In Part 2 of TRAXERO On-The-Go Episode 3, I Stand With Flagman, we speak with Tom Parbs, Senior Director of Sales, HAAS Alert, and how his company is helping to raise awareness for Flagman Safety as well as how HAAS Alert’s products are working to help more drivers slow down and move over. Click play for more. 

Transcription:

Laura Dolan:

Welcome to Part Two of TRAXERO On-The-Go’s episode, I Stand With Flagman. Now let’s pick up where we left off.

Shelli Hawkins:

And with that being said, we’re going to transition over to the man of the hour. I can say Mr. Tom Parbs, who is well known in our industry with a fantastic personality that is larger than life. I bump into him at all the things. I went to the Indiana Tow Show for the first time last year, and who did I see? My friend Tom Parbs. He gave a fantastic speech during one of the really big gatherings of the Indiana Tow Show, because it’s certainly a message that’s very important about the safety aspect.

I remember working for AW Direct way, way back in the day and selling the high-vis vest, and the tow workers would come to me and buy 20, 50, 100 at a time. It just filled my heart, and made me happy to know that these owners are out there seeing the importance of being in compliance with ANSI Class 3 and having their operators on the roadside with that. Of course we have the required lighting that’s out there and the beacons out there, but we also now have HAAS Alert. I’m going to turn it over to Tom for him to share the origins. How did Cory Haas or his folks come up with a plan for HAAS Alert? Tom, welcome.

Tom Parbs:

Yeah. Thank you very much. Again, just real quick before I go, Cindy, I’ve followed the story for a very long time. It’s an unfortunate story, but it’s also I think a helpful story for someone like me that helps fuel my passion to solve this preventable problem, which is how I got to HAAS Alert. Again, I was actually at the court hearing when they sentenced the driver that killed Cindy’s brother, Corey. I actually stood on the courthouse steps with Senator Blumenthal at that press conference and really talked about road safety, not so much from anyone’s perspective, but how we can all, everybody, can get home safer to their families because that’s the ultimate goal.

What’s HAAS Alert? What’s the story of HAAS Alert? It’s funny because that’s how Cindy and I met. We met at the Tennessee Tow Show 2021. You were filming your documentary. I actually was talking to Betsy from Statewide in Georgia. She was getting signed up with HAAS Alert and Cory, our CEO and one of the co-founders who started the organization, you were interviewing him. When you ask what’s HAAS Alert, you got a very technical, long-winded answer. Devin Banks from the Tow team was there with me. Devin’s statement would be, “It looks like Tom’s head was going to pop off because Cory, you got to keep it simple, not go all over the place.” Cindy, don’t know if you remember, but I started poking my head into the camera to have the answers come to me so you could get a more tow friendly and [typical] person friendly version of what HAAS Alert is.

Look, the technical answer is we’re a lifesaving mobility organization. We make lifesaving technology that uses advanced alerts that gets into people’s cars. We make cars communicate, and we actually, in its most simplest terms, we disrupt distraction. We get people’s attention and we get people to actually slow down and move over. We do the things that no road worker today is able to do without us and that is actually control traffic and meet people where they are before that motorist, they may not even see you yet, because you’re around a curve, you’re just over the top of the hill or at the bottom of the hill, or there’s traffic ahead of them. We are actually able to effectively disrupt phone calls, disrupt the radio, disrupt the distraction, and get people to slow down and move over in advance so that they can actually see your lights and your high-vis and your cones and your signs and flares and things of that nature.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love that sound and I’ve actually seen that on my Waze before and it’s pretty empowering to know that you guys are out there. I know so many folks that have adopted the HAAS Alert. I’m curious, how did the idea of HAAS Alert even come about? Who is the founder of HAAS Alert and where did the idea come from?

