Latest / Towing News Now / The Evolution of Electric Vehicle Training and Towing Techniques with Jerry Aurenz

Transcript

The Evolution of Electric Vehicle Training and Towing Techniques with Jerry Aurenz · Towing News Now

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Tow Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilburn, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Towing Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Wes has been published over 100 times in major towing publications published over 100 times in major towing publications.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrid, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-earth teaching style.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: No-transcript.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Without further ado, here's my dear friend and a great guy for our industry, wes Wilber.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Well as always.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Dj, I thank you for your kind words and appreciate all the accolades you share about me.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I do appreciate that.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Hope you're doing good today.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: We're down here in the Carolinas.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: It's a bright, sunny day.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Just got back from Chicago, had a really good class up there.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: We did an electric vehicle class on Friday night and then they brought a brand new Mustang out, dj, and we used the new electric vehicle lifting kit that we had, lifted this thing up in the air with it without putting a scratch on it.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: It was a brand new E-vehicle Mustang, totally electric.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: And then Saturday and Sunday we had 44 for a two-day heavy-duty class, had JT Reisner coming out of St Louis helping, along with Chris Haley out of Virginia, so we had a real good class.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: It was really exciting to be up there.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Of course, the food is always excellent in that part of the world, so we had some real nice meals up there and a good class 44 people attended, I heard, and a good class 44 people attended.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I heard it was a great class and I want all our listeners to know.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: We got close to 14,000 listeners going on here.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So not only is your in classes getting larger, so is our audience, and we can't thank them enough for telling your friends and neighbors to tune in.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: It's excellent.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so this will air.
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: When this is airing, I'll be on my way to Indianapolis.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So coming up May 18th and 19th, we'll be in Indianapolis, indiana.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: One day heavy duty on the Saturday.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: One day light duty on the Sunday.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: That's just a couple days from now.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: You're listening to this podcast right when it drops and then right after that we're going to go to the Estro Toe Show that's up in upstate New York.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: June 6th through the 9th we're sponsoring a live auction Friday night with a towing memorabilia and all the money we raise will go to the New York Empire State Towing Recovery Association.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: We did it last year.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: We had a lot of fun with it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: We got a lot of good items.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: Some of them I'm bringing from my collection, some of them donated from other people.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: That's going to be June 6th through the 9th.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: That's upstate New York, just above Albany and the Anorundack Mountain region.
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: More information on that go to estratoshowcom, e-s-t-r-a Toshowcom.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Then two weeks later we'll be in St Louis.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: June 21st we'll be doing the three-hour electric vehicle class.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: That's free for first responders, towing operators, dot firefighters et cetera.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: That's going to be in the evening, 6 to 9 pm.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: June 22nd, one-day heavy duty that's also there in St Louis, sponsored by Cardinal Telling, slash Bowling and then on the Sunday a one-day light duty class.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: So those are dates coming up.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: We also have the train recovery class.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: We're are dates coming up.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: We also have the train recovery class we're doing at Maggio's.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: You must have attended one of my recovery classes to attend that.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: That'll be August 2nd and 3rd.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: That's in Rockford Illinois at Maggio's.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: So that's some of my upcoming stuff that I've got going on.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: We're hoping that if you're in the Northeast you're going to come out to the Estros Toe Show, empire State Town and Recovery.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: It's a beautiful Lake George.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: It's a great little resort town.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: It's a nice getaway.
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: All the show benefits, all the colors in the state, with the legislative issues etc.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: We just had Bob on, we're going to have some.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: We just had Bob on and we're going to have some other folks from the association on, I think next week.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: So we had a great guest.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: I asked our listeners to hang around for a minute and we'll be right back after this commercial break with a good guest.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: The EV Clever app is an app created for all responders and emergency service personnel.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: The EV Clever app is the only app containing easy-to-navigate quick links to access manufacturer-suggested instructions for emergency situations dealing with electric and alternative fuel vehicles while on the side of the road.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: That includes hybrid, fully, fully electric fuel cell compressed natural gas and hydrogen, buses and heavy trucks.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: These quick links are a convenient way to access information quickly.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: To date, we have a total of 784 passenger vehicles and a total of 167 heavy duty vehicles.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: This number is growing daily.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: We have a dedicated research team that is constantly adding more vehicles to the app.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: The information is accessed from available manufacturer-provided emergency response guides.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: We access this information and process it into an easily accessible app that you are able to conveniently access on the side of the road.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: And that, my friend, is how you put all the information you need at your fingertips with the EV Clever app.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: Go to ev-clevercom and download yours today.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Information in this podcast is made possible by a generous sponsorship from Henry's Wrecker, serving the community with quality towing and recovery for over 40 years.
