The top service and parts personnel from Volvo Trucks North America Inc.’s dealer network gathered in Greensboro,N.C., on April 21 to choose the North American winners of the Volvo International Service Technical Association (VISTA) competition.

VISTA is a hands-on competition to select the top dealer service and parts personnel. It is meant to be an entertaining, yet effective way to maintain a high level of technical skill and proficiency in the Volvo dealer network. Hundreds of people compete in the six-month program, which requires a significant dedication of time and effort by the participants. The VISTA competition is held every two years among three-person teams fielded by Volvo dealers, usually consisting of a mix of service and parts experts.
The 2005 North American VISTA competition was won by the team from GATR of Sauk Rapids, Sauk Rapids, Minn. The team’s members are Gary Olson, Greg Wentworth and Eric Dethlefs.
For winning the competition, each member of the GATR team received a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle. They also won a trip to Sweden to the international VISTA winners conference in June, when they will meet the winners from the other 55 countries where Volvo holds VISTA competitions. Approximately 7,000 dealer personnel from around the globe compete in VISTA competitions.
There were three rounds of competition involving online technical questions to produce five regional champions, who then traveled to Volvo headquarters in Greensboro for the final round. All answers for the written questions are contained in Volvo service and parts literature. The final round also tested participants on their knowledge of service bulletins and ability to look up parts and service information within the Volvo system, but also added hands-on trouble shooting of pre-determined faults placed on a Volvo truck.
The four other teams in the final round were from:
• Volvo Manitoba Truck Centre, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
• Truck Enterprises, Roanoke, Va.
• Mountain West Truck Center, Salt Lake City, Utah
• Burr Truck & Trailer Sales, Vestal, N.Y.
Since the VISTA program began in Scandinavia in 1978, Volvo has witnessed a strong correlation between dealers with teams in the final round and high customer satisfaction indexes. This has been linked to dealer leadership and willingness to invest in personnel and competence development.
For more information, go to www.volvotrucks.us.com.