Texas Trucks Direct celebrates 40 years and counting

TTD1 — Texas Truck Direct owner, Jerry Cozby (at right), is shown here with shop manager Guy Robertson (left) and Christy Cozby (center) with their newest addition to the towing team.

Our friends at Texas Trucks Direct in Stephenville are celebrating 40 years of serving the community this month and in honor of that milestone, The Flash went out and spent the morning getting to know this family owned and operated business.

Beginning in April 1982, Jerry Cozby of Stephenville, has been working hard to bring quality diesel truck service to the area. And judging by the growth of his business and his loyal customer base over the years, we’d say he succeeded.

“It began as a two-man operation serving a few trucks and grew pretty quickly from there,” Jerry said. “It feels like every day is something new and different in this business. We go 90 miles an hour here all the time and that’s just how we like it.”

And staying busy has helped the business grow. The company now services not only 18-wheelers, but also other diesel vehicles like RVs and even some pickups. It’s no longer just a two-man crew either. Texas Trucks Direct has dozens of employees and they are always looking for more.

“We could hire two mechanics and two more people for other areas right now,” said Christy Cozby (Jerry’s daughter-in-law and right hand woman in the business). “We’ve grown a lot in the last 40 years, but we’re still growing now and with that growth coming we are always needing employees. Like everyone, we’re definitely looking to hire quality employees to add to our family environment here.”

The family environment they have built over the years extends to employees whose last name isn’t Cozby, too. While Jerry and Christy are two of the main faces of the company, every single person we spoke to at Texas Trucks Direct said something similar.

Sean Mayfield, someone the parts customers at Texas Trucks Direct are familiar with, shows off the newest Milwaukee tools for sale in the shop. Milwaukee is one of the best known tool brands for diesel mechanics and Texas Trucks Direct is a proud dealer of Milwaukee now.

“It really is one of the best things about working here,” said Sean Mayfield, who is in charge of the parts department at Texas Trucks. “It’s one big family here and when there are any challenges, we handle them together and that’s the kind of place you want to stay with.”

Guy Robertson, who is in charge of the shop and advising the numerous mechanics in the shop, said much of the same. He also mentioned the challenges that come with working in an ever-changing trucking industry and how working together, they always overcome them.

“It’s a fast environment and every day is different. In the trucking industry, things are constantly changing and that presents so many new challenges for all of us,” Robertson said. “But here, at Texas Trucks, we always work together and any time there is a question or something we don’t understand, we all come together to figure it out and get the job done.”

Texas Trucks Direct has more than 100 years of experience between the members of the parts and sales department. Those members are in the store, on the phone and ready to help you with all your diesel needs.

Working on those many challenges as a family is definitely paying off for the folks at Texas Trucks Direct. The crew was just awarded the highest honor from HDA Truck Pride, an aftermarket truck parts company. HDA Truck Pride is North America’s largest independent provider of parts and services to the commercial vehicle aftermarket with more than 700 distribution locations and more than 400 service facilities, according to the company. And every year they honor a select few distributors for their service and sales.

After just 14 years as a distributor, Texas Trucks Direct is receiving the honor out of all the numerous companies in North America. Jerry said usually the companies who receive this honor have four or five, even up to 10 locations, but they only have the one, which makes the honor so much more special. The crew will be headed to Orlando, Florida, later this year to get the award, which honors them not only for their efforts in parts and service, but also for their use of new technology and training techniques.

And just like the crew is always looking to add new members to the Texas Trucks Direct family, they are always working on expanding, too. They have just added new equipment and are looking at the possibility of moving to a new location in the future to house even more new technology, Jerry said.

Service technician Rob Cloyd shows how the DPF cleaner is operated. This new technology will not only save area customers time, but also money because the filters do not have to be sent out of town for cleaning.

One of the newest pieces of tech they’ve added is a DPF cleaner. This technology is something that will not only help Texas Trucks, but will save the local customers time and money. Now, instead of sending these filters off to DFW, Texas Trucks can service them in house.

“We just go a brand new machine, the DPF cleaner, that is going to change the way we can help trucks,” said Christy. “The machine is a diesel particulate filter cleaner. All new diesel vehicles have these filters and if they aren’t cleaned regularly, the engine could not run at its best. Now, we’re one of the only places around a vehicle can come and have that filter cleaned for them professionally.”

As Texas Trucks Direct continues to grow and be one of the leaders in diesel equipment service in the area, Erath County and surrounding residents are invited to come see Jerry, Christy, Guy, Sean and the rest of the Texas Trucks family for all your diesel mechanic needs, parts and services!