Tom Parbs:

Cory Haas is our CEO and he’s one of the co-founders. He co-founded the company with his two co-founders, our CTO and our CMO, Noah and Jigar. They actually have a background in the nav tech, in-vehicle tech space as programmers and the automotive space. Really the company was born because of the experience, Cory was almost struck and killed by a responding ambulance here in Chicago. I’m not saying that was a close call, it was a near death experience, obviously being newly married or obviously being married, getting home to his wife, Marta. He was not mad at the ambulance. He was like, “How did I not hear it and see it?” He almost didn’t go home to his family.

Shelli Hawkins:

Wow. I had no idea.

Tom Parbs:

He’s just a motorist.

Shelli Hawkins:

I had never heard that until just now. Wow, okay. I’ve met Cory. Cory was in Tennessee three years ago, I think.

Tom Parbs:

Yeah, in 2021 we had him come out.

Shelli Hawkins:

Awesome. I met him there.

Tom Parbs:

When he looked into this, there was nobody on the planet that was really solving for this problem of not being able to hear or see our emergency responders, whether they have lights and sirens, whether it’s just lights because they’re stopped, whatever the case may be. There’s a giant awareness problem on our roadways that nobody’s addressing except HAAS Alert, as an additional tool on the tool belt to be clear. They banded together and in 2015, so we’ve been around since 2015, we started our organization. Now we’re a Gov tech top 100 company, so we work with the likes of Homeland Security, FEMA, USDOT. We work with the Department of Defense, they’re even utilizing our safety cloud technology. I can’t go too much into that, but for 2015 through 2017, it really was a lot of that just straight government work and had funding from Homeland Security to rapidly develop and deploy Safety Cloud.

In 2017, really that’s where, when I say the world, that’s where all of these responding agencies, be it tow or roadside assist, waste, like garbage trucks, recycling trucks, street sweepers, snowplows, work zone, DOT, school buses, towing, roadside assist, mobile mechanics, law enforcement, fire, emergency medical. If your office is the roadway, you could now use Safety Cloud. We are publishing both those moving alerts for our emergency responding vehicle and then of course our on scene alert for all of our responders. Like a tower, mobile mechanic, roadside assist, work zone, etc. That emergency vehicle that’s stopped at a location.

From 2017 to, I want to say it was probably about mid 2022, we have processed over 2 billion, that’s with a B, billion alerts to keep our roadways safer. For many of our organizations, not necessarily just reducing, but eliminating the collisions and strikes and injuries and deaths that they had previously experienced. There’s even articles that Federal Highway has written about our technology, but utilizing our customers as the case studies of, “Hey, they had 30 strikes a year and it went down to zero when they added HAAS Alert to their safety equation, our Safety Cloud.” That’s how we got started.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it.

Tom Parbs:

Really, when I got to the company we had, I got into the company October of 2020, we had approximately 138 customers. We now have close to 3,000 plus customers over the last two and a half years. It’s knocking on doors, it’s going to shows, it’s calling people. Devin from my team says, “Tom, how do you do it?” I’ll be up at six o’clock in the morning calling people to keep them safe and eight o’clock at night I’m still emailing because people have questions and I want to help them.

It’s a passion of mine. Everybody here is extremely passionate about our mission, which is a collision-free world where everybody goes home to their families. That is our mantra. Cindy, like you were talking about your battle cry. I don’t think people really understand. It’s cool to talk about this Vision Zero and, “Hey, we want to make it safer.” What we really take to heart, like every fiber of our being here at this organization, it can be solved. It literally can be solved. The industries tend to miss some of the things that require attention in order for it to work properly. Then you can actually get Vision Zero today, not tomorrow, not five years from now, not 10 years from now. Right now you can get to Vision Zero.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yeah.

Tom Parbs:

That’s just the passion and the way that we operate here as an organization to help people be safer so they can go home to their families.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it when you have the passion that you do, that Cindy does, that we all have, that’s not a job. It’s not a job. We are helping people every single day. There’s not a week, there’s not a day usually that goes by that I don’t get a phone call, I don’t get a text or Renee, Laura is new here. It’ll happen to her sooner than later, all of our friends and family, we are just big networks. It’s not work, it’s not work for us. They’re 24/7. We’re 24/7 along with them for sure. I think Laura had a question.

