000 by mid 2013. Unlike so many other manufacturing, customer service or telemarketing jobs, a truck driver job cannot be outsourced. The relationship between American Truck Group LLC and the Jacobson Companies will expand opportunities for owner-operators to fill this void in the United States.

When a trucking company has been able to succeed during the recent ups and downs of the economy and has been able to pay their bills on time, it says a lot about their strength. When a trucking company has also been able to properly service their fleet and maintain a good safety record as well, it may be time to explore growth opportunities. Louis J. Normand, Jr, CEO at American Truck Group pointed this out recently to his senior management and as a result they are actively expanding in order to provide such opportunities to trucking companies.

American Truck Group* is a truck dealership with a twist. Normand, through his National Truck Funding affiliate offers a simple alternative to traditional financing. The National Truck Funding program offers owner-operators and trucking companies the opportunity to add trucks to their fleet and avoid the nightmare of tons of paperwork the banks and finance companies require, where frequently there is an answer of “sorry, we just can’t make this work at this time.”

Even if the trucking company has great financial and cash in reserves, having access to an alternative program that will provide the funds for the truck expansion project is a real value. There is also an advantage that because the American Truck Group program is not financing, then there is no debt to be counted against the customer when he does need to obtain traditional financing. The American Truck Group program has no Credit Check with very little paperwork or Credit Analyst Review and no ratio requirements. There is no Credit Report run on either the individual or the company. It is truly a No Credit Check program.

The trucks that are available within the American Truck Group program are the best late model used over the road Class 8 trucks available. These include Volvo, Kenworth, Peterbilt, and Freightliner trucks. Most of the trucks are 2007 through 2011 year models. All are DOT ready and carry both the 30 day “bumper to bumper” Protection Plan as well as the 50/50 48 month Protection Plan.

Additionally, American Truck Group approves those that have tax liens or have had a bankruptcy in their recent past. Normand stresses that American Truck Group just doesn’t care about this when approving a customer. The American Truck Group program helps launch trucking businesses. Normand is proud to say this in turn helps people realize the American Dream of owning their own business. He kids that he has helped launch the careers of many “Professional Bug Killers.”

There may be no greater assault on the environment than that which is delivered by a commercial truck wash. Each day hundreds of truck washes across America, spew tens of thousands of gallons of toxic water into storm sewers, retention ponds, rivers, lakes and dwindling sources of fresh water.

In an age of wide-spread water shortages, water conservation and pollution control are growing concerns in cities across the country. Polluted by road grime, degreasers, road salts, detergents and any number of environmentally toxic chemicals, the waste water generated by truck washes has become a high priority target for new city ordinances and regulations.

This was a lesson quickly learned by Louis Normand, CEO of Pro Wash Systems, when he first looked into building a commercial truck wash. The current regulations he faced were substantial and the trend toward even greater regulation was growing. Future regulatory hurdle promised to be daunting and inhibitive to the task of building a truck wash.

But, instead of giving up on plans for a truck wash built on site with American Truck Group’s large truck dealership, Normand embraced the challenge to build the ultimate green truck wash. One that not only cleans trucks but cleans the environment too.

The beginning concepts were simple. Don’t use chemicals to clean trucks, recycle and conserve as much used water as possible and then capture any solid road toxins harvested in the truck wash process and rid the environment of them once and for all.

The result? Overwhelming city approval and sate-wide acclaim from the governor, clean water laboratories and the educational community. Simple concepts have turned into multiple patents pending and state-of-the-art technology. Pro-Wash Systems may be the cleanest greenest operating truck wash in the world.

“Despite the near-term infrastructure questions regarding widespread adoption of natural gas as a heavy-duty truck fuel, it’s clear this segment will grow over the next several years,” says Ron Huibers, president of Volvo Trucks North American Sales & Marketing. “We’re already delivering factory-built CNG-powered trucks, and as the long-haul fueling infrastructure develops, the advanced technology in our new LNG engine will provide increased range and improved fuel efficiency in a seamlessly integrated Volvo powertrain.”

Blue Power:  LNG for the Demanding Long Haul — Through advanced high pressure diesel ignition technology — using trace amounts of diesel to ignite the natural gas — Volvo’s LNG engine will deliver a 30 percent fuel efficiency improvement compared with spark-ignition (SI) engines, making it a viable alternative for demanding long-haul applications, according to the company. The Volvo 13-liter LNG engine will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 20 percent compared with current diesel products, Volvo says.

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