On July 4, 1932, John Ruan started what would become RUAN Transportation Management Systems with a single used truck and a load of gravel.

It may not be common to start a business on a national holiday, but Ruan heard gravel would be hauled out of the Des Moines River in Chillicothe, Iowa. Wanting to get there as soon as he could, Ruan drove to Chillicothe in a used Ford Model AA truck he had purchased. After spending the night in a nearby park, Ruan began transporting gravel hauled out of the river the morning of July 4 - and the company was born.
In the midst of the Great Depression, with one in four Americans unemployed, creating a new business was not easy. But Ruan persisted, and his business grew. Within one year, Ruan owned three trucks and was hauling 42 tons of coal a day. Soon he branched out and began hauling more than just coal and gravel. By 1942, he was running the largest trucking business in central Iowa, and by 1960, RUAN was one of the largest contract carriage businesses in the country.
Today the company has evolved into a full-service transportation management company providing customers nationwide with customized transportation solutions.
A restored replica of John Ruan¹s first Ford Model AA truck is on display in the Ruan Center in Des Moines, Iowa, to commemorate the company’s 70th anniversary.