Laura Dolan:

Yeah, Tom, I’d just like to jump in here and ask you to describe the units in each tow truck and how the device gets activated.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yeah, that’s a good one. I get asked that a lot. Like, okay, how does this hook up? Do I have to wire it, hardwire it? I don’t even know what that looks like.

Tom Parbs:

Yeah, so we like easy. In the Marine Corps I think everybody’s probably heard this, the KISS system, keep it simple silly.

Shelli Hawkins:

Yes.

Tom Parbs:

We definitely like to keep it simple. To keep it even simple to explain, for those that are listening, there’s two ways that you can have Safety Cloud, that you can utilize Safety Cloud to protect not only your assets, like your fleet, but your most important asset, which is your people and your customers because they’re relying on you to get them home safe too. The first way is through our own equipment. It’s this little black box that’s a little bit smaller than an iPhone and about an inch thick.

Shelli Hawkins:

Wow, that’s tiny, that’s small.

Tom Parbs:

This is an automotive grade, IP 67 rated, made here in the States. It’s also DOD compliant. Same device we give to DOD. I’ll leave it at that, but this is free. We just give this. If you have Safety Cloud service, if you have a subscription to the Safety Cloud service, whether you’re paying monthly or annually or however you’re doing it, we just give you this $400 box and you install it on the truck. It’s one cable. It pigtails into three wires. All you have to know is how to connect a power, a ground, and a trigger wire. That’s it. Maybe 30 minutes to do your first one on a truck, and then 15, 20 minutes to just rinse and repeat with the rest of them. It’s passive. You do not have to train anybody to do anything different than you already do today.

You just do your job. The only action you’ll take is install this. When you go out and turn on your lights, that activates our Safety Cloud. If you’re an emergency responder, think like fire, law enforcement, emergency medical like an ambulance. When they’re moving, we’re sending out those alerts 30 seconds in advance of them encountering that emergency vehicle, encountering the motoring public or the motoring public encountering them as they’re going to a scene or when they’re stopped, like a tow truck is stopped on a road, residential street, city street, God’s country, railroad, highway, doesn’t matter. Really, the risk to your life is all the same on all those roadways. Whenever you’re stopped on the roadway and lights are activated, which are doing, our Safety Cloud is again sending those alerts 30 seconds upstream.

Those people that are going 20, 30 miles an hour in a city or residential street, they’re getting alerted two, three blocks in advance. Now they can see your lights turn away or slow down and move over. If you’re out on the faster moving roads, that 30 seconds is like a half mile alert that I’m getting onto people’s phones, through their infotainment systems, natively through the car itself, and getting people to slow down and move over. So that I just hey, set it, forget it. That’s the only action you take, do your job. You’re protected and you go home to your families. Easy peasy.

Shelli Hawkins:

That’s super simple.

Tom Parbs:

It is. The second way, the other way, pardon me I should say, is we have some amazing partnerships in this industry with equipment that many of our towers or our responding agencies already have in their vehicles. For example, on the telematics side, we have if that person, that entity, tower or whatever agency is using Samsara, WEBFLEET, Geotab, Fleet Complete, you have their telematics in your truck today. I can just turn it on. You will have to connect one wire to your flashing light so that your GPS says, “Hey, lights are on. We are connected to them. We go create the Cloud.” It’s a hardwareless solution because you already have the telematics there.

Additionally, for some of the responding agencies, there’s also like wireless routers that are being used commonly today like Cradlepoint or Sierra Wireless. Again, same thing. We’re just having a connection, but some of the quickest and easiest solutions is with TRAXERO. We have an integration built with TOPS, as well as Beacon Dispatch or Dispatch Anywhere as it’s commonly known, no equipment is necessary. It probably takes, from the time somebody signs up, it’s probably two, three days later you’re protected. I mean, there’s nothing you have to install, no wires to connect. I just have to go to your team, the TRAXERO team, and say, “This person signed up for Safety Cloud, here’s their trucks”, turn on the switch, and you’re protected so that when your driver arrives on scene, we protect it with Safety Cloud until they’re hooked, loaded or all clear, and they’re again, just doing their job as [typical].