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: Henryswreckercom.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners 40 years and raise recordcom.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: You know you're listening to the American torn recovery is to podcast with Wes Wilburn, dj Harrington.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: Now make sure you download and listen.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Wes and I are so proud of the 14,000, almost 100 shy of 14,000 listeners.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: We're available on Spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, iheartmedia, amazon.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Thousand listeners we're available on spotify, itunes, pandora, stitcher, iheart media, amazon or wherever you get your podcast.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So, wes, you had a sold-out class with lynch truck up there, so let me turn it over to you and you can tell our listening audience.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: Our guests for today could tell our listening audience.
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Our guest for today.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you, dj um, the person that put me together with lynch years ago as our guest today.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Jerry arends from a auto and uh, truck towing.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: And uh, jerry, how do you say the town?
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: there, palos Park, illinois.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: Yes, thank you.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Jerry.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a little bit about your background in the industry, if you would be so kind.
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: Well, I'm just a young guy.
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: In a couple months I'll be turning 70 years old.
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: I only have about 60 years worth of experience.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: I started painting the wheels on my dad's truck and then worked up to painting the trucks all together as I got older and driving a tow truck.
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: Before I was driving a tow truck, I used to ride with him and we left the family business 30 years ago and my wife and I started over again and we have five sons that are involved in the business and we've grown to a sizable fleet that we're happy with.
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: I am a big advocate very big advocate of training and certification, and I'm a big advocate about safety.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: That's a very true statement.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: We always tease Jerry that he was smart.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: Instead of worrying about obtaining a workforce, he created his own workforce.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: Five sons in the business.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: That's got to be a blessing and a challenge all at the same time sometimes.
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: Well, the whole thing with that is you work together, you suffer together, you eat together, you live together, but you also get a feeling for knowing what the other one's going to do, and a lot of what has been our success is the fact that we're family, and a lot of it is that we're a team effort.
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: Like I said, every aspect of it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's hard to separate family from working, but it all comes together.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: So tell us a little bit about the scope of your operations.
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: Well, 30 years, when I got how do we say it?
• 11:08
  Speaker 5: My first life was with my mom and dad and brother, and then my second life is my wife and myself.
• 11:15
  Speaker 5: For the first year I just had two trucks and I ran.
• 11:18
  Speaker 5: She answered the phone, I ran the calls, then we started hiring employees and then the boys started growing up and the oldest one now is 40, I believe.
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: The youngest one is probably around 26.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: And they're all enthusiastically involved in the business we have focused on.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: I enjoy doing special things.
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: We do the normal stuff, but I enjoy the special things because I enjoy the challenge.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: You know, we have a lot of rotators, a lot of heavy duties and we do road service extensively on trucks and we do recovery work.
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: Some of the customers we've had, we've had that from the first company.
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: The first company went out of business in 2005, I believe.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: But we still have some of those original customers, like the ready-to-mix companies, some of the freight companies and so forth.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: And they all enjoy doing it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: They live it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: Sometimes you don't think you're getting any time off, but one of those sayings is out there that says that if you enjoy what you're doing, you'll never work a day in your life.
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: That's what we focus on.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: That's a fact.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Mark Twain said a man who makes his rotation a vacation is a lucky person.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: So talk about the size of your fleet and what equipment you currently operate.
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: Well, we have six rotators.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: We probably have about six 9055s, three or four of like 5230s or 5030s is the oldest one.
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: We have five semi-tractors.
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: We have about five or six service trucks.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: We have three industrial carriers and so in service trucks, the industrial carriers and the light-duty side, we have a half a dozen light-duty flatbeds which are 550s or the internationals, and then we have various trailers.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: We have Landowls, 53 foot east 53 foot step deck benson, a high I'm sorry, an east dump trailer.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: We have a reefer trailer.
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: We have a van trailer.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: We never know what our customers want um to help us out.
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: So in the beginning it was towing, then it broke into doing the road service.
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: We do extensive road service and um, we're very successful at what we do because we always bought into technology.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: Being able to in the beginning was the pro links and and now it has like the on-site with um comments and so forth, and our guys are very successful to go out sometimes and prevent the tow.
