Page 40 - Port of Baltimore - May/June 2017

PORT BUSINESS
Volvo, Mack Build on Long Tradition of Excellence
COMPANIES MERGED IN 2001 TO CREATE INDUSTRY LEADER
STORY BY KATHY BERGREN SMITH | PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF VOLVO GROUP TRUCKS
The Volvo Group is the world’s leading manufacturer of trucks, buses, construction equipment and marine and industrial engines. When the company acquired American truck maker Mack in 2001, Volvo teamed with this century-old innovator to continue a tradition of building some of the most powerful engines on the road. The company is known as Volvo Group Trucks.
Since 1961, Hagerstown, Md., in the bucolic western part of the state, has been the producer of powertrains for Mack Trucks. The company
was founded by the Mack brothers, who were wagon-makers before World War I. John Mack’s vision shaped the development of an entirely new form of transportation — commercial trucking — in the dawn of the 20th century. His ideas included a driver’s cab over the engine to increase visibility and the integration of the powertrains into the vehicle to maximize performance.
Mack went on to produce very rugged trucks for moving war material for the British in the First World War, where the soldiers referred to the trucks as “Bulldogs” — the moniker the Brits also used for their
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