I do want to take it a step further. What we’ve done with Beacon, with Dispatch Anywhere, if you’re a tower and your customer calls you and says, “Hey, I’m broken down here.” Or they go to their AAA app and say, “I’m broken down here”, and that gets routed through Beacon because I know that they’re a AAA-preferred supplier, we will actually protect that disabled motorist with our Safety Cloud to control traffic until the tower shows up. By the tower arriving, we then switch it to the branded Iodice Towing is ahead, slow down, move over.

Shelli Hawkins:

Wow.

Tom Parbs:

O’Hare Towing is ahead. I mean, Brad and Jeff, right? Sandy’s Towing, Southside Wrecker service. We’re branding slow down, move over. That message is getting out there, and it’s also branded with that company name. We’re protecting the disabled motorist and controlling traffic before the tower shows up on scene and continue controlling traffic with their other safety stuff once lights are on scene and cones or whatever else, attenuators, messenger, whatever else they’re using. We’re making people see that stuff upstream so they get out of the way. We’re controlling all of that traffic until that scene is clear. That means more people are going home to their families.

Laura Dolan:

That’s incredible.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it. The passion is incredible between both of you guys. Wow.

Laura Dolan:

I love what you’re both doing and trying to get the word out there in mainstream media and just out to the public, because like you said, Tom, it’s like you’re preaching to the choir. All the towers are talking about it with each other, but the message needs to be out there with the drivers, with the public. That being said, if our listeners are ever interested in receiving a HAAS Alert demo, what is the best way for them to connect with you?

Tom Parbs:

One of the easiest ways, you can always email me, it’s tom@haasalert.com, and happy to chat and talk about safety. However, the one way that you could really help to make a difference, in 2021, I started the No More Names on the Wall campaign. I’m partnered with the Towing Museum. I think Cindy, Flagman is as well, the Survivor Fund. Every year I go to the Wall ceremony in Chattanooga during the Tennessee show. It’s also the museum weekend. For those that aren’t as familiar with it, that’s where for our towers who are killed while in the line of duty, their names are put on a wall. It’s probably one of the most somber. It just kills me every year to be there. I’m probably going to start crying thinking about it right now. It is terrible to see these families there when somebody was just doing their job and they couldn’t make it home to the family.

Anyways, I started the No More Names on the Wall campaign. If you go to haasalert.com/nomorenames and request a demo, you don’t have to buy anything from us, but anyone that requests just to learn about HAAS alert and meets with us, we will donate money to the Survivor Fund. If you do decide to sign up, I’ll donate even more. Last year, I raised over $16,000 to help the families of fallen tow operators.

Email me, you might meet with me, you might meet with Devin. We have another awesome gentleman. His name is Logan, who’s newer to us that is just passionate about the towing business. I’m just trying to add more folks because obviously there’s a lot of people that want to be safer. You’ll meet with us. We’ll be at Vegas, we’ll be in Dallas, we’ll be at the ESTRA Show in Lake George. We’ll be in Baltimore. We go to a lot of the State. We’ll be at the Indiana show again. Gosh, you’ll see us at ITS America. You’ll see us at FDIC. You’ll see us at the police expos, the fire expos, the DOT expos. You’ll see us at the EMS. I mean, you’ll probably see me because I go to all those shows. That’s why I do so many. If you don’t want to email me, let’s help the community. Just go to haasalert.com/nomorenames and just request a demo, and we’ll just donate money to the Survivor Fund for that.

Shelli Hawkins:

We will put all that information in our notes, Tom, and then also, as we’re posting this on our socials, we will put a link for all that also so that they can just click on it and see that and get the demo. Awesome. Go ahead, Cindy. Cindy, you were going to say something?

