Gamble pays off for truck driver

Scripps Howard News Service
With photo/graphic: SH07F282TRUCKGAMBLE
By JANE ROBERTS
Scripps Howard News Service

MEMPHIS, Tenn. _ Richard Sweebe came to Memphis on a personal dare in 1982 as partial owner of the International Harvester truck dealership.
He kids no one when he says the $26,000 he could scrape together at 32 bought less than 5 percent of what was then a company factory store on Brooks Road.
"I had never been to Memphis," said Sweebe, who then was an International district manager for Ohio, West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. "But I knew I wanted to be a dealer."
Twenty-five years later, parent Diamond Cos. -- of which Sweebe is president and chief executive -- is the largest private owner of International dealership locations in the country.
It has showrooms and service centers in 17 locations across Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri and Kansas and is preparing a company anniversary bash in late July at Graceland that may be the only time a semi-trailer's been parked in the famous drive.
Sweebe's buddies at International -- now Navistar -- illustrated the choice with a gambling analogy. Sweebe, they said, could go to Bowling Green, Ky., where there was also a company store for sale, or go for broke in Memphis, a bigger town on the crossroads of some of the densest truck traffic in the nation.
"Bowling Green was the $5 table. Memphis was the $50 table," said Sweebe, who had worked 10 years for International and knew what made a good dealership run smoothly.
As a farm boy from Ohio, he also knew hard work and risk, and the often inverse relationship between the two. What he didn't know was that he was about to catch the tailwind of rapid expansion at M.S. Carriers and FedEx Corp.
By 1987, he owned 37 percent of the dealership and was ready to buy the rest.
His strategy is simple: "We want to compete with our competitors' dealers, not our own."
Today, his holdings on East Brooks Road alone stand as testament to the American dream. Not only does he hold title as the longest-running single owner of a truck dealership in Memphis, but his leaps into larger and more intense enterprises moved up Brooks Road like kids' growth spurts notched in the kitchen door.
At 1750 Brooks is the dealership, specializing in mid- and heavy-duty truck sales and service.
Diamond Idealease, the truck rental business Sweebe established in 1983, is based at 1850 E. Brooks. At 1940 E. Brooks is the corporate headquarters for Diamond Cos., which employs 600 people and last year had sales approaching $300 million.
"Richard is one of our key guys," said Roy Wiley, Navistar spokesman. "When we have national media doing features on the company, his is one of the names I give them. Richard knows the company, has a great reputation, runs quality dealerships and sells a lot of trucks."
At more than 100 years old, International is the oldest truck manufacturer in the country. Today, it also controls 65 percent of the school bus market nationwide and makes 300,000 diesel engines a year for Ford's F250 pickup.
It is also the largest combined manufacturer of large commercial trucks and diesel engines, and has about 350 dealerships in 1,000 locations.
But 25 years ago, it was suffering with the rest of the nation under 20 percent interest rates.
The company thought it could make a go of it if it sold off its company stores. It set up a financial partnership with people it considered trustworthy partners.
Sweebe saw a chance, applied and packed up his family for Memphis, where he knew no one.
"All anyone can ask for is a chance," he says. The package gave him an opportunity to run his own dealership, with locations on East Brooks and Third Street.
Since, he's built a four-state territory by strategically buying dealerships as they came available. He expanded outside Memphis for the first time in 1995 with stores in Little Rock and Pine Bluff, Ark. In 1996, he added Russellville and Lowell, Ark.
In 1999, he bought the Kansas City dealership, which also gave him locations -- nearly overnight -- in St. Joseph, Springfield, Joplin, Mo., and Topeka, Kan.
He's not done growing here or in the region.
"I'm still only 57. I've got a lot of useful life left in me."

(Contact Jane Roberts of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at www.commercialappeal.com.)