Episode 7
Once You’re Hooked, It’s Hard To Get Out Of It
August 15, 2023
In this episode of TRAXERO On-The-Go, Once You’re Hooked It’s Hard To Get Out Of It, we are joined by Chase Leonard, Operations Manager of Floyd’s Towing and Jai Grunewald, Operations Manager of Ken Weber Truck Service, both hailing from the great state of Wisconsin. Among the many topics that came up, one in particular was about the Wisconsin Towing Association and the importance of towers being a part of their state association. Click play to listen.
Transcription
Shelli Hawkins:
Welcome everybody to episode seven of the TRAXERO On-The-Go Podcast. I cannot believe, Laura Dolan, that it has been seven episodes already. This is amazing, super exciting. I’m very pumped. Welcome, welcome everybody.
Laura Dolan:
I was just thinking the same thing, lucky number seven. I’m so glad we’ve gotten this far already.
Shelli Hawkins:
I know. Fantastic.
Laura Dolan:
I’m just thinking about Jeff and Brad’s podcast. What were they celebrating, like their 100th episode? And we’re like seven in.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. 100th episode for the Tow Business Podcast. We love those guys, they’re fantastic. A lot of mentoring from them and advice as we go into our whole podcast season here, so it’s been a wild ride. We are looking forward to this episode seven. Our last episode is with our friends from Bear’s Towing in Louisiana, where we talked all things about the impound yard, impounding, how to manage the impound process, and that was-
Laura Dolan:
Mail and lien, liens and mail, TowLien. It was great.
Shelli Hawkins:
Enlightening and educational and hilarious, and those ladies have it going on down there in Louisiana, I’ll tell you what. But we are going to shift gears a little bit today, got some special guests. But before we talk about that, we had some terrible storms roll through Maryland last night, but everybody in our area is safe.
Laura Dolan:
That’s good. I was worried about you guys because you were right in the heart of that storm cell that I was looking at on TikTok. I follow WeatherAware and they’re like, “Columbia, Maryland may get tornadoes.” I’m like, “Oh gosh, poor Shelli.” I almost sent it to you and I realized you weren’t on TikTok.
Shelli Hawkins:
Okay. The hilarious story was this. Rene and I had dental appointments, just our six-month cleaning, and we’re waiting in the waiting room and this lady looks at her husband and she goes, “Well, where is the tornado now?” I’m like, “What are you talking about? If there was a tornado, we would not be sitting in our dentist’s office. Where is the tornado?” It was the warning where signs could potentially be. She’s like, “Where is the tornado now?” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, here we go.”
Laura Dolan:
We had that in Ohio too, and I will say that the only time it rained yesterday was when I was walking out of the vet office with my cat and it was pouring rain, and it poured for about five minutes from the time we left the vet office and got home. Got home, sun came out, nothing for the rest of the night. It was an absolute letdown down and we were still under tornado watch until like, 7:00. I’m like, “I think you can take that off now.” But I’m just glad everybody’s safe. I’m a huge weather enthusiast and I know that’s one of the things we’re going to talk about today on the podcast, so I’m very, very excited about that.
Shelli Hawkins:
Very much so. We are headed next week to Lebanon, Indiana for the Indiana Tow Show with all the folks there and you guys, I cannot tell you how excited I am. I genuinely am. I was there last year, spoke with the ladies luncheon, This year, Michelle Sukow from Lake Mills, Wisconsin is going to be there speaking and we’re really excited. There’s a ton of vendors that are going to be there, all of our friends, the trucks that show up for this, the rotator competition. You guys, Indiana Tow Show is growing every single year. Super impressed.
So I’ve got one of my coworkers, Sydnee Carroll, that’ll be joining me and it’s going to be all things Indiana. About 30 minutes or so north of Indianapolis, so not too far off the grid, just enough. It reminds me of being at the Wisconsin Tow Show up in the Wisconsin Dells, very similar. So we’ve got that to look forward to. Then it’s North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and before you know it, the Baltimore Tow Show will be here and we’ll be wrapping up another tow show season. And it’s been amazing, I’ll tell you, and exciting, and I still have all the energy to do this. Laura, speaking of energy.
Laura Dolan:
Yes, ma’am.
Shelli Hawkins:
Do you have any idea what tomorrow is? We’re recording this podcast on August 8th. Laura, do you know what tomorrow is?
Laura Dolan:
I can take a guess. Let me think here. August 9th is the date tomorrow.
Shelli Hawkins:
Is. It is, August 9th. It’s a very important day.
Laura Dolan:
It is a very important day. It happens to be Shelli’s birthday.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s my birthday. It’s my birthday, and Rene and I will be getting on an airplane going to Puerto Rico, so super pumped. It’s going to be fantastic. I can’t wait. I will be looking forward to this, but-
Laura Dolan:
So much content is going to come out of this trip and I can’t wait. I follow you on all the socials, so I am ready. Even though you did say there will be no screen time, I honestly feel like you should unplug, go off the grid and have a great time, but in this day and age with social and everybody’s sharing everything all at once, it’s kind of hard to stay off it. But hey, you can always share after the fact too.