Cindy Iodice:

Well, yeah. Thank you, Tom, for that initiative. It’s really important. I did want to say that my family was, we did benefit from the wall, the fallen fund, when Corey died. I’ll forever be grateful for that because my immediate thought was it was one less thing that we had to figure out about how we were going to bury my brother with such an unexpected situation. I also just want to mention, because I think this is important, that it is the first time in towing recorded history that a father and son, my father is in the Hall of Fame Museum, in that walkway, and his son is on the Wall of the Fallen. The first time in history, we had a legend for a father and a hero for a son. We created Flagman to eventually help the Wall of the Fallen write fewer checks. We were a beneficiary of the [inaudible 00:20:47] and I will be forever grateful for the support that we got during our [inaudible 00:20:52].

Tom Parbs:

I think it’s important that people know that they need to support Flagman. Let me tell you why. For years, we would talk about educating the public. Most of the time when we talk about educating people, a lot of people talk about, “I don’t have that problem”, until they’re on the five o’clock news talking about how they have that problem. Then it’s just reminder, slow down, move over. Oh, okay, well, we did our piece. Then it keeps happening and happening. What’s amazing about Flagman is when you’re going to educate somebody, people learn in two ways the initial understanding, and then you have to train it to mastery.

This is what excites me personally and why HAAS Alert endorses Flagman is like she told starting young and all the way, I think it was all the way through 12th grade when they graduate, there is training to mastery. It’s constant reminding. It isn’t just, “Hey, you got to slow down, move over.” It is a training to mastery that slow down, move over becomes a habit. What makes this relationship and why I love working with Flagman is just like your seatbelt, we all learn seatbelts. I mean, it’s just a habit for us to put seatbelts on, but what does your seatbelt alert do? It’s just that little reminder. That’s where HAAS Alert plays that little reminder, “Hey, you got to slow down and move over.” That’s right. They get the heck out of the way.

Cindy and Flagman is training to mastery. That’s never been done before. That’s where education fails. We think we create a PSA, we put a billboard up. Oh, people are going to see that, again they don’t think they have an issue, but when you train them to mastery to create a habit, you will actually start seeing that habit play out because the habit is good driving behaviors. We’ll keep reminding them. Cindy will keep educating them, and we’re going to keep making sure that more people go home to their families every frigging day.

Shelli Hawkins:

I love it. Just listening to you guys talk, it has to be like, I’m going to call it the Cindy and Tom Sandwich. That’s what I’m calling it going forward. Okay. We have a Cindy and Tom Sandwich for all the folks that are road workers. No matter what industry you’re in, Flagman Safety is going to be in there in the very beginning like in the foundation, here we are over here. Then Tom and Safety Cloud and HAAS Alert is over here on the top of everything, just completely covering all of our road workers. We got the sandwich, and I’m going to call it the sandwich now from now on.

Tom Parbs:

Awesome. Don’t be PB and Jelly.

Shelli Hawkins:

Absolutely not. Gosh, thank you guys so much.

Laura Dolan:

Tom and Cindy, you both are such an inspiration. I appreciate the initiative, everything you guys are doing for this industry. It’s absolutely imperative and phenomenal and Shelli and I are just doing a small part on getting your word out there. You guys are doing all the heavy lifting with this, and so we really appreciate you coming on here and telling both your stories and learning more about Flagman. I know a little bit about it, Cindy, so I appreciate you going into more detail on our platform here. It’s absolutely, like I said, truly inspirational. Tom, thank you for everything you’re doing as well with your company and your products, and I’m so glad that we’re able to be a part of that today.

Shelli Hawkins:

Thank you guys so much. We can’t wait to see you soon. I’m sure we will, whether it’s at the Maryland Safety Event, Cindy or Tom, we will see you at a trade show soon.

Tom Parbs:

You’ll see me everywhere. Thank you so much for having me and Cindy, it’s always great seeing you, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Cindy Iodice:

Aloha, everybody!

Laura Dolan:

Thank you for listening to this episode of the TRAXERO On-The-Go podcast. For more episodes, go to traxero.com/podcast and to find out more about how we can hook your towing business up with our towing management software and impound yard solutions, please visit traxero.com or go to the contact page linked at the bottom of this podcast blog.

In case you missed Part 1:

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay