J
im Moss didn't set out to be a
trailblazer.
Looking back now, Moss says
he didn't set out to be a publisher, either.
He planned to be a salesman like his
father before him.
But as he's since learned, life doesn't
always go perfectly according to plan.
Jim Moss entered the trucking indus-
try as a fl eet magazine sales representa-
tive in the 1950s. Active in the industry
from the start, Moss looks back at those
early years as the springboard to his
eventual aftermarket career.
"I was going out and talking to a lot of
truck fl eets and manufacturers, but I also
started meeting a lot of people who were
in the trucking industry but weren't em-
ployees of either of those other groups,"
Moss recalls. "And I started meeting a
lot of distributors of whom I was not
familiar … So I went back to [my boss]
and told him I had stumbled across
something. A breed of parts distributors
I didn't even know existed."
Those distributors, as you may have
guessed, were the early members of the
heavy-duty independent aftermarket.
Moss says it didn't take long once
he met one distributor to meet a pile
of them, and by then, he says it was
clear the magazine he was working for
24
CVSN President's Award
T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E | S e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 5
By Lucas Deal, Editor
lucasdeal@randallreilly.com
I'm obviously very honored. Recognizing
me is to recognize that this industry has a
past, and that there are a lot of people that
helped it become what it is now.
– Jim Moss, founder of Truck Parts & Service
Jim Moss (right) with former Motor & Equipment
Manufacturers Association President Bob McKenna at an
earlier Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week. Moss was one of
several industry members that helped create HDAW.
A career
worth
honoring
Truck Parts & Service founder
earns CVSN's President's Award