Shelli Hawkins:
For sure. I do want to talk just a little bit about something that came up this past week. Our friends that we talked about earlier, Tow Business Podcast, Jeff Poquette and Brad McIntosh, they’ve released an episode featuring our customer, Lee Roberts, who is in the Traxero family. Laura and I actually spoke to him today for a little bit. It was fantastic.
Laura Dolan:
We did.
Shelli Hawkins:
And also, Tom Parbs from HAAS Alert. They put together a fantastic episode all about supporting the Survivor Fund. If you guys have not listened to that, Laura, can you make sure that that link to that podcast is in the show notes when this gets posted?
Laura Dolan:
Absolutely.
Shelli Hawkins:
That would be fantastic. It was a great show, I listened to it. Lee is just such a mentor to so many people in the industry, and Tom and what they have going on at HAAS Alert for safety. It’s fantastic. So you guys, make sure that you download that podcast or hit play on it and listen to it. You will not regret it for sure. But we’ll see all these guys over the Tennessee Tow Show at the very end of September. I have all these dates memorized in my brain by now.
Laura Dolan:
I’m excited I get to go to the Ohio show.
Shelli Hawkins:
You do.
Laura Dolan:
It’s a hop, skip and a jump from Columbus, so I am so excited to go there and have maybe the minuscule version of Florida, because that was my first tow show. Big deal. Is it the biggest show of the year or is it Baltimore?
Shelli Hawkins:
Some would say Baltimore, some would say Florida. Let’s just say that those two shows are the largest show of the year and call it good. How does that sound? I think that we’ll make everybody happy.
Laura Dolan:
Sounds good to me. Sounds good to me. But Ohio, here I come. I’m very excited.
Shelli Hawkins:
We have a pretty big presence at both of those shows because we know the impact that they create, so we’re excited. We’re already in planning stages. We have been in planning stages to make sure that everything goes amazing and smooth, but enough of all the chitchat, Laura. Are you ready to get into this and dive straight in? I’m super excited.
Laura Dolan:
Let’s do this. Bring on our guests.
Shelli Hawkins:
You guys, I feel like there should be some background music of drum rolling. Can you find some drum rolling for us?
Laura Dolan:
I’m on it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Who was David Letterman’s sidekick that did all the music in the background? What was his name? I can see him with the glasses.
Laura Dolan:
Paul Shaffer.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes, yes. Can you be my Paul Shaffer-
Laura Dolan:
I will be your Paul Shaffer.
Shelli Hawkins:
… and find some drum rolls. Yes, I love it. Fantastic.
Laura Dolan:
Drum rolls, applauses, I’m on it. All over it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. Fantastic. So also, I say the word fantastic so many times, we just need to come in here and cut out the word fantastic. I need to find another word like amazing, wonderful, stupendous, dynamic. I’m not sure.
Laura Dolan:
I make it a drinking game. I just listen to the podcast and after a while I’m like, “I got to stop because I’m going to die.” Just kidding.
Shelli Hawkins:
Every time Shelli says fantastic, you take a shot or whatever.
Laura Dolan:
Exactly.
Shelli Hawkins:
There you go.
Laura Dolan:
I love it.
Shelli Hawkins:
On to the guests. Let’s go. We are here for it. We are going to bring on two amazing gentlemen that are going to get ready to speak to us here in a moment. Mr. Chase Leonard is a native of Racine, Wisconsin and Jai Grunewald is also a native of Pewaukee, Wisconsin. Both of these young men grew up in their respective shops at their families’ towing businesses, and both of them share the same role as the absolute head of all operations at their towing companies that they manage today. There’s lots of other managers in place, but you can say that Chase and Jai are like the big guys out there doing the thing in Wisconsin. Come on, guys. How are you doing? Are you here with us?
Chase Leonard:
Good evening. How are you guys?
Shelli Hawkins:
We’re doing great. Jai, are you there with us, buddy?
Jai Grunewald:
I’m here.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. Well, welcome. We are super excited to have you guys on our podcast, episode seven. How are things in Wisconsin this evening?
Chase Leonard:
They’re a little sticky today. It’s a little warm, a little humid. It’s pretty sticky.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. I do want to comment that we are recording this late in the evening, Laura, and did we decide if we’re going to call this Traxero After Dark?
Laura Dolan:
I’m going back and forth between Traxero After Dark and Traxero After Hours because which one rolls off the tongue better?
Shelli Hawkins:
Chase and Jai, what do you guys think, After hours or after dark? What sounds better to you guys
Jai Grunewald:
After hours.
Chase Leonard:
I was going to say I like after hours.
Laura Dolan:
It’s technically still light out, so after dark doesn’t work.
Shelli Hawkins:
So we got to be two o’clock in the morning if we’re going to say after dark, so fine.
Laura Dolan:
Yes, yes.
