ATD President Jacqueline Gelb presents Truckworx Kenworth CEO Will Bruser with the 2025 ATD Truck Dealer of the Year award. (American Truck Dealers)

American Truck Dealers honored Truckworx Kenworth CEO Will Bruser with its 2025 Truck Dealer of the Year award at its ATD Show 2025 in New Orleans. The award recognizes commercial-truck dealers for business performance, industry leadership and service to their community.

Bruser joined the company in 2004, and worked his way through the ranks until being named president in 2012. He bought the dealership group outright in 2021.

Bruser said since taking the reins he has focused on elevating the company’s network, as well as its people.

“I became the president and really wanted to focus on operations and focus on our branding,” he said. “I would be in meetings with customers and they’d say, ‘I’m in Dothan, and I’m broke down up in Huntsville, but I don’t know that dealer.’ I’m like, ‘That’s us.’ It hit me that we needed to rebrand, and have one brand and one name.”

Truckworx has grown to 21 locations and more than 600 employees across Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, and Bruser believes the award is a reflection of the good work his team is doing across this network.

“I think winning the award is a reflection of everything they do every day, and it’s such an honor, not just for me,” he said. “We changed our mission statement back in 2012 when I became the president, and just made it very clear that we were going to do what’s right for the right reasons — for our employees, our customers, our vendors and our company. The last decade we have proved that the team is doing that.”

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Bruser shared that it was former ATD Chairwoman Jodie Teuton, currently dealer principal at Kenworth of Louisiana, who advanced his name for the award.

“She called me up one day, probably about six months ago, and said, ‘Will, I really want to nominate you for this award,’ ” Bruser recalled. “I said, OK, that’s fine, never done that before. Then they sent a packet with a bunch of questions about the business, about how you got started, about your culture — just a little bit about everything.”

The responses Bruser and other nominees submitted for evaluation were reviewed by a panel of judges from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. These judges would eventually select six finalists from a pool of contenders that all were nominated by dealer association leaders.

ATD ensures the judges act independently so they arrive at a unbiased assessment, said current ATD Chairman Scott Pearson.

“They’re not connected to us in any way,” he said. “They’re very diplomatic and diligent about how they do their review and look at the information presented to come up with who they view as the overall winner.”

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Pearson added that handing the responsibility over to people outside of the industry ensures a fair approach.

“We want that very nonbiased, nonpartisan view of who should be selected, because then that really says that’s someone very deserving,” Pearson said. “I think that’s absolutely the case with Will Bruser and his group there at Truckworx. A very community and employee-focused — as well as customer-focused — organization.”

Other finalists included:

  • Michael Burroughs, vice president of Burroughs Diesel, in Laurel, Miss.
  • Mike Clark, CEO of Dobbs Peterbilt, in Memphis, Tenn.
  • Shawn Trimble Craig, CEO and named dealer successor of Southwest International Trucks in Dallas
  • Jeff Speno, president and dealer principal of Mission Valley Ford in San Jose, Calif.
  • Mark Bergey, CEO of Bergey Family Corp. in Souderton, Pa.

Truckworx was also named the 2024 Kenworth Dealer of the Year for the United States and Canada at the recent annual Kenworth Dealer Meeting in Tucson, Ariz. It was the dealer group’s second consecutive win.

With the ATD win, Bruser will have the opportunity to serve as a guest lecturer at the university to share his professional story with students interested in entrepreneurship. He will also serve on the ATD Board of Line Representatives for a one-year term in a nonvoting role.