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: But if we can't get them going generally we get the tow part out of it also.
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: So we just enjoy what we're doing and we focus on that and being a little bit diversified helps us on the transport side.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: So if the towing's not busy, the transport side is, or it's a whole mixture, Like with semi-tows 99% or 90% or more of the heavy-duty tractor-trailer tows we do.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: We call it a split tow we send a heavy-duty for the power unit and we send one of our tractors to pull the trailer and the load.
• 14:43
  Speaker 5: It works out well because we spend less time on the side of the road.
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: The job goes quicker because you're not pulling dry shafts or hooking up air and all the other stuff, because a lot of times our guys will be able to grab the back and tow it and, generally speaking, the driver, the trailer and the load is going one place and the tractor, the power unit, is going somewhere else.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: So our customers like us doing that also.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, that makes good sense, really taking care of their needs that way.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Well, when you're on the side of the road I mean everybody that's on the side of the road I don't care if you're broke down in your car or if you're out there doing what we do or the police, or the fire, whatever.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: Every second counts.
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: And if you're organized, when you get out there and the tow truck pulls up and grabs a hold of power unit, your two guys are working together.
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: If you have to drop a drive line or, you know, fork it, whatever you're going to do tie it down, separate it and then bring it, bring our tractor around, grab, grab the trailer, grab the load, and they're pretty efficient.
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: Like I said, you spend a lot less time on the side of the road and you're there and you have enough lights to protect yourself.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: You also have an extra set of eyes and somebody watching if somebody needs to be flagged over or whatever.
• 15:59
  Speaker 5: They work together.
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: I got to tell you safety is a big thing with me and as far as claims with our insurance company, we have very, very minimal claims whatsoever.
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: Our insurance company and our agent really likes us because we pay our premiums and we seldom ever call them up with a problem well, that's, that's a good formula, it's working for us?
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: yeah, absolutely working well from what I've seen um.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: When did you and your wife start out on your own?
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: in june of 94, so in 2024 we're gonna hit 30 years, and that's uh probably in about around June 6th, I believe.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, boy, that's coming right up on us.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: Yes, sir.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: That's something to be very proud of just operating a business for 30 years, but growing it the way you have, creating a legacy for your family, let's be very proud of that Well, and I think in the industry you kind of see that nowadays, where if the family's involved, it perpetuates itself, whereas and I'm not being condescending, but companies that are just out there being a business when the owner gets to a certain age, he's either selling the business or whatever arrangements he's making but there's like no legacy of a next generation going on with what's going on.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're seeing that less and less.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: You're right, um, in all industries not just the telling industry unfortunately correct.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: So you have been a big advocate of training over the years.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: A decade ago, when I wasn't doing much in your region at all, you traveled to the Carolinas and did a heavy rigging road header school with us.
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: You saw, and you brought us back, uh, up from the carolinas up to that region.
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: Um, talk, talk a little bit about what training means to you and your company, if you would so when I was younger, it would be whatever my dad passed on to me, or my brother, which was two years old, or whatever they passed on to me, and I don't know if they learned from others, but sometimes that's what it was back in the 60s and the 70s and so forth.
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: But when the training came along, it sets a benchmark for like policies and procedures.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: Well, what's the proper way to do this?
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: And and instead of um, how do we say this?
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: I'm going to jump around here, instead of pulling on something until something lets loose you, you, you, when you go to the training and you, you have, um, a benchmark to know what size rigging you should be using.
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: What's your safety factors?
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: Even to the point where we used to buy like whatever, the whatever we were supposed to be buying for hooks and chains, and we'd put our own assemblies together and we we probably once or twice had rigging fail.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but the whole thing now is is I, whatever the cost is involved, to buy the?
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: your equipment from your dealers that are providing it, and and your, your chains, your straps, snatch blocks, any equipment that you're using, your cable, it all has a recommended value and size and strength to it and the thing is it's tagged and everything's fine to do, however you want to do it till the day it goes wrong, and then you're going to have all the outsiders down your throat wanting to know where did you buy this equipment from?
• 19:42
  Speaker 5: Why isn't it tagged?
• 19:44
  Speaker 5: Why wasn't it checked?
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: And and and the suppliers that we have that take care of us, help to educate us, and they invite us to classes like I've been to crosby classes and different things of that sort, and you get an understanding.