Shelli Hawkins:
Fine. Traxero After Hours is what we’re going to call it. Chase, Jai, we’re super excited for you guys to be here. We cannot wait to listen to your story, what it was like to grow up in the shop where you guys live and work. You probably call the place where you go to every single day your first home and not your second home because of all that. But I’m going to start. I’m going to turn the mic over to Chase first. Chase, tell us a little bit about Floyd’s Towing. When did the company start, how many generations and what it was like to grow up in Racine, Wisconsin?
Chase Leonard:
Well, we started in 1959. We were in the gas station business, Texaco stations, and we bounced around Racine a little bit and in the 1980s we transitioned over to the towing. My grandfather, Floyd started it and it moved on to my dad and my uncle, and my uncle is still an owner now and along with my mother and we’re rolling into our third generation, almost 65 years now. We’re up to 17 trucks and just hammer down every day.
Shelli Hawkins:
You guys have how many locations now?
Chase Leonard:
We have two. The other one is kind of small, but it works for what we need it to do.
Shelli Hawkins:
And to understand the geographical location, you’re south of Milwaukee and what is the major interstate that runs through or near Racine?
Chase Leonard:
We’re right off of I-94, like you said, just south of Milwaukee between the Illinois line and Milwaukee County.
Shelli Hawkins:
And then from your shop, if you started walking due east, how long would it take you to get to Lake Michigan?
Chase Leonard:
10 minutes.
Shelli Hawkins:
That is-
Laura Dolan:
Nice.
Shelli Hawkins:
… he’s right there on the lake. I’ve been to a shop, gosh, for sure two times. Once when my TRAXERO crew, when Nicole and Brandon stopped by with you, and then-
Chase Leonard:
We went to lunch.
Shelli Hawkins:
… we did. I felt very special. That was pretty awesome day, I’m not going to lie, for sure. What was it like for you growing up in the shop? High school, sports. When did you start in a tow truck?
Chase Leonard:
Believe it or not, I had most of my driving hours to get my license in a tow truck on a Sunday with my dad.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s fantastic. I love it. And then after school let out, you just went straight to the shop or what happened?
Chase Leonard:
Yep. After school I went to the shop, after football practice, came to the shop. Whenever you had downtime, you worked. And you work, you get paid and that’s just how it was. Did your part in the family business, it’s what you do.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love that. Turning it over to Mr. Jai Grunewald, Jai, are you with us?
Jai Grunewald:
I’m here.
Shelli Hawkins:
Fantastic. Thanks for joining us, Jai. We are really excited to have you. Pewaukee. If my memory serves me correctly, Ken Weber Truck Service is in Pewaukee, which is west of Milwaukee. Am I correct there?
Jai Grunewald:
Yeah. We’re about a half hour out of the city, of the downtown part of it.
Shelli Hawkins:
So I will tell you a story about Jai. When it was I don’t know how many years ago, I was working over at Zip’s and his grandpa wanted to surprise him with two brand new spreader bars and your grandpa called me and he’s like, “Shelli, can you get those to me before Christmas?” I said, “Absolutely, Mr. Weber. I will.” And so I threw a couple, I didn’t because they weigh 150 pounds, the ones that you want anyway from NRC, so I had somebody put them in the back of a pick up and away we went, and when I got there I could not believe what the shop looked like. It looked like an elementary school or something. I’m like, “Well, this can’t be a towing company,” and so you guys have a beautiful facility there. Not to say anything about Floyd’s Towing. I love yours just as good, but it was just shocking, Jai.
Laura Dolan:
What do you mean it looked like an elementary school? Was it colorful?
Shelli Hawkins:
Well, describe how it looks on the outside, Jai.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. I want to know.
Jai Grunewald:
It looks like a firehouse. They built it between ’04 and ’06, the shop went up and he wanted something that he could be proud of and the caliber of the business he proceeds to show off as his business, and we’re pretty proud to have it. We’ve got a very nice shop with heated floors and overhead crane, and we got full truck lifts where we can put the rotators up in the air six feet off the ground, so it’s pretty cool. He didn’t spare any on it at all.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love that. That’s fantastic. So give us the same history that Chase did about Floyd’s Towing, but for Ken Weber Truck Service in Pewaukee. When did it start? Who started it and how is everything going today?
Jai Grunewald:
So my great-grandfather had his own business. Kind of like Chase, he started at a gas station back in like ’51 or ’52, somewhere in there, and then he ended up getting his first tow truck between like ’58, ’59, and then he grew that up pretty big and then as he got older, it kind of fell apart and my grandfather started his own business in ’86 and slowly got bigger and bigger until we got to the place we’re at now. I think we’re up to like 24 or 25 trucks right now and six trailers, so it’s changed a little bit. It used to be more truck repairing, now it’s more towing.
Shelli Hawkins:
Perfect. When I think about you guys, I think that you guys really do about the same type and volume of towing. There’s lots of towers out there that have a good-sized fleet of light duty wreckers and those are high volume calls, and then there’s the medium to heavy duty that’s like a lower volume of calls but a higher complexity of invoice and that’s the bucket that I put you guys in. You guys both have a few light duties out there for sure, but that’s not the major part of the business. Am I on the right track with that?
