MEMBER SPOTLIGHT Dick Hauptman Kenworth of Lincoln


By eriC FranCiS Contributing Writer


Back in 1958, a farm boy named Dick


Hauptman from outside Nebraska City was romancing a gal he’d met named Judy Lytle. Te next year her father, naturally concerned about a potential son-in-law having good prospects, suggested to young Dick that he come up to Omaha and work at a new business he was starting. “I said, ‘I ain’t never been to Omaha,’”


recalls Hauptman today. “And he said they were going to get a building and have a Kenworth shop. And I said, ‘What’s a Kenworth?’” For anyone who’s bought a truck or 20 from


Hauptman, that might be hard to conceive. But everybody’s got to start somewhere, and for Hauptman both the job – and the marriage – have been around for 55 years. Hauptman started in service and learned


quite a bit about trucks while packing bearings and fixing lights. Around 1962 he was brought into parts by Frank Carpenter, who taught him even more; Hauptman stayed there until 1970, eventually becoming parts manager. It was around then his boss – not his father-in- law, who’d gone broke back in ’59 and sold the business to the Kenworth factory – suggested that Hauptman try his hand at sales. His immediate reaction was disbelief. “I told him, ‘I can’t sell trucks!’” Hauptman


said. “And he said, ‘I don’t want you to sell them, I just want you to tell people about them. If they want them, they’ll buy them.” And that’s exactly what he does to this


day: He tells people about Kenworth trucks. And they do, indeed, buy them; one at a time, initially, but gradually growing their orders as they grew their businesses – names like Hill


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Brothers and Morehouse Truck Lines. “I’ve got four or five customers left I sold


single trucks to in 1970,” said Hauptman. “Now one’s got 300, another 150, and another about 100.” To his regret, one thing Hauptman hasn’t


done over the years is keep a running tally of his sales. But he says that’s not really a big deal. “If you got it sold, you got it sold – there’s


no hoohah about stuff,” he said. “If he’s happy, he told somebody else, and somebody else told somebody else.” To the best of his recollection, Hauptman


sold 10 or 15 trucks his first year. In his best years that rose to 200 or 250, while it was far below half that in the worst years from 2008 to 2010. Tese days, somewhere around 100 is probably his average annual sales. “I don’t have a lot of large fleets,” he said.


“Most of them are one truck, or 20 to 30 trucks. I just talk to them about trucks and they buy them.” And when he talks to people, he makes


friends with them. Tose friendships have become the best part of the business for Hauptman. “Every day something new comes up, you


never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Tat’s what keeps me going. I’m an early riser, I get up every morning at 5 or 5:30 a.m. and down here at 6:30 or 7. Some days are long days, some days are not.” Some of his more difficult years have been


recent ones, since Kenworth came out with some trucks that didn’t perform up to their past standard. “If there’s anything I don’t like about my


job, it’s trying to help these people with all the problems they have with stuff that I sell them that doesn’t work properly,” Hauptman


hauptman


said, minus a salty word or two he used for emphasis. “If you spend $130,000 for a truck, you expect it to do something. Te old ones did, up to ’07, but we haven’t had good luck the last 8 or 9 years.” Still, he simply falls back on his own


motto: To treat people the way he’d want to be treated. And that’s why he won’t give up on making things right for his customers. In his free time, Hauptman turns back to


his own roots: He bought his family’s old farm and raises corn and beans there on about 500 acres. He had a John Deere dealership on the side in Plattsmouth, which the family sold after 19 years, and he’s still got a soft spot for tractors and combines – in fact, he’d rather drive a combine than a semi any day. “If somebody wants to drive my trucks,


then get in there and drive ‘em,” he said with a laugh. With four kids and 13 grandkids living in


and around Omaha, he and Judy spend lots of time with family, including trips to Branson, Missouri. But while at 73 years of age he could see himself doing more farming and less selling, Hauptman isn’t ready to hang it up yet. Tough the thought has crossed his mind. “Yep, I gotta find somebody to replace me,”


he said. “My son started working for Kenworth in Lincoln a year and a half ago and they want him to take over for me. I suppose that’s going to happen one of these days, but I’m not really ready to hang it up anytime.” Besides, for all that trucks and regulations


and the industry have changed over the years, one thing is still the same as far as Hauptman is concerned: Selling. “It’s just like I said – I just help you get


what you want.” nt NEBRASKA TRUCKER — ISSUE 2, 2014 — www.nebtrucking.com


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