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: And, like, when we do have a hook fail, we had a grade 100 um track in half and they were able to track when that hook was was manufactured, they were actually able to test it and they were actually able to tell us why it failed.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: Now, when that one broke, um, it hit the back of the truck.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: It didn't hit anybody.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: We were pulling up an overturned backhoe out of a foundation and it shouldn't have broke, but it did.
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: But when it, when it recoiled.
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: It hit the back of the truck.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: No one got hurt.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: So I take a lot of value in trying to prevent that stuff.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: But when it goes wrong, I want to find out.
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: I had this saying every lesson comes with a price tag.
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: So whether you go to school, you learn that lesson.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: That's the price tag.
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: Or if something goes wrong and you have to pay for damage or whatever is involved with that, that's a lesson also, you pay for a lesson.
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: So if something goes wrong and you did something wrong or whatever the failure was, if you don't learn from that lesson, then you're going to pay for that lesson again is what my feeling is.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: I agree.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: One way or another, you got to pay the paper.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Jerry, do you mind hanging around for a second?
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I've got some more questions for you.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'll be here.
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: The best towing companies offer a combination of great training, efficient operations, along with quality supplies.
• 21:29
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• 21:38
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• 21:43
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• 21:46
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• 21:58
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• 22:04
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• 22:09
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• 22:14
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• 22:22
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• 22:30
  Speaker 4: That's 910-747-9000.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: We look forward to serving you.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Welcome back listeners.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Of course you know you're listening to the American Tone Recovery Institute podcast with Wes Wilburn, DJ Harrington, and Jerry has been a phenomenal guest.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Now here's a guy that has five sons in the industry, two daughters.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: So I want to ask you know, family-run business is like sausage.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: If you knew what sausage was made of, a lot of people wouldn't go into business.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But jerry, I'm listening here, like a lot of our listeners how did you deal with your children?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: You know having different personalities and so forth, how is it that you dealt with them?
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: You know one-on-one.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Could you share a little bit of some of the challenges you had of raising five sons and two daughters?
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: Well, so Jerry Jr is the oldest and we did I don't want to say he kind of set the benchmark for certain things.
• 23:36
  Speaker 5: So things that we did with Jerry Jr got passed on to the rest of them, a little off the subject.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: So when they were 16, they got a driver's license.
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: It was either 16 or 17,.
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: They got a brand new pickup truck.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: And the following year they got a brand new car carrier and Jerry Jr set the benchmark for that.
• 23:58
  Speaker 5: So it was passed on to all the other ones as it went forward or at least that was the intent, and and that's how come to company kept growing.
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: But they all had enthusiasm to work together, want to be part of the family and so forth.
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: And up until, like covid, my oldest daughter left, probably about three years ago.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: And, um, like I said, my oldest daughter left probably about three years ago and, like I said, my oldest daughter is very much like myself, not to say my sons aren't.
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: But we butted heads about something.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: Neither one of us made a resolution over it, so she left the business and now she's working for a ready mix company, driving a ready mix truck and making good money, I believe, and a union job and so forth, and she's had with.
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: But the thing is she's doing what she wants to do and that's that's part of that's part of as, as I, as I have said in the past, if you do what you would like to do, you generally don't work a day in your life.
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: And then my younger daughter she wanted to be a veterinarian and then she was back and forth between the business and some of it had to do with COVID.
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: She went back to being a veterinarian or a veterinarian assistant and she enjoys doing that.
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: So the girls are doing what they want to do and, as of right now, the five boys are involved in the business which, as the company grew, they all acquired a percentage of the business and they're all treated equally as much as possible.
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: As far as teaching, I would like to say part of my job was easy because whenever we taught Jerry Jr, he passed it on to his next brother, andy, and then those two would pass it on to the next one and they watch out for each other.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: That's the main thing.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I think it's a great story and I hope our listeners are understanding that your example has a lot to do with the success of the entire group, so they watch you and your wife work hard and they, in turn, work hard.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: So that's, that's part of it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Lead by example and judge by results well, another little tidbit that goes with.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: That is and please don't take this the wrong way, but when you're working for yourself, it's a me thing.
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: In other words, your success is determined or is the result of what you do.
• 26:32
  Speaker 5: In other words, if your intent and purpose is to be good and to pursue it and do the right thing, then it'll perpetuate itself.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: If you're just in it to make the money, then it'll go that way too.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: It's just a dollar and cents thing.
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: Obviously, we enjoy being profitable, and that's why we grew.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: But our customers are part of that whole formula.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: If we don't do a good job for our customers, then our customers will stop inviting us to the next party, so to speak, or to the next call.