Chase Leonard:
You’re 100% correct with us.
Shelli Hawkins:
Jai?
Jai Grunewald:
That’s 100% correct. We do a little bit of flatbed work and a lot more heavy and equipment transport side of it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Perfect. So one question that I know is burning in all the folks listening to us right now that needs to be answered, are you guys fans of the Green Bay Packers?
Jai Grunewald:
Well, Chase could be debatable down there by the state line, so you got to wonder about a Bears fan like that down there.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh, that’s right.
Jai Grunewald:
We are up here. We have season tickets. I don’t know if Chase can say the same.
Laura Dolan:
I was just concerned about the delayed response. I was like, “Uh, is that a no?”
Shelli Hawkins:
Nobody wanted to respond to that. Chase Leonard, you’re up, buddy.
Laura Dolan:
Nobody wants to admit it.
Shelli Hawkins:
You’re for the Packers or the Bears?
Chase Leonard:
Oh, I’m a Packer fan. I cannot stand those Bears.
Laura Dolan:
That’s fair.
Shelli Hawkins:
We have some folks on board here at TRAXERO that cheer for the Bears, but being a Packer fan myself, I love that you guys are. I lived in Appleton and Janesville, Wisconsin for the majority of my adult life, so when you live in Appleton, 30 minutes away from Green Bay, Wisconsin, you are a Packer fan unless you want the consequences. That’s kind of how it is up there.
Laura Dolan:
I have a follow-up question for Jai, if I may.
Shelli Hawkins:
Absolutely.
Laura Dolan:
So Jai was the winner of the TRAXERO championship belt at the Florida Tow Show and I want to know, Jai, where’s that belt? Is it in your office?
Shelli Hawkins:
I know where it is.
Jai Grunewald:
It’s in my office.
Shelli Hawkins:
It is? You got it away from Kyle Gessler?
Laura Dolan:
Proudly displayed.
Jai Grunewald:
Well, it took me like a month to get everything back. He brought all that stuff back from the Florida show and I was like, “Hey, am I going to get any of this back?” And it took him a good month before I got it all back, so it’s finally here.
Laura Dolan:
Good, good. So it’s in your possession and hopefully proudly displayed with the TRAXERO logo and everything. That’s great. Take a picture of it and send it to me. I want to put it in the blog.
Jai Grunewald:
Sounds good.
Shelli Hawkins:
I remember the first time I met Chase Leonard, it was at the Wisconsin Tow Show in the Zip’s booth, I was standing next to David Rottinghaus, of Zip’s Truck Equipment because that’s where I was working at the time, and this young man with blonde hair came up to us with a small device called the Guardian Light. Chase Leonard, do you remember that moment?
Chase Leonard:
Yes, I do remember that moment. The look on your face was priceless when I dropped it onto the table.
Shelli Hawkins:
I don’t remember that part. What was it?
Chase Leonard:
You were just surprised to see something that was that small with that amount of light and the ability to do what it does. It was fresh onto the market and I had met some people that were building them and I needed to get this into the towing industry, so we put it together.
Shelli Hawkins:
We made some videos, and for you guys that have not seen the Guardian, it’s a simple light that goes onto the shoulder of the tower that flashes multiple patterns, multiple colors. It’s magnetic, underneath the material of the shirt on the tower and wherever they’re walking, they’re basically lit up so it makes you safer on the roadside so that people can see where you are. Am I getting that right, Chase?
Chase Leonard:
Yeah. You’ve got it nailed, and it started in the police departments around here. A group of gentlemen got together and made this thing and it didn’t hit the towing industry yet, and when I saw that thing I said, “This thing’s got to get out here with our guys,” and it seems like it’s taken off.
Laura Dolan:
That is so cool. So it goes on the tower, not the tow truck.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes, yes.
Chase Leonard:
Correct.
Laura Dolan:
Love that.
Chase Leonard:
It goes on the tower.
Laura Dolan:
Wow.
Chase Leonard:
And you can stick it to a lot of different things, they have different adapters. Road cones, hats, whatever you want. Wherever you want to stick it, it’ll stay there.
Shelli Hawkins:
I remember the magnet being so strong that you could put the base on the palm of your hand and the light on the top and it would magnetize through the hand. That’s how strong that magnet was.
Laura Dolan:
No way. Wow.
Shelli Hawkins:
Put it on the side of the pylon if you’ve got a rollback, so multifunctional, fantastic. Guardian Light, you guys can Google it and find it. I’m sure they still sell it over on Zip’s website, but thank you Chase Leonard for introducing that to our industry, for sure. Jai, did I help you outfit the V-30 the first time you brought it? Did we customize the tray on the bottom or what was it for your V-30? I can’t remember. Something, I sold you brooms or something to it.
Jai Grunewald:
You brought all the trays and that, didn’t you?
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes.
Jai Grunewald:
Because we made all the custom drawers underneath it and the slide out legs. We put a lot into that little truck.
