Latest / Towing News Now / Electrifying Towing Tales: Innovation, Safety, and Community with the Toe Doctor and Wes Wilburn
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Welcome one and all to the American Toe and Recovery Institute podcast.
- 0:07Speaker 1: This is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded Toe and Recovery Institute.
- 0:20Speaker 1: I want all of you to know I'm proud to be the co-host.
- 0:24Speaker 1: I'm DJ Harrington, better known as the Toe Doctor, and I'm honored to have as the other co-host of today's episode a 40-year Toeing Industry Veteran and the founder of American Toe and Recovery Institute, a dear friend of mine, a first-class human being, one and only Wes Wilbur Wes, how are you?
- 0:47Speaker 1: This beautiful day?
- 0:48Speaker 1: You're doing great.
- 0:51Speaker 1: It's a cool, crisp winter day when we're setting in here in the southeast Great, great time.
- 0:59Speaker 1: I helped April with a special project that's near and dear to her heart.
- 1:03Speaker 1: Every year.
- 1:04Speaker 1: I know you've got a lot of things going, so we do have a lot going on and a lot of exciting news here.
- 1:13Speaker 1: We're under some major forward movements here at the Institute.
- 1:18Speaker 1: I guess we're coming right up on a break, so I'll just tease everybody with that.
- 1:22Speaker 1: We've got some major announcements about next year, so right back from the break we'll get right into it.
- 1:27Speaker 1: What's going on here, what we're doing, what we're, how we're moving forward?
- 1:31Speaker 1: I also got a status report on the app.
- 1:33Speaker 1: How good that's doing it.
- 1:35Speaker 1: So we got a lot to talk about.
- 1:36Speaker 1: You got it.
- 1:38Speaker 1: We'll take a break, folks, and we'll be right back.
- 1:44Speaker 2: The folks at Purpose Record are record specialists.
- 1:47Speaker 2: They don't get bogged down with other types of sales like cars, assorted equipment or snow plows.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Purpose Record exclusively specializes in towing and hauling.
- 1:57Speaker 2: From parts and service to financing, they remain focused on providing the best service and customer care to the towing and hauling industry.
- 2:05Speaker 2: Even in these trying times, Purpose Record works hard to meet the needs of its customers.
- 2:10Speaker 2: They are the preferred distributor in North America for purchasing towing and recovery equipment.
- 2:15Speaker 2: For more information, visit them on the web at PurposeRecordcom, or speak to a specialist by calling 636-639-9700.
- 2:25Speaker 2: That's 636-639-9700, celebrating 40 years in the towing industry.
- 2:32Speaker 2: That's PurposeRecordcom.
- 2:35Speaker 2: Information in this podcast is made possible by generous sponsorship from Henry's Record, serving the community with quality towing and recovery for over 40 years.
- 2:43Speaker 2: Henry'srecordcom.
- 2:46Speaker 1: You have been listening to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast with Wes Wilburne and DJ Harrington.
- 2:53Speaker 1: I want to remind all of you.
- 2:55Speaker 1: Every week we do our best to bring you new informative episodes like this one.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Make sure you download and listen.
- 3:02Speaker 1: We're available, get ready.
- 3:04Speaker 1: We're available on Spotify, itunes, bandura, google Play, stitcher, iart Media, amazon or wherever you get your podcast, like it always is, I am thoroughly impressed and I treasure our friendship.
- 3:22Speaker 1: Let's go back right now, wes Wilburne.
- 3:25Speaker 1: Thanks, dj, I really appreciate that.
- 3:29Speaker 1: I appreciate your friendship as well.
- 3:31Speaker 1: As promised before the break, we've got a lot of exciting stuff going on.
- 3:35Speaker 1: Before I talk about next year, I talk about this year.
- 3:39Speaker 1: As I talk about it, it's happening yet, but as you listen to it, it will have had happened.
- 3:44Speaker 1: But do you remember that Tesla that we got transported back from Indianapolis back in North Carolina?