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: They rely on us, they trust us, they know what our abilities are and therefore they keep inviting you back, which is part of your reward.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, see, I'm taking notes and what I got out of that one is if your customers are happy, your business will grow.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: So just please your customers happy, your business will grow.
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: So just please your customers and the rest will just follow part of my part of my thing is karma, so it'll keep going around.
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: In other words, you're helping them, they help you, like with this class, for instance.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: Okay, the ready mix company that that we got the two mixers from has been a customer of ours since like the very early 1970s and we made some phone calls and they were able to provide us with a brand new front discharge, never been used, and a truck that they have a place it's called Revitalize, where they rebuild their mixers, and the other one was a Kenworth rear discharge.
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: Another one of our customers is Pack Financial and they are the used truck center in Minooka and we went to them and told them we needed some late model tractors and they provided us a choice of what we had and we brought out two tractors for that class.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Relationships.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was really nice to have the late model trucks.
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: We didn't roll them over, they were for towing operations etc.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: But it was very nice.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: And the company Jerry speaks of is all around the Great Lakes.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: There They've been very good to truck driver training and me over the years.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: So we definitely appreciate that.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: And you're right, it's all about relationships.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, talking about relationships, jerry, talk about the relationship you have with Lynch and how instrumental they've been in all kinds of training up there over the years.
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: So our relationship with Lynch started back when they were, I believe, called B&B, and at the time this goes way back between 1980 and 1990, our family, which was my mom and dad and brother, were a towing service Plus.
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: We were also a dealer for Century and then F-19.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: That was the early days of Century right.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: That's when Jerry Holmes owned it.
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: Jerry Holmes and we were the Century dealer in the Chicago area.
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: We weren't a big dealer, we weren't that big.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: We sold a few units and so forth.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: We bought a few units and so forth.
• 29:41
  Speaker 5: We bought a few units and then around between 1980 and 1990, so then at that time we were actually competing against which I believe back then was called B&B and B&B at that time was a dealer and they were handling another product and then after we dropped out in 1990, the franchise for Century and or, which became Miller, it went to somebody else and then, I think, eventually it went to what we're going to call Lynch now.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: So, because we were a dealer for Century and even prior to that we always used the Holmes equipment.
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: We had a 600 and we had 750s.
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: But our background of what we did and people that we knew, we were able to take trucks all the way down to every nut and bolt, like you would a model car or model truck and we would rebuild stuff and then, like in 1981, is when we bought our first brand new theater built and then after that we kept on buying new stuff but we would still mount our own bodies.
• 30:46
  Speaker 5: We spent a lot of time sandblasting and priming and painting them to make a lesson or whatever.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: But I had bought.
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: My first couple of trucks were used trucks.
• 30:57
  Speaker 5: I bought one from a private party, I bought one from Zips and then I bought some other stuff.
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: But eventually we started buying stuff from what we are now going to call Lynch and we've bought all of our stuff since then, probably for the last 20 years or more.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: We have a good rapport with them.
• 31:20
  Speaker 5: Robert is my go-to person at lynch and mike mariner, who's above robert, mike mariner and I had a relationship.
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: Mike mariner was our zone rep, so to speak, back when it was century.
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: So I I have a rapport with him.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: Um, it's just it's.
• 31:38
  Speaker 5: It gets back to the karma thing.
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: They helped me out, I help them out.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: We have a reciprocating things.
• 31:45
  Speaker 5: You know, every now and then I might need something.
• 31:48
  Speaker 5: I ask them and we figure something out.
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: They call up, they need something and I'm the first one to say sometimes I'll probably say the wrong thing, but let me say it and then you'll say you're right, you're wrong, but here, because you said that this is what we can do, and it goes the other way, they'll tell me what the problem is and I'll say well, someone doing it this way, why don't you do it that way?
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: And we make suggestions.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: But once again, it's a team effort.
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: Um, what we have here at our place, we have, uh, all century products, I believe.
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: All Century products, I believe, except for an old Holmes I bought out of Houston, which is like a collector thing, and a Challenger 8808, which I had bought from them and it was part of when.
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: Challenger is part of the Miller line, but it's all Miller products, the Miller line, but it's all Miller products.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: I like the Miller products not to make an ad, because you get parts books with them.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: The parts are interchangeable.
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: It's no different than buying a Ford and interchanging the parts, or a GM or something like that.
