International. The Association, which has been a strong supporter of engine remanufacturing since 1941, highlighted the company as heavy-duty remanufacturer of the year.
Each year, the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association (APRA) honors those who excel as premier remanufacturers in the diesel engine industry. This year, the APRA team has been recognized as the heavy-duty vehicle remanufacturer of 2022.
"Our engine technicians build to OEM specifications, specializing in Komatsu, Cummins and Caterpillar remanufactured engines. All our remanufactured engines are dynamometer tested before being shipped to our customer!" highlights the website of Diesel Sales, which Howard Gossage promoted in January 2010 after being in the rebuilding industry for decades.
As APRA magazine recounts in April of this year, Howard Gossage's career began early, when he left to work for his parents, at the age of nine, in his family's junkyard.
He then grew to be recognized as a driver in the industry, a tireless entrepreneur and innovator, building and selling cores, parts and companies, and pioneering sales channels by leveraging evolving technologies.
According to the same APRA publication, whose cover was dedicated to the recognition given to Howard, he was the first in his industry to have a toll-free phone number, among the first to develop image identification catalogs, use fax machines and run his business online.
"At 78, he continues to look decades ahead and do what he has done better than anyone over the years: adapt to the times and new technologies and close deals, whether buying and selling cores, diesel engines for trucks and transmissions, or reconstruction and remanufacturing," says the cover story of the association's official magazine.
In it, Howard Gossage asserts that the most exciting thing about this business is that "you are constantly learning something new as you adapt and continue to grow; interact with people, and work with a team of people as smart or smarter than me to generate ideas and stay on top of changes in the business."
Today, Gossage is the founder and owner of Heavy Quip Inc., which operates as Diesel Sales. Due to a non-compete clause with LKQ, Gossage took on a completely new sector, trading heavy off-highway equipment, selling parts and engine cores.
