If you want to know why we are the way we are, you need to look at how we got here.
It all goes back to our founder. Mark Eisenberg was a regional manager for Avis in New York City and thought it was time to bring his expertise back to his hometown. So in 1974 he opened Baltimore Car and Truck Rental in a single lot on Howard Street in downtown Baltimore.
Baltimore Car and Truck Rental was an instant hit downtown. The company’s mission was to make car and truck rental more affordable for the average consumer and small business. Howard Street bustled with cars and trucks coming and going to the point where we had to branch out to our own service facility nearby. Over the years, the company continued to grow.
In the 90’s we began to specialize. We found that individuals and tourists renting the average car had very little in common with the commercial business needed to keep a fleet moving. So we knew that the only way we could truly offer the best service was to specialize in one aspect. We chose trucks.
Once we decided to focus on trucks, we got into everything trucks. Mostly because folks who had their own trucks had heard about how well we serviced ours. So we then decided to service theirs. And anyone else’s who came through our doors. We even started selling older trucks, buying trucks from our customers and, well, now we just seem to do it all.
Over the years, we’ve grown southward to DC and Virginia, in large part at the request of our customers. As they’ve grown and expanded, they’ve asked us to go with them because they just couldn’t do without the Baltimore Truck touch.
And since we’re in more and more places, people kept wondering what Baltimore Trucks were doing in Virginia, or Richmond. So we shortened our name to BTR to say we’re not just Baltimore now, and changed BTR Truck Rental to BTR Trucks and Services to better reflect that we do it all.
Mark still owns the company. So even though it’s bigger, it’s still family around here.
Some things will never change. And that’s good.