John Mack, known to his friends as Jack, was born in 1864 on a farm near Scranton, Pennsylvania. He was one of five brothers born to German immigrant parents.

In 1878, young Jack ran away from home to become a teamster. He learned how to operate steam engines and headed to sea, traveling primarily in the Panama Canal region. When he returned, Mack and his brother Augustus bought a carriage-building shop in Brooklyn. They sold few new carriages but were able to stay in business by repairing old ones.

As the turn of the century approached, the pair became interested in horseless vehicles. They started tinkering and by 1900 were able to roll out the first Mack motor vehicle -- a sightseeing bus. It was the first successful bus in the United States and gained a great deal of publicity.

Three more Mack brothers joined the business then to form the Mack Brothers Company.

By 1905, they had outgrown their Brooklyn carriage facility, and they moved to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where they changed their name to the Mack Brothers Motor Car Company. But Jack Mack did not want to build cars. He wanted to build trucks.

By 1911, Mack was the premier manufacturer of heavy-duty trucks, selling 600 of the vehicles a year. In 1997, Mack sold 22,375 trucks in the United States alone. It also sold 2,771 in Canada, and 659 in Australia.