• 32:53
  Speaker 5: And it's a standardized unit and, like I said, we can pretty much take them down completely or break it down into components.
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: And when they're all the same, it's easier to stock parts for them, it's easier to work on them.
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: You have a knowledge what's going on yeah, absolutely I agree with all that.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: And and just for our listeners, we're talking lynch chicago.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: Um, robert freeson is who handled the school this this past.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: They did an excellent job.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: I guess they're part of the Lynch family out of Wisconsin who also is operating in Denver now.
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: So just have three Miller dealerships around the country and a host of other dealerships.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: The family are involved with just regular car and truck dealerships up there in Wisconsin from what I understand.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: So just trying to get a listen at speed there a little bit, jerry, all right.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: So, jerry, tell us the world according to Jerry.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Where does that come from?
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: What is that?
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: Well the world, according to Jerry was a phrase that I coined.
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: That originally started with my oldest brother, who was an electrician.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: And he used to have a thing called the world according to John.
• 34:06
  Speaker 5: So then we walked two different circles in life so I started picking up on that.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: Some people enjoy the world according to Jerry.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: Some people make fun of it.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: I really don't care, but when it's said, they pretty much know where it's coming from.
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: And it's my take on things.
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: It's it's, it's what I feel to believe is right or correct, or how I understand things, and and I'm happy with that, I always say it.
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: I might not say the right thing, I might not be totally correct, but at least you enjoy or know what I'm thinking, because if you give me a chance to talk, I might say something.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: Well, as far as I'm concerned, you say an awful lot every time you talk and you definitely follow through on what you say.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: There's no doubt about that.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: Did a great job hosting this past weekend.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: Can't thank you enough for that.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Look forward to doing some stuff again like that.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: In closing, anything you'd like to share or talk about well I I had a whole list of things here to talk about and I just don't know where you want to go with it.
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: But I I, I I'll put some stuff out there once again.
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: Maybe it's wrong.
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think the training, uh, in some ways and I know there's going to be people that don't agree but, for instance, you have a driver's license, you start out with a car license and you can go from there and you can go up to a CDL.
• 35:39
  Speaker 5: Then you can get endorsements.
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: I had to go get one of my sons rescued at a scale years ago because he was towing a tractor with a single axle trailer and he had a CDL license and he got pulled around back, didn't really get put out of service but they said he's not driving out of there towing both of them together, because the scale master called him out and said he had to have a doubles and triples endorsement.
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: So I went there and I I drove the tow truck towing the tractor and trailer out of the scale and so forth.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: He got a ticket.
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: He went to the court.
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: By that time he had got the endorsement for the doubles and triples and that was the end of the ticket there was no fine or anything.
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: The direction I'm going here is that certain driver's licenses have to have certain endorsements and, like I said, I know I'm going to get some pushback on this whole thing, but I think one way of the towing profession to be more professional, to get better recognition, would be for tow truck drivers to have an additional endorsement for tow trucks, whether it's light duty, similar to.
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: You can get a motorcycle license that has only got up to 150 or 200 cc's and then you get that's the l license, I believe in illinois, and then the m license is for anything, all motorcycles I.
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: I think, as a towing profession, we should have endorsements for for our towing, which means that it also means that you have to have extra skills tests, which would be certification, possibly through organization makers like yourself, wes, where they have the training and not only the certification where they took a knowledge test, but also a test where you would have a skills test.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: So a skills test for the knowledge and a skills test for actually operating the vehicle.
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: That's one of my thought processes that should come If we treat ourselves more like professionals.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: You know, a doctor has to go to school, a veterinarian has to go to school.
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: Think of anybody that calls themselves a professional.
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: They have some sort of training and certification and then testing that acknowledges that.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: That's one of my thought processes that maybe you guys could talk about someday or have someone pursue it.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying I disagree with any of that.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: How the practical application always scares me when the government gets involved with anything but short of that I do agree that there needs to be some other situation to help the telling industry get recognized for the skill level they bring, and we can definitely have you back to talk about that and and any other subjects you want.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: Jerry, would you be coming back and being a guest again?
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: Well, we can talk about the dates and so forth, and in a few weeks I'll be out of the country for my annual retreat.
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: So June's not a good month for me.
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: But, yes, I'm game for it, we'll get that all figured out, jerry.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Okay, no problem.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I need to thank you for being here and sharing so much with us, bj, as always jerry was great and, yeah, he needs to come back and we need to talk about certification because in the speaking business, jerry, uh, if they have a certification and that's how they know who is a professional speaker versus some guy who's just out there speaking to Kiwanis groups there's a.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: You know, we have a CSB certification for professional speakers.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: So I agree with you.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I think somebody who's driving a heavy duty should have a different degree than somebody who's driving, you know, a flatbed.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I kind of agree with you.
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: So do we have a couple more minutes here or no?
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, go ahead.
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: I'll just keep it brief.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: So let's just hit real quick on the people who are doing car carriers.
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: I'm a huge advocate of the hooking up, the, you know, the tag lights, the trailer lights, hooking up running cords to the back.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: I'm a huge advocate of secure tie downs on those under reaches, on the wheel lifts, on the back of those carriers and the safety chains.
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: And then even, which I believe is actually the rule now, you get the vehicle on top, not not.
• 40:33
  Speaker 5: Not like a politician may have four tie-downs, I believe it must have four tie-downs.
• 40:37
  Speaker 5: And, as you're an advocate, the winch is not a tie-down.
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: So those devices are out there, the beds are being developed that they can readily use any detachment points, and I really I think the best thing that the industry could do is the police itself.
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: And only a rebuttal to having the government involved in that licensing thing.
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: I don't know if the government licenses doctors and I know this is not an equal comparison to the tow truck drivers tested at a junior college or any kind of college or someplace.
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: You know, like when me and my son and daughter flew down to Myrtle Beach for that first class we found with you many years ago.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: We got to start somewhere.
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: That's the whole thing.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: Jerry, hang on one second.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: We have a National Co-Operator Certification Program, which we provide through the zoom meeting format that tests teleoperative skill level.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: So I'm not saying we have all the answers, but we have one answer right there.
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Um, that you don't have to be in a city for you know, we still do the live classes, as you saw this past weekend.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: But we do have the home study certification that allows an employer to test and uh to test an employee's skill level.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Uh of you know where they're at with training.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: As a matter of fact, we have some you know study guide that we issue when you sign up for it and we also use things like the uh, a tim's radio from the federal government so that all the information to pass this exam doesn't come from us necessarily.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: So we are trying in some avenues.
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: No, what I would try to say, wes, is that your testing is kind of a knowledge test, that your testing is kind of a knowledge test.
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: And let me finish before you your testing is a knowledge test and the rec master class is a knowledge test.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: And the TRA test is a knowledge test.
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: It's a book test.
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: Many, many years ago the TRA light duty knowledge test we gave a copy of that test to our banker was a friend of ours.
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: He filled it out and passed.
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: He wouldn't know how to drive that tow truck.
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: He wouldn't know how to, but he had the knowledge to do it.
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: So that's part of it.
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: Where I'm going is not only to have the knowledge but to have the application, that to have the hands-on which I'm going to call the skills test.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: You must show me how to hook up to something from the front or the back.
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: You've got to start somewhere.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: It might never happen, but here at our company, at A Auto Truck, even a new driver comes in here and says he has skills or whatever.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: He gets one of my sons driving with him or riding with him for two weeks and we let him show us how he's doing things.
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: We also show him how we do things and it's all about trying to make sure they have the ability that when they're by themselves, there's no question in anybody's mind.
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: You have the mindset.
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: Here's how you have to do things.
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: There's steps If I have to write them out for you, if you have to memorize them as simple as tying the steering wheel twice okay, not once, but twice, and I've seen it happen, and I know it just happened recently.
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: They didn't tie it at all and the first turn they made that tractor swung out and damaged something.
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: I had one happen years ago in a rail yard.
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: My guy oh, I tied it, bullshit, you tied it.
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: He did $4,000 of damage to one of my customers' truck.
• 44:26
  Speaker 5: I paid for that out of pocket and that's probably over 25 years ago.
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: That's one of those lessons I paid for.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: And if I had to pay for it again, then I didn't learn it the first time.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: Well, we need to.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: This is a whole other episode, so we need to have you back on and we'll make arrangements for that time to have you on our future episode.
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: Are you good with that, Jerry?
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: Absolutely All right.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Well, DJ, I want to thank you.
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: And that, Jerry, Absolutely All right.
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: Well, DJ, I want to thank you and, Jerry, thank you To all our listeners.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: I know this is playing on a little bit, but appreciate you.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Continue to subscribe to us and we appreciate you liking and sharing.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: Until next time, listeners, be safe out there.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Thank you, be safe out there.