Word: ryder
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...founder and chairman of Jartran Inc., the U.S.'s newest truck rental company, constantly complains about "those damn Ryder people." That is hardly surprising because Ryder System Inc. is the nation's largest truck-leasing firm. But the grumbling executive is none other than James A. Ryder, 67, who founded Ryder in 1934 with a $35 down payment on a $200 secondhand Model A Ford truck...
...Ryder controlled the firm that bears his name until 1974, when a series of business setbacks led to a boardroom coup. In that recession year, Ryder System lost a record $20 million, and some analysts blamed James Ryder's overeager expansion of the firm. At the company's Miami headquarters there was also grousing about Ryder's turbulent working and personal habits. Finally, in 1975, the board of directors brought in Leslie O. Barnes, then president of Allegheny Airlines, to be Ryder System's chief executive. James Ryder was given the title of chairman...
Most sexagenarians would have quietly accepted the sinecure, which carried a lifetime annual pension of $100,000. But idleness was inconceivable to the scrappy Ryder, who still does 50 push-ups before breakfast, despises losing a badminton match and has a third wife 27 years his junior. Says he: "I'm sort of a rough person. I like rough things. Concrete, steel, debris, cast-iron pipes. I always liked working, and I just couldn't get used to working for somebody else, I guess...
...Ryder decided to start up another firm to rival his own. Using $5 million of his own money and a fleet of trucks assembled on credit from Ford, Chrysler and Fruehauf, he launched Jartran (an acronym for James A. Ryder Transportation) in Coral Gables, Fla., under the noses of his former colleagues...
...trucks and trailers and 2,200 independent dealers in the 48 mainland states. The waiting list for dealerships numbers 1,800. Though start-up costs have precluded any profits so far, Jartran expects revenues this year to reach close to $100 million. That is still only a fraction of Ryder System's $1.8 billion...