Shelli Hawkins:
I remember that V-30.
Jai Grunewald:
Had to show Chase how a Vulcan really works.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s awesome. Did you win? Did you beat Chase at the beauty contest that year in that class? I can’t remember.
Jai Grunewald:
I don’t think we were in the same classes, but I know that one did win that year.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. I am the biggest fan in the United States of the Vulcan, if you guys don’t know that. What is the hashtag that we put on things, Chase Leonard, when we talk about Vulcans?
Chase Leonard:
I believe something about she’s got to have hips, #shesgothips.
Shelli Hawkins:
She’s got hips because it’s just a different looking machine. We love the Vulcan. Vulcan came out of Canada, Miller acquired it, if I’m not mistaken. And when Laura went to the Florida Tow Show, we got up super, super early, went out to see the tow trucks, take some photos and really just to mentor her and walk her around and I ingrained the Vulcan in her brain. Laura Dolan, question of the night.
Laura Dolan:
Yes ma’am.
Shelli Hawkins:
What is the easiest way to determine if a truck is a Vulcan at a glance?
Laura Dolan:
I’m about to blow your mind. You ready for this? The way you tell that it’s a Vulcan wrecker is that it has square fenders. Booyah!
Shelli Hawkins:
I’m clapping, you can’t hear me.
Laura Dolan:
That busy taught me everything. Century, round. Vulcan is square. I have a pneumonic device to remember that. I will not share it because it is in my brain. But yes, they have square fenders. Loved being up close and personal with these trucks. It was so much metal to look at, so many beautiful colors, paint jobs, so much equipment that I am learning as I go in this industry. And Chase and Jai, if you don’t know, I just started TRAXERO at the end of January of this year, so it’s been a lot to take in, but it’s been so much fun to learn about. I never thought I would have an excitement for this type of thing, but it really gets your motor running, no pun intended. It’s really, really fun to learn about, and just seeing what these things can do and the physics that goes into it, so I nerd out with stuff like that.
Shelli Hawkins:
I’m going to put Jai on the spot and I’m going to ask him a question, and Chase is going to have 10 seconds to mull it over to come up with his question. Jai Grunewald, when you get a call for a massive rollover that’s going to be a five-hour job. What is the song that you put on to listen to pump you up on the way to this rollover? Go.
Jai Grunewald:
Ooh, that’s a tough one. It depends what kind of mood I’m in. I don’t know off the top of my head. A lot of times, I play-
Shelli Hawkins:
Is it country?
Jai Grunewald:
… no, it’s usually rock or sometimes rap to just get you going. It depends if it’s in the middle of the night because Chase can tell you, it’s a totally different attitude if it’s at eight o’clock in the morning or three o’clock in the middle of the night when you got to a roll out for something. So it kind of depends on what’s going on and what it is.
Shelli Hawkins:
Three o’clock in the middle of the night, it is a blizzard snowstorm outside, you know you’re going to be up anyways. What do you hit play on? Give us some ideas. Chase, do you have anything off the top of mind?
Jai Grunewald:
Nickelback, something like that.
Chase Leonard:
Oh yeah. I got a good one here.
Shelli Hawkins:
He’s got a playlist. Go for it, Chase.
Laura Dolan:
He did not just say Nickelback.
Chase Leonard:
Nope.
Shelli Hawkins:
He did. He said Nickelback.
Chase Leonard:
We got Enter Sandman by Metallica.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes.
Jai Grunewald:
Oh yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. I played that the other day for Rene. We were going somewhere, I can’t remember. We were going to go whitewater rafting and that’s when I hit play on the way to our whitewater rafting trip to get Rene in the mood for the whitewater rafting. Good call, Chase. I love it.
Chase Leonard:
What’s that song from Varsity Blues when they’re playing football? I can’t remember what song that is.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh, come on.
Chase Leonard:
I’ll Google it. Okay.
Shelli Hawkins:
While we’ve been blabbing on, Jai, anything come to mind else you listen to? I hear Eastbound and Down. Are you an Eastbound and Down kind of guy? Are you like-
Jai Grunewald:
That’s an afternoon kind of call.
Shelli Hawkins:
True.
Jai Grunewald:
I don’t know. I just have my phone set up and I just let it go.
Shelli Hawkins:
I’m learning.
Jai Grunewald:
I just click on what genre I want and then I go. You know?
Shelli Hawkins:
I hear you.
Jai Grunewald:
That’s the hard part that Chase can probably agree with too though. It sucks as you’re moving up in the industry, in the business, because half the time you’re answering six phone calls before you get to the call and then you get there and you’re like, “All right, now I got to do what I want do.” That’s the hard part.
Shelli Hawkins:
Right. So, another pop quiz. I love how these questions come into my brain. You need to do a recovery and then tow something that is towable, and you have both of these sitting on your yard available side by side. Do you take a 9055 or you take a V-100.
Chase Leonard:
Oh, that’s a no-brainer. You take the V-100.
Shelli Hawkins:
Jai?