- 3:52Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess Stefan Groups got involved in transferring it from one state property line to the next state to the next state.
- 3:59Speaker 1: You did a great job, so I don't even know.
- 4:03Speaker 1: I don't think I've talked about that class since because we had all the other stuff going on and I don't mean that sounds wrong but I want to discount that with the Gagin's Fensel situation tragedy.
- 4:16Speaker 1: But we did the class.
- 4:19Speaker 1: In Washington, north Carolina there was a film crew that came out recorded a little segment about the firefighter training that we may or may not get a mention in.
- 4:29Speaker 1: And all that was real positive.
- 4:30Speaker 1: And then we got this Tesla and we're working its way back across the state.
- 4:35Speaker 1: What I'm going to do is work with a couple different towing companies and do a little free seminar for them, and the local fire department showed them the Tesla, talking to them about electric vehicles, safety for responders et cetera.
- 4:48Speaker 1: That's just something we're doing as a little give back and it really feels good to be involved with that DJ.
- 4:53Speaker 1: So I'm excited about that.
- 4:54Speaker 1: Again, as you listen to it, it's already happened, but I haven't done it yet.
- 4:59Speaker 1: I'm going to do it over the next couple of days.
- 5:01Speaker 1: So the next podcast we do, I'll report back on that.
- 5:04Speaker 1: Also, here's some I consider a pretty big announcement Next year for training classes.
- 5:13Speaker 1: I'm going to do about 10 of them, maybe 12, but it looks like it's going to be closer to 10 different cities around the country.
- 5:20Speaker 1: One of the things I found is that I got to travel every weekend.
- 5:27Speaker 1: It's very hard on me, but if I can travel every weekend, I can still come out and do a pretty good class, got some people helping me, et cetera.
- 5:34Speaker 1: So I've picked right now, have 10 different cities fit.
- 5:38Speaker 1: We're confirming the details now.
- 5:41Speaker 1: So I'm going to be doing less and less live classes around the country.
- 5:45Speaker 1: So what we are going to do is we're going to take and do webinars.
- 5:50Speaker 1: We're going to record all that stuff, have it on YouTube, et cetera.
- 5:54Speaker 1: You know, dj, the whole world's changed around me so I'm trying to change to keep up with it a little bit.
- 5:59Speaker 1: Matter of fact, about the time this thing's airing, we'll be going to be in South Carolina with our friends at Sumner.
- 6:05Speaker 1: We had them on the podcast.
- 6:06Speaker 1: They're big on YouTube and we're going to do a YouTube episode in their show, which is probably going to be the first episode on our channel.
- 6:18Speaker 1: But we're going to put all kinds of training on a channel.
- 6:22Speaker 1: One of the things we declared where we set up is the first Wednesday of each month is going to be a free webinar.
- 6:28Speaker 1: We're going to start out with electric vehicles, because that's a big subject right now.
- 6:33Speaker 1: It'll be absolutely free.
- 6:35Speaker 1: It's going to be the same information that me and Ron Moore would teach together in a class.
- 6:40Speaker 1: We're going to do it together on a webinar.
- 6:42Speaker 1: We're going to break it up in a module and tell me the tensions are much, much shorter nowadays.
- 6:50Speaker 1: We're going to break up the webinars into.
- 6:52Speaker 1: We're going to start one at 7 o'clock East Coast time.
- 6:56Speaker 1: On the first Wednesday of every month At 7 o'clock we're going to run for 40 minutes.
- 7:02Speaker 1: We're going to have 10 minutes for a break and 10 minutes excuse me, 10 minutes for questions.
- 7:08Speaker 1: Of course they can ask questions during the session as well.
- 7:14Speaker 1: We have 10 minutes time in there for questions and then a 10 minute break.
- 7:18Speaker 1: Then come back at 8 o'clock hour and do part two.
- 7:23Speaker 1: First night we do it.
- 7:26Speaker 1: We're going to try to support one or part two.
- 7:28Speaker 1: We ain't so sure we can't do a part three of a night, but we're going to start out doing two of them Within 24 hours.
- 7:35Speaker 1: It's going to be archived available so that when somebody needs that subject they can look it up, look at the short video, watch the webinar, can ask questions live at that point, of course.
- 7:49Speaker 2: We got a lot of information.
- 7:50Speaker 1: We're going to put out not only electric vehicles but other kind of rigging and towing and extrication information we've got.
- 7:58Speaker 1: We're going to try all this with type war.
- 8:02Speaker 1: Already I'm trying all this in with the app E V dash clever dot com, which I know everybody knows about listening to this podcast.
- 8:10Speaker 1: Shame on you if you don't have a lot of you folks have signed on and help support the whole operation.
- 8:16Speaker 1: We appreciate that more than you know.
- 8:17Speaker 1: We've got information for over 700 vehicles on that app of either hybrid or purely electric vehicles.
- 8:25Speaker 1: We also have I believe it's about 50 heavy trucks.
- 8:29Speaker 1: These heavy trucks we have internal combustion engine with hybrid electric.
- 8:35Speaker 1: We have pure electric.
- 8:37Speaker 1: We have hydrogen and propane as well.
- 8:42Speaker 1: So we have all the factory information broken up several different ways to make it super easy to get to.
- 8:48Speaker 1: So I guess I shouldn't remember one about the app, but I'm so excited about that and how well it's doing.
- 8:54Speaker 1: We're going to pile this stuff together the app, the information, take short bits of the information and the little clips and put them right there on this page.
- 9:03Speaker 1: You need them with the instruction for this and that on the app.
- 9:06Speaker 1: It's going to be a whole interactive thing.
- 9:08Speaker 1: Dj, I can't tell you how excited I am about it.
- 9:11Speaker 1: It sounds fantastic.
- 9:13Speaker 1: Well, it's a big project and I'm very thankful We've got this great team that's working to put it all together and thankful for what we've done to make it happen.
- 9:24Speaker 1: And, of course, you and Chuck are a big part of it as well.
- 9:28Speaker 1: So Chuck's a producer that's behind the scenes, and us as a band and a rock, and he's out in front of the scenes, right, dj?
- 9:36Speaker 1: Yeah, as we started on Ohio's photo show, it did a great job there.
- 9:41Speaker 1: It really did.
- 9:42Speaker 1: I'm hoping to be back next year and looking forward to that.
- 9:44Speaker 1: That was a great evening.
- 9:45Speaker 1: So that's what we've been doing here, dj.
- 9:49Speaker 1: We're super excited about it.
- 9:53Speaker 1: We're reformalizing a lot of the.
- 9:55Speaker 1: You know we have good information, but maybe it's, you know, the four hours in the classroom lecture in the morning and then four hours fieldwork.
- 10:03Speaker 1: That doesn't fit most people's lifestyle and then doing that two days in a row, especially, which is the traditional model for continuing education and telling in recovery.
- 10:13Speaker 1: And you know I didn't set this model.
- 10:15Speaker 1: It was happening when I came around and I followed through with it, but it's changing.
- 10:20Speaker 1: One of the big things we're doing next year is reformulating some of the classes, the way we teach them, and we're just about coming up to heartbreak, so we'll talk about that as soon as we come back and then we'll be reformulating some classes, all right.
- 10:33Speaker 1: So let's do that, let's take a break and we'll be right back folks to learn more about the new EB Clever app.
- 10:45Speaker 2: The best towing companies offer a combination of great training, efficient operations, along with quality supplies.
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- 11:26Speaker 2: Savvy consumers can quickly tell which towing companies provide the best service.
- 11:30Speaker 2: In many cases, the quality of your equipment and supplies can make a huge difference.
- 11:35Speaker 2: Our representatives are knowledgeable in the towing industry, so for the best towing equipment and supplies, count on the team at towing equipment direct.
