Vanguard Truck Center bringing jobs to Banks County

HOMER - The Banks County Commission has cleared the way for a new business to bring about two dozen jobs to the county.

Tuesday night, the commission heard from Frank Fulton of Vanguard Truck Group, who said the company plans to expand its operations to a vacant complex near Atlanta Dragway on East Ridgeway Road.

"We are a company that represents, as dealers, the Volvo Truck Corporation," Fulton said. "We also represent Mack Trucks."

Explaining what the company does, Fulton said, "We are the same thing as your car dealership, but we are for Volvo Trucks."

"Our major, primary dealer in Georgia is in Forest Park," Fulton said. That facility is known as Vanguard Truck Center of Atlanta.

While that location is south of Atlanta, the company's area or responsibility goes all the way to the South Carolina state line on Interstate 85.

"We have a significant customer base that we need to service in this part of the country," Fulton said. "We have existing customers in this area that we service today. We can do a better job for those folks, and we can add to that base by opening a satellite location here in your community."

The satellite of the Forest Park main location will be located at 347 E. Ridgeway Road, in a complex that formerly housed a floral wholesale company.

Existing buildings on that property would be remodeled, renovated and converted into a truck and parts sales and repair center, the application states.

Vanguard opened a similar facility four years ago in Adairsville, located along Interstate 75 in northern Bartow County.

"We've had good success from that operation," Fulton said. "What we want to do here is as close as we can come to an exact replica of the location in Adairsville."

All the jobs won't come to Banks County immediately.

"We would eventually plan to employ probably 18 to 24 people," Fulton said.

The focus initially would be on parts sales and service, with eventual truck sales, Fulton said.

After receiving a motion and second, Banks County Commission Chairman Jimmy Hooper commented on the anticipated new jobs.

"Before I call for the vote, I'm going to say that statistics say for every three employees that you have in any business one other person in some business is hired on to support you, so not only are we looking at 24, now we'd be looking at 32 people," Hooper said.