Pub. 55 2014-2015 Issue 3

12  MARVIN RUSH — CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11 As fate would have it, some men influential with PACCAR went to bat for the young dealer prospect and he ultimately got the point in Houston. Successful from the beginning, this thriving dealership launched a dealer organization like the world has never seen. Marvin Rush even got to purchase his GMC competitor in 1969 when General Motors decided they no longer wanted to be a retailer in Houston. Before the deal could be closed, however, someone needed to get a non-disturbance letter signed by the irascible H.L. Hunt, the owner of the nearby Shamrock Hilton Hotel. Ever fearless, W. Marvin Rush knocked on the door of the legendary oil baron and found a kinship with another giant of Texas industry who promptly gave him the letter. From that day forward Marvin Rush began to build an ex- traordinary chain of family dealerships, assemble a staff of loyal, capable employees and managers and create an organization that in 1995 became the first and only publicly held heavy duty truck dealer group in America. Today Marvin Rush and his son, Rusty, guide the future of Rush Enterprises from their headquarters in New Braunfels. Rusty, just as his father before him, continues to acquire dealer- ships to bring them under the Rush brand. Every new acquisition adds employees who adopt the culture of this great company and reflect the pride of a family owned business started in Houston, Texas fifty years earlier, built on hard work, entrepreneurship and extraordinary vision. Growing from that first GMC truck store near downtown Houston to today’s $4.7 billion conglomerate encompassing 16 different businesses, the dealerships still have the Rush name on the building and the Rush philosophy in the hearts of every employee. Marvin Rush, as passionate as ever about serving transportation needs through the growth of his company, still finds time as he always has to support the charities and institutions in the com- munities where his dealerships are located and spend time with his wife, Barbara, his children and his grandchildren. When it is time to do something completely different than run the largest trucking chain the world, Marvin and his friends and family head for deep south Texas and his Los Cuernos Ranch. Frommanaging a coke machine as a ten-year-old and selling used TVs in a sketchy Houston ward as a teenager, Rush has evolved into not only a successful businessman but the owner of the Ritz Carlton of hunting ranches. Attracting hunters from all over the world, Los Cuernos is 9,600 acres of Texas heaven, with abundant game, first class living accommodations, two gourmet chefs on staff, and room to roam some of South Texas’ most spectacular landscapes. It is what bigger than life Texas dealers do, gamble every cent on one of the hardest, riskiest businesses on earth, work your way to the top providing benefit for countless consumers, employees, communities, suppliers, government entities, schools, hospitals, churches, charities and families…eventually returning to the Texas soil to reconnect with those who built our great state with their own hard work and a vision of greatness that today benefits everyone who calls themselves a Texan. William Marvin Rush joins those pioneers and visionaries whose accomplishments defy reason but who have built a legacy for all of us to share. For Marvin Rush, that legacy is still being written. 