- 11:43Speaker 2: Browse our catalog online at towingequipmentdirectcom or give us a call at 910-747-9000.
- 11:52Speaker 2: That's 910-747-9000.
- 11:54Speaker 2: We look forward to serving you.
- 11:58Speaker 1: You're listening to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast Wes Wilburn, dj Harrington, folks.
- 12:04Speaker 1: I want to thank all of you.
- 12:05Speaker 1: Remember to like, review and share everywhere.
- 12:08Speaker 1: It's because of your efforts that this is the largest right now of podcast in the towing recovery world and we thank you.
- 12:18Speaker 1: If you want anybody that you know that you think Wes and I should have on the podcast, by all means the hotline number is 706-4095603.
- 12:30Speaker 1: And let us know, you know here at the podcast center, if you need more information about American Towing Recovery Institute, just dial 910-747-9000.
- 12:45Speaker 1: That's 9000.
- 12:49Speaker 1: And just ask about the new app, ask about membership, ask about anything.
- 12:53Speaker 1: What's the discount?
- 12:55Speaker 1: Just go to the website and it's a real easy website.
- 12:58Speaker 1: Folks, wwwamtowricom, ororg, and everything's right there on the website.
- 13:09Speaker 1: It's very, very simple.
- 13:11Speaker 1: You could hit the app right there, the app that everybody's talking about in the industry.
- 13:16Speaker 1: Just go to the website and it's right there on the front page, hit it and then you're down below the app.
- 13:21Speaker 1: Yeah, I forgot.
- 13:24Speaker 1: I've been told by the studio producer.
- 13:26Speaker 1: I forgot to tell the folks on the app.
- 13:28Speaker 1: Want to save 20%?
- 13:30Speaker 1: Podcast 20.
- 13:34Speaker 1: All one no spaces, podcast 20.
- 13:36Speaker 1: Hey folks, and what Wes just said if you want the discount 20% off, just do P-O-D-C-A-S-T.
- 13:45Speaker 1: The number two.
- 13:47Speaker 1: 20, yeah, number 20, number 20.
- 13:50Speaker 2: Number 20, so it's two 20, yeah.
- 13:55Speaker 1: Thank you, dj.
- 13:55Speaker 1: Thank you, I appreciate you helping.
- 13:57Speaker 1: Keep it straight on that.
- 13:58Speaker 1: Yeah, we've given the website.
- 14:04Speaker 1: We don't give them the discount.
- 14:05Speaker 1: Totally lacking on my job here.
- 14:07Speaker 1: Speaking of lacking on my job, the last time we were together we recorded two podcasts back to back.
- 14:17Speaker 1: Right before that episode, somebody gave us some real constructive criticism about I need a better sound system.
- 14:24Speaker 1: So we went and bought a very expensive microphone.
- 14:27Speaker 1: We bought it back, couldn't get it connected to the telephone, so it wasn't the right setup for what we were trying to do.
- 14:38Speaker 1: So we take it back, we get another one, we bring it back Again.
- 14:43Speaker 1: I wait till a couple hours to try to put it all together, missing a piece.
- 14:47Speaker 1: So I promise our podcast listeners next time we talk we're going to have a much better sound system, taking all this very seriously, and we're not even going to wait till the last minute.
- 14:57Speaker 1: Take the thing back tonight trying to get it figured out.
- 15:00Speaker 1: Get another one on the way.
- 15:02Speaker 1: Whatever it is we got to do so we can get the sound quality up.
- 15:06Speaker 1: So we've heard you.
- 15:07Speaker 1: We feel your pain.
- 15:09Speaker 1: We're going to adjust to the system.
- 15:12Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of adjusting to the system nowadays, dj.
- 15:15Speaker 1: What can I say it's moving around real quick, isn't it?
- 15:17Speaker 1: It sure is, but everybody learns.
- 15:20Speaker 1: I mean, I use a clip on microphone that goes into it.
- 15:24Speaker 1: It's a TTS-T-O-R Lavalier microphone and it's for iOS devices and that's all you really need, wes.
