Rick Harrah

South Charleston High School

Class of 1974

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Rick Harrah - Class of 1974 - South Charleston High School

First Name	Rick
Last Name	Harrah
Graduation Year	Class of 1974
Gender	Male
Current Location	South Charleston
Hometown	South Charleston
Relationship Status	Married
About Me	1978 Graduate of WVU with Bachelor of Science Business Administration in Accounting. In February of 1980 began working at the business my father started in 1977. He had obtained a independent distributorship from Jasper Engines and Transmissions located in Jasper, Indiana. Early on we primarily were selling off highway products to the coal industry and their strip mining operations. These were very large Allison automatic transmissions for coal haulers. We also sold the diesel engines for these trucks which were generally 12 or 16 cylinder engines. As the coal industry started declining we became more involved with selling highway vehicle engines and transmissions for cars and trucks. Most highway products were sold to independent garages , dealerships , and fleets. And we also sold to individuals . Some of the teachers I had at SCHS and SCJH purchased products from us. Those that come to mind were coach Dunlap, coach Green , coach Dawson, Mr. Morris, Mr. Nichols from the high school. Also Mr.Sharp, principal when I was at SCJH and coach Bill Jones whom coached me in football, basketball, and gym. My dad turned the business over to me in the mid to late 90's and made me President while he dropped to Vice President. My brothers, Mark and Dave worked at the SC branch in the mid to early 1980's. In 1986 they both moved to Greensboro, NC and started a new Jasper branch that eventually became one of the bigger branches out of about 40. By the way , they hired Jay Kight who became their top outside sales rep and sales manager. And also was one of the top sales reps in the entire country for Jasper. Also, in my branch , we hired three South Charleston graduates who also happened to be neighborhood friends and or friends of my brothers. Jamie Sibold was the inside manager for most of his 30+ years and Scott Jackson worked for us over 30 years in outside sales. Scott is still affiliated with the main Jasper headquarters and works in outside sales. Both of these guys did a great job when we owned the South Charleston branch. Due to some major changes at the corporate headquarters in Jasper, Indiana wanting to greatly expand their business around the country and purchasing other businesses in their industry, they asked the independent distributors to sell out to them. So our branch in South Charleston, my brothers Greensboro branch, and the Atlanta branch who owned satellite branches in Florida also sold out in 2018. Jasper still has operations in all these areas. The South Charleston branch has moved to the Nitro Industrial Park. So, I retired in April of 2018 after 38 years as did my youngest brother Dave. Dave run the Greensboro location . Mark has been involved with Nascar the last 25 years. First, as part owner and manager of Jaspers Nascar team that operated out of Mooresville, N C. For some time now he has been supplying major Nascar teams with a transmission that Mark , Jasper, and another person designed for Nascar. It's been highly successfull with big major wins with Tony Stewart's racing team and Joe Gibbs Racing. Now his concentration is on Nascar's XFinity Division as the top division has a newly designed race car that uses a sequential shifting transmission which means you only go up or down shifting and does not need a clutch except when pulling out from a dead stop after making a pitt stop. So sorry this is so long . But I wanted to update you on what me, my brothers, and our fel...(read more)
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