Jai Grunewald:
I’m going to stay with the Centuries.
Shelli Hawkins:
So Chase, defend your answer.
Jai Grunewald:
Chase is going to sit here and yell at me, but that’s just what I grew up on.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s okay. That’s what this is about. Chase-
Chase Leonard:
You can lead them to the bowl, but you can’t make the kid drink.
Shelli Hawkins:
So tell us why you prefer the V-100 over the Century. What does it have in your opinion?
Chase Leonard:
Oh, it’s just a superior product. The under reach is superior, the tilt is superior. They seem to dig in better, they winch better. I’ll put a Vulcan up against a Century any day of the week and I already know who wins.
Shelli Hawkins:
And so if my memory serves me correct, they both have two winches that accept three-quarter inch wire rope, probably by a 200 or 250, and they have a capacity, are they probably a 50,000 pound winch, 40,000 pound winch? Two of those?
Chase Leonard:
I think they’re fifties on those. Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Okay. I know the three-quarter wire rope because my wonderful customers would need to replace them on a regular basis, so I memorized this. Pop quiz, Jai Grunewald. What is the diameter of the wire rope on the mains for a 1075? Go.
Jai Grunewald:
Seven-eighths.
Shelli Hawkins:
Good job. You win the prize. You win the TRAXERO belt. Wait, you already have it.
Jai Grunewald:
Oh yeah. Sweet.
Shelli Hawkins:
You win it. So Chase, what is the diameter for the auxiliary winches on a 1075?
Chase Leonard:
Five-eighths by two.
Shelli Hawkins:
Look at this. I love it. Literally, I made a spreadsheet. When I was at Zip’s, I made a spreadsheet for every single make and model of Miller Industries that was in production with the winches, capacities and whatever, and part numbers, so that when anybody call me like, “I’ve got an 810, I’ve got an 812,” both are the same but you know what I mean, “I’ve got a 9055, I’ve got a 1075, I’ve got a 7035,” whatever it was, boom. And you get to the point that you do it so much that you know what it is. So since you guys have come up in the industry, the internet has come around, right? When you were super young, there was no internet. The internet’s come around, social media has come around. I see you guys both on Facebook, and how would you say that being either on Tow411 or on the forums on Facebook have helped you in the business or as an operator?
Chase Leonard:
Social media has been huge as far as I’m concerned. Obviously yes, networking is huge. You can meet people from all over the country, but however you can exchange ideas, and that to me is the biggest thing for operators and even training to a certain extent. You can sit down and debrief and do certain things even with your employees and say, “Hey, check this out. Put this in your toolbox,” things like that. I think that’s why it’s so important.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes, literally put things in the toolbox. How many posts are there out there, “I just bought a heavy, I just bought a rotator. What should I put in my toolboxes? How do you organize your toolboxes?” How many of those do you guys see, just something simple as that? All the time.
Chase Leonard:
All the time. And you can snag an idea here or there. This guy’s got this and it fits in this spot. Maybe you didn’t think of it. It’s phenomenal. It’s phenomenal.
Laura Dolan:
It’s a great forum to share ideas and see the way other businesses do things and be like, “Hey, I never thought of that. That’d be a great way to pivot and try something new.” So I would imagine that’s pretty inspirational,
Chase Leonard:
And especially being in family run businesses, you learn one way. You learn from the guy that was before you and it got passed down through the generation to you. Maybe they didn’t think about it that way and people do things different, so it can get really interesting watching that stuff.
Jai Grunewald:
I have to agree with Chase on that. When you grew up in the family business, you’re told you do it this way or you do it this way. I’ve done it that way, how many times kind of thing and with how the trucks are evolving, some of the older guys aren’t there. They haven’t seen it. I know mine, my 1150 has four winches on the boom, our 1075 does not. So you just see ideas on how you can lift stuff or catch them, helps you do a recovery. I had a rollover a couple of weeks ago and I actually called Chase when I was done with it. You’re always trying to figure out how you could do something better. You’re always trying to be a little better and you’re scrolling through Facebook at night after a job and you’re getting ideas on just what someone else might’ve done that could relate to your job in some sort of small way.
Shelli Hawkins:
Very true.
Jai Grunewald:
I would say it really helps for the trying to find help as well though. If you’re being active and you’re showing people what you’re doing, it’s a lot easier to bring people in. They see what you’re doing. You don’t have to tell them what you’re doing kind of thing, within reason.
Shelli Hawkins:
No, I didn’t even think about that. That’s really good.
Chase Leonard:
That is something new that he’s been doing and it seems to be working well.
Jai Grunewald:
Seems to be working pretty good for us.
Shelli Hawkins:
Good. Are you just posting that you’re hiring or what are you doing?
Jai Grunewald:
Well, on our business Facebook page, I’ve been showing that we’re hiring and wrote on there what positions, and then we have one through the Wisconsin Towers that we all post on and I try to be active on it. And as much as my guys are on it too, that helps outsiders seeing that his guys are enjoying what they’re doing and they’re doing big, cool jobs like that. It’s easier to get them to want to come in versus something that they don’t know anything about. A lot of the older companies around the area, I feel like a lot of people are intimidated to walk in the door. Wouldn’t you kind of agree, Chase?
