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Four Star’s Montgomery team, from left, JB Edwards, Amanda Granger, Jim Kim, Mike Ellifritz, Suzy Herring, Courtney Riddle, Chad Norris, Tony Snead, Scott Dixon, Jerry Kocan, Demichael McKee, David Turner, Joel Love, Judson Coburn, Otis Davis and Scott Stephens
Four Star Freightliner wins national trade magazine’s top award The dealership was selected for investments in employee education and development, community activism and support of the dealer market and trucking industry. MONTGOMERY, Ala. our Star Freightliner was recently given the 2018 Successful Dealer Award by Successful Dealer magazine, a trade journal published monthly by Randall-Reilly for truck dealers, service departments and parts distributors. Editor Lucas Deal, along with award sponsor reps from Automann, Premium 2000/National Truck Protection and Interstate Billing, presented Four Star Freightliner president Jerry Kocan the award at the 2018 Randall Reilly R-Squared Marketing Summit in Tuscaloosa, Ala. last October. Four Star Freightliner earned this year’s award after being a finalist for the first time in 2017. Founded through the merging of Freightliner of Montgomery and Freightliner of Dothan in 2000, Four Star Freightliner has grown into a six-location dealer group serving customers throughout Alabama, Georgia and the Florida panhandle. Elite Support certified by Freightliner at all locations. Four Star also sells Western Star and Fuso trucks and is a NationaLease partner. “It is humbling just to be nominated – it really is,” says Kocan. “We started out from two little stores in Alabama to receive recognition with dealers who are much bigger than we are. I take it as a compliment
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to my people and what they have done.” Four Star Freightliner was selected from a list of finalist candidates due to its investments in employee education and development, community activism and support of the dealer market and trucking industry at large. The dealership group donates heavily to technical education, providing scholarship funds, training materials and curriculum guidance to multiple regional programs. Four Star Freightliner also supports regional programs that assists veterans who are at risk of becoming homeless or who are currently homeless to provide housing and career opportunities. Coupled with the company’s Zachary Sizemore memorial scholarship – named for a former employee who died from cancer at age 32 – Kocan and the Four Star Freightliner team continues to invest heavily in their employees and their community. “We believe it is important that we invest in the communities in which we operate because that’s where our people are and that’s where our customers are,” says Kocan. “It is so much more rewarding to our employees.” Kocan tries to reward them in turn with an engaging and inviting corporate culture that encourages employee commitment, rewards strong work ethic and promotes in-
ternal career path development. “My theory is if you treat your people well, they will treat your customers well, and that’s what we want to do every day,” he says. Four Star Freightliner joins TEC Equipment (2013), Truck Centers Inc. (2014), Freightliner of St. Cloud (2015), River States Truck and Trailer (2016) and Inland Kenworth (2017) as the sixth winner of the Successful Dealer Award. Other finalists this year included past winner River States Truck and Trailer, as well as Gordon Truck Centers, The Larson Group and Truckworx Kenworth.
Jerry Kocan A LABAMA T RUCKER • 4 TH Q UARTER 2018