In 1968 Art James made the decision, with his wife Norma, to leave International Harvester after a great career there. Art decided to enter the dealership purchase program offered through IH and take over the freshly defunct Heathfield Equipment in Kamloops, B.C. It was the only motor truck, agriculture and construction equipment dealership in Canada at the time. In 1986 the James family decided t
o take on the Western Star product line, and, in turn, the IH product was removed from the dealership. In 1986 Rob James was moved to Williams Lake to work with Graham Keith to open the Williams Lake store. A couple of years after that, James Western Star Sterling opened in Prince George. In the early 1990s James Western Star Sterling took on the Superior Trailer product line of short log trailers. Unfortunately, in December of 1996, we lost our beloved father to a long-standing illness. John was added after the purchase of Rick Henderson Mechanical. With the decision by Daimler to move the Western Star factory from Kelowna, B.C., to Portland, Oregon, the Schroff family decided to sell their shares of Kelowna Western Star to the James Group. The dealership group was able, in the year 2001, to add the Sterling product line to the sales offering, up until Daimler Trucks North America decided to remove the product line from the Daimler product offerings worldwide. In 2005, Doonan Trailer products were added to the Kamloops and Kelowna branches, giving them the entire province of B.C. as their sales territory. The Freightliner product line was added to Kamloops when the Peace Country Freightliner was shut down due to financial distress, which allowed Kamloops to become a full-line dealership for Western Star and Freightliner. In 2012, the decision was made to divide the company, with Rob James taking the Kamloops and Kelowna locations and forming the company RJames Management Group Ltd. Even through the division of the company, RJames purchased the shares and building of the Okanagan Wash Zone in Kelowna, which, at that time, was a car and truck wash with Husky commercial and retail fuel and a convenience store. Through a year-long renovation, the building was transformed into a full line truck dealership with truck wash bays, as well as a start-of-the-art MacNeal Tunnel wash added to the Husky convenience store. In 2014, RJames Property Management purchased the Williams Moving and Storage building at 2073 Falcon Road, directly across the street from the Kamloops dealership. This will allow for the administration staff and 7,000 square feet of parts warehousing to move over. This move has allowed for the expansion of parts marketing, as well as truck sales in the Kamloops area. RJames Management Group Ltd. is the only full-line Freightliner, Western Star dealership that offers trailer sales, as well as having a 380-unit lease fleet, which is one of the largest in B.C. - See more at:http://rjameswsf.ca/about-rjames/company-history/ .nTqWiol2.dpuf
