The independent aftermarket and, by extension, the Trucks, Parts, Service Distributor of the Year Award, have long been defined by entrepreneurs. Many of North America’s oldest and most successful heavy-duty aftermarket operations have inspirational backstories.
Some were founded in the early days of commercial transportation and evolved with the sector. Others were auto centric or in another industry at first before eventually gravitating to the unique and challenging yet lucrative world of commercial trucking.
Others still started in manufacturing, making some of the components and product lines they continue to stock among their inventories to this day. There are even independent distribution operations that predate motorized transportation entirely — with histories that date back to horse carriages and the Pony Express.
Weldon Parts doesn’t go back that far, having been founded in 1955, but the company’s origin story is filled with the entrepreneurial hallmarks that make great distributor operations.
[RELATED: In the field expertise key to success at Weldon Parts]
Brothers Leon and Dean Settles started the company as a metal skid manufacturer for the paper industry. Their impetus from the outset was to make a dependable, high-quality product, so the brothers chose the name Weldon to inform their first customers that their products were “well done.”
The skids took off, and it wasn’t long after the company’s founding that the brothers were receiving order requests from other industries.
