At a news conference held last week in Houston to celebrate the selling of its 1,000th Hino truck, Rusty Rush, president & CEO of Rush Enterprises, announced the addition of Rush Truck Centers latest location in El Paso, TX. But as routine as the announcement was, it points to how strong the Rush Truck Centers brand is as it gets ready to mark its 45th anniversary on March 3.

“Fitting that we are here in Houston as it was here where we [three partners and I] established our first dealer location in 1965,” Rush Enterprises  chairman Marvin Rush told the media at the event. “Houston was a major cross road for East-West traffic. The truck business was in its infancy [with] many small, fragmented dealers spread around the country. But what set us apart was our vision to build a network of dealerships in the Southern Belt that would not just sell, but also lease and service trucks.”

The company made its first 100-truck sale, of Peterbilts, in 1967. That year also marked the beginning of a leasing company and a finance and insurance business. Son Rusty joined the organization in the 1970s and a goal was eventually set. “By 1992, we established a goal to reach $1 billion in sales and the vision to build a contiguous network of full service dealerships that spanned from coast to coast across the southern U.S.,” Marvin Rush said. “We continued to acquire dealerships in the Southern Belt, becoming the largest Class 8 truck dealer in the country in the years that followed.”

By 1996, the company had gone public, raising millions more in cash to help fuel expansion.

“After going public, we knew diversity would be key to maintaining the profitability during economy and industry cycles,” Marvin Rush said.

Now, Rush Enterprises is not so little, with sales surpassing $1.2 billion a year, more than 50 truck locations, 2,400-plus employees and a myriad of businesses, including their own aftermarket parts line, Rig Tough Truck Parts. In addition, there are leasing, insurance, and finance businesses as well as World Wide Tires and Chrome Country.

But the center of the company has remained Rush Truck Centers.  To sustain growth, though, Rush had to diversify.  Now, a customer can find almost any make, model or class of truck at one of Rush’s dealerships.