Chase Leonard:
I would say yeah, and to a certain degree, I think there’s a little bit of a misunderstanding of what we do, especially to a new person. They think you might tow a car, but when you start throwing up some pictures of a semi rolled over or this or that, it piques a whole new set of interests as far as I’m concerned.
Laura Dolan:
That’s something that struck me when I started learning about the industry is well, somebody’s got to be able to clear the big rigs and the trucks. It’s not just cars that get stuck on the side of the road. You see big rigs that jackknife and roll down hills and stuff like that, so you would imagine that what’s it going to take to get that out of a ditch?
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s going to take quite a bit. Quite a bit of rigging, lifting, pulling, resistance, which leads me to my next question. What type of training have you guys had, formal or informal? How have you learned how to be the exceptional riggers that you both are?
Chase Leonard:
Me, I learned a lot from my dad. And I am WreckMaster certified and TRAA certified, but there’s only so much they can teach you out of a book where if you’ve got a good mentor, you can learn a lot.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s true. Learning the principles of the physics that goes into all this is amazing, and then on the job. I can learn the Spanish language but I need to go out there and speak it. Jai, what do you think?
Jai Grunewald:
Yeah. As much training as you can possibly get. The guys that say you got to stick with just this one training program and it’s the best, I don’t agree with that. I think you need to go to multiple. I’ve went to WreckMaster, I did the TRAA. I went to the Ring leaders, I went out for one of Tom Luciano’s classes, which probably was my favorite. You just learn a lot. And I’ve learned my grandfather was the kind of guy who you stand back, you watch how I do it. Pulling chains through the ditch, you learned a lot. I will give it that.
But there was times where it’s like I wanted to know why and he always thought I was questioning. And so now as we’re teaching guys and I have guys that are up and coming, we loaded a rolled over tractor trailer a couple weeks ago and I had one of the guys running my 1150 and I just stood off to the side and I’m walking him through it instead of doing it and then making him do it later on. Not knowing what he’s looking at is easy. Get these guys in there doing it, but also explaining it to them why you’re doing it kind of thing I think is very important.
Shelli Hawkins:
It makes a lot of sense, for sure. My very first WreckMaster class was in Janesville when I worked for AW Direct. Josh from Dewey’s was there. He brought a light duty wrecker and then one of his rotators and I’m like, “This is incredible,” and taking the test. There were towers there and there were folks from AW Direct all getting certified all at the same time. I’m like, “This is the industry that I think that I could just stay in for a really long time.” It’s incredible. I just wanted to understand what’s in your brain.
And then when folks would give me gigantic orders outfitting rotators, I didn’t know first and foremost that it was what they were doing. They just gave me this huge order. And I would stop and say, “I want to know why you want the chain assembly this length, this grade, this diameter and the hooks on the end. Tell me what you’re going to do with this. I want you to teach me. Just teach me what you’re doing and how you’re using this,” and that’s how I learned on the job. Just like you guys, on the job.
Jai Grunewald:
Once you’re hooked, it’s hard to get out of it.
Shelli Hawkins:
And with that, we’ve got the title of our podcast.
Laura Dolan:
Booyah! Love it.
Shelli Hawkins:
For sure. Absolutely. I was thinking the other day, Chase and Jai, you guys, do you go to Wisconsin every single year since you were born or before?
Chase Leonard:
Correct.
Jai Grunewald:
Yeah. I don’t think I’ve missed a year.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s just a special gathering of amazing people that come there every single year and it’s fantastic. I love it. The 50th anniversary of the Wisconsin Tow Show, holy cow. How many do we have in the beauty contest? I don’t know why, I remember the number 172 tow trucks there. Is that [weird] to remember that?
Chase Leonard:
It was an incredible show. It was absolutely incredible show. People from four or five states came over. It was great. It was just absolutely great.
Shelli Hawkins:
It was something I will never forget for a really long time. I don’t know if that was the year that AW Direct did the garage sale too, if you guys remember that. They were cleaning house of all their inventory and they put out a ton of flea market stuff to get rid of it. That was fantastic. I have really enjoyed the Wisconsin Tow Show every single year. The very first year I went, I met David Rottinghaus from Zip’s for the very first time and I just went straight up to him because I had been following Zip’s, and I saw this guy, didn’t know who David was, and I went straight up to him and I go, “Hello, my name is Shelli Hawkins. What is your name?” He’s like, “I’m David.” We reminisce about that moment because it was so awkward to begin with, but the Wisconsin Dells is great. I heard that we’re moving the Wisconsin Tow Show. Is there any truth to that?
Chase Leonard:
Nothing is etched in stone yet. For next year, we’re going to be a weekend later, so we’re going to be off Father’s Day weekend, which we’re excited about.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes.
Chase Leonard:
But as far as the venue, we don’t know yet.