- 15:36Speaker 1: You don't have to be really fancy, but you come across well, see, the thing that is, you're so knowledgeable.
- 15:43Speaker 1: That's the difference, you know.
- 15:46Speaker 1: That's why people want to hear your voice and they want to hear it.
- 15:48Speaker 1: I love when people say you're the voice of the podcast with Wes Wilburn.
- 15:54Speaker 1: I thought, oh brother yes, I am.
- 15:57Speaker 1: You're too kind, dj, but hey, while we're talking about things changing, I want to talk about that Because I've again been told I covered half the story in our previous segment.
- 16:06Speaker 1: Talk about next year going to be a little different, but next year is going to be partly the same too.
- 16:10Speaker 1: We're still going to offer two-day classes.
- 16:13Speaker 1: Right now Probably looks like the first one of the year is going to be in Columbus, georgia, first week of February.
- 16:20Speaker 1: Last week in February it was like we were going to be in Louisiana.
- 16:24Speaker 1: We're getting all the details hammered out now.
- 16:26Speaker 1: We hope to have a complete schedule up and posted by the time there's five guest airs, at least the first six months of it.
- 16:33Speaker 1: Of the cities we're going to be in, some cities like Columbus, georgia, we're going to offer exactly the same type of courses we offered last year Two days, two full days, one.
- 16:46Speaker 1: Subject heavy totals, towing and recovery.
- 16:49Speaker 1: We're doing a traditional ad we've been doing but other cities we're going to try some different stuff.
- 16:55Speaker 1: In Louisiana what we're talking about doing is on Friday night we'll get in there and we'll do a two-hour awareness level seven on electric vehicles.
- 17:05Speaker 1: This is going to be free.
- 17:07Speaker 1: The towing companies, whether they're coming to the weekend class or not, going to be free to firefighters, law enforcement, dot officials, anybody with any group that's interested in trying to work.
- 17:21Speaker 1: Bring all these different levels of responders together.
- 17:25Speaker 1: This will be a free course we're going to do on that Friday night.
- 17:29Speaker 1: On Saturday we're going to do a one-day heavy towing and recovery, basically half the class we do over the weekend Then on.
- 17:38Speaker 1: Sunday we're going to do a one-day light duty towing and recovery and again, shorter attention spans, title, work schedules, different attitudes about this industry than 20 years ago.
- 17:52Speaker 1: It's causing us to talk about with some of the groups who work with trying some different things.
- 18:00Speaker 1: So that's what we're thinking about doing.
- 18:02Speaker 1: We're gonna do that second thing in Lake Charles towards the end of February.
- 18:07Speaker 1: Again, we're working on the final details.
- 18:09Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't talk about it, but I'm so excited about all the things that are changing and how it's just like a natural.
- 18:17Speaker 1: You know, dj, sometimes when you change, change and try to force things all the changes we're doing here with the app and everything that's just coming together so naturally it's like it's where we're intended to be by a higher power.
- 18:32Speaker 1: It really feels like that.
- 18:34Speaker 1: So I'm just thankful to be a part of this journey and part of this ride.
- 18:38Speaker 1: We got a great team working to put it all together.
- 18:41Speaker 1: We got super exciting things will be announced and don't wait just to hear from this podcast.
- 18:47Speaker 1: We're coming weeks back on this podcast.
- 18:49Speaker 1: You gotta be so you can get to the holidays, et cetera.
- 18:52Speaker 1: And we do have those holidays cause sneaking right up here on us.
- 18:56Speaker 1: We're excited.
- 18:59Speaker 1: We're gonna be ready for next year.
- 19:00Speaker 1: We're gonna start out February with some training dates and, dj, I just can't thank you enough.
- 19:07Speaker 1: Everybody on the APR team here, of course, our listeners, the podcast and those that go to the students and those that attend the classes, the students, of course we appreciate them.
- 19:18Speaker 1: So, dj, I'm just that's my story, I'm sticking to it Going to do one of these many things tomorrow, so I'm pumped up about that here in North Carolina.
- 19:32Speaker 1: So I just ask our listeners to please pray for world peace the holiday season, make sure everybody's paying extra attention to driving.
- 19:43Speaker 1: With the time of year, christmas parties are starting, et cetera.
- 19:47Speaker 1: And this day and age of Uber and the ride program, there should be no skis in the world for somebody to be driving a drive, but we still know they're out there.
- 19:57Speaker 1: So we just ask everybody to be careful.
- 20:00Speaker 1: All the workers out there, operators, keep your eye on traffic.
- 20:05Speaker 1: Get on that non-traffic side as much as you can, and I'm pumped up when it's here you want to take us home.
- 20:14Speaker 1: My friend, I have to share with all your listeners.
- 20:18Speaker 1: When I was in Baltimore for the Baltimore Toe Show, one of the challenges that the National Auto Body Council had is they had a vehicle that they were donating to a veteran that had just lost their leg and it was fixed so that a person without legs could actually drive the vehicle.
- 20:40Speaker 1: It had to be transported to four different states and I said well, let me tell you what.
- 20:48Speaker 1: The American Toe Recovery Institute did.
- 20:51Speaker 1: And I explained how you brought the EV vehicle through seven different states down to where you needed it in North Carolina, and all of a sudden it was like that's a brilliant idea, we could ask state associations to help get involved in moving the vehicle and with that suggestion, because of you guys, it actually worked.
- 21:13Speaker 1: So a veteran this holiday season who is without legs is going to have a special vehicle delivered to him on Christmas Eve because of the thinking of the American Toe Recovery Institute, which I thought was a brilliant idea.
- 21:28Speaker 1: But it's those type of things that happened during this holiday season.
- 21:32Speaker 1: Merry Christmas.
- 21:33Speaker 1: This is the season you know Jesus, the reason for the season and all the past.
- 21:40Speaker 1: It's a special time.
- 21:41Speaker 1: So love on your family members, spend time with them and remember.
- 21:47Speaker 1: You know the Spenser.
- 21:49Speaker 1: You know Matt Spenser.
- 21:51Speaker 1: I've met him in Baltimore.
- 21:52Speaker 1: He's been in classes, he's been here since I've lost his life and he cared so much and I want you to, if you're listening to his podcast.
- 22:01Speaker 1: Two podcast back is all about the Spenser and I hope you will remember to keep that family and, as Matt Spenser said so emotionally on the podcast when he spoke, to keep the 18 year old young man who killed his son in your prayers because, just like Linda Underwood, her son was killed by an 83 year old driver who Linda took care of after she had.
- 22:32Speaker 1: You know, this gentleman killed her son and then, when she went to visit him, found out that he wasn't even being cared for.
- 22:39Speaker 1: So she ended up helping take care of this 83 year old man, who felt terrible, and it's that kind of forgiveness that we sometimes forget.
- 22:48Speaker 1: That's why I commend you, Wes, for thinking of those things.
- 22:52Speaker 1: So, yeah, if I was going to send everybody home from this podcast, remember to listen One of these podcasts that have been our kind and you have some wonderful guests on the pass.
- 23:05Speaker 1: So if you have a little bit of extra time, go back and listen to some of the other podcasts that are on the network here.
- 23:12Speaker 1: And you really will enjoy some of the people that were on, and I thank you for letting me be your partner on the podcast.
- 23:20Speaker 1: Well, thank you.
- 23:22Speaker 1: You do more than enough to make all this happen.
- 23:26Speaker 1: You're the one who taught me how to do it and I appreciate you dragging me in.
- 23:30Speaker 1: It's the first time I've done it All right listeners you heard it to this side Tune in next week and you'll be very fuzzingly surprised and we'll go from there.
- 23:43Speaker 1: Thank you, dj.
- 23:45Speaker 1: God bless everybody, be safe and we'll talk to you soon.