ABSTRACT
In March 1944 Edgar F. Zelle, President of the Jefferson Transportation Company, Minneapolis, resigned as associate director of the Office of Defense Transportation’s Division of Local Transport, where he directed the administration of regulations and policies affecting intercity and school buses. On graduation Edgar Zelle turned not to the law, as he might have done, but to the business world. He was immediately offered a position as secretary of Wilcox Motor Truck Company, a manufacturing firm in Minneapolis. Recognizing a business opportunity, Zelle decided to organize a company that would lease trucks to the contractors who were constructing Minnesota highways and to other local wholesale and manufacturing firms. Once the truck company was doing well, Zelle decided to enter another motor-vehicle business: buses. The Red Bus Line was one of the several services out of the Twin Cities, but Zelle was more ambitious and a better manager than most of his counterparts.