Shelli Hawkins:
Well, we’ll be there come rain or shine, I can promise you that for sure. And this year, TRAXERO went. We brought someone from our product team, Dan Tortorici and Amanda also came from both of those, brother and sister team from Ohio. We’re really lucky to have those folks, and they experienced Wisconsin Tow Show for the first time and they loved it. It was a great show and we’re really thankful for it, for sure. Talk a little bit, you guys, about the Wisconsin Towing Association and the importance of towers being a part of their state association. Chase, I know that you, are you sitting on the board right now, Chase?
Chase Leonard:
Both of us are on the board. Jai and I are both on.
Shelli Hawkins:
Well, I did not know Mr. Grunewald was on the board as well.
Chase Leonard:
I think Jai should answer this question. Since he’s the newest to the board, I think it’s his turn.
Shelli Hawkins:
I believe so. This would be his initiation. Mr. Grunewald, take it away. What do you think? Is this your first year? Tell us about the association.
Jai Grunewald:
It’s my first year on the board. I’ve followed it for a long time, just was never on the board itself. There’s a lot that goes into it that a lot of people don’t see, and that’s one thing I always enjoyed doing was trying to help the towers. On the legality side of it, there’s a lot of things that people don’t think about that the towing board is always doing and with the Wisconsin Association, we’re always pushing for stuff that directly affects either the businesses or the drivers or something in that capacity. Either if it’s private parking or right now we’re really trying to push on this EV training. There’s a lot to learn and none of us have a perfect dance for all of it, so we’re just really trying to work on that and get some messages out there and some training out there so people can be as well educated with what is out there.
Shelli Hawkins:
Chase, was that an acceptable answer from our rookie board member here?
Chase Leonard:
I think he did quite well. He’s right, we are hot to trot on this EV thing. We’ve got three sessions scattered across the state that we’re going to be putting on here towards the end of the year, October, November. We’re excited about that. The other thing is there’s so many towers around and if something we want changed legally or anything on that line, we are much stronger as a group, and that is huge when you want something to change. You can’t get it done by yourself. You need to get along and you need to get it done together. And that’s kind of been the motto for many years, and from what I’ve been told, that’s more or less how the association started.
Shelli Hawkins:
I will never forget as long as I live sitting next to Ken Weber, your grandfather, Jai Grunewald, at a Tim’s training at Roskopf’s Towing and it was a huge group. You guys were both there. I remember, I saw it pop in my memories not too long ago, there was a fairly large group of Wisconsin towers there and your grandpa said to me something I’ll never forget, Jai. He goes, “There are many towers that have come here to learn about scene incident management, managing the overall scene and how to interact with all the professionals that are on the scene, how to set up the scene correctly, and they put aside the personal differences to be here and to make our state stronger and safer,” and I’ll never forget that he said that. Did I share that with you, Jai, that he said that to me?
Jai Grunewald:
No, you didn’t, but it really is and that’s the same with the board. We can be competitors and have days where we don’t all get along in the industry, but it’s like we all come up to the tow show and we’re all there for the better good of the industry. The guy that you might not get along with on a day-to-day basis, you’re sitting around looking at his new truck and you can congratulate him and you guys might get along after that, and that’s what it’s all about, just kind of building as a team and making everyone know and be safe together.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s fantastic. That has been the testimony in my experience of all the years that I was in Wisconsin, is that Wisconsin is one of the strongest associations. There’s such a huge presence of Wisconsin folks, and I think about the Wisconsin people that are in the Hall of Fame right now and our very own Dave Whealon from Fond Du Lac is going to get inducted this year, so that’s a proud moment for us Wisconsin people for sure, again. Right?
Chase Leonard:
Yeah. That’s huge for Dave and congratulations to him on that. It’s well deserved.
Shelli Hawkins:
Very, very much so. I met David Whealon with Ken Weber. I met Dave for the first time while he was standing next to your grandpa, Jai, at the Florida show. And David had actually assisted in towing a very, very large, large Great Lakes boat from the Fond Du Lac area up to Green Bay for my brother and his Hands on Deck nonprofit that he has up in Green Bay. So I said, “David Whealon, I know who you are but not from the towing industry because I am the sister of Mark Hawkins.” He goes, “Your brother is [weird], that means you are too.” And I go, “Yes, Dave Whealon, you’re not wrong. I am [weird].” Yes, for sure.
Jai Grunewald:
He can’t short himself. He is right there too. He is a fun time.
Shelli Hawkins:
He is. And Ma Whealon’s putting out a spread of food at two o’clock in the morning, all the traditions of Wisconsin. I’m just going to put a shameless plug in here for you guys to come to the Wisconsin show. It is traditions, fantastic. It’s family, it’s great.
Laura Dolan:
Circling back to being board members, what positions do you both hold?
Chase Leonard:
I believe there’s 16 of us on the board with a chairperson and a vice chair. Both of us are just part of the 16.
Laura Dolan:
Nice.
Chase Leonard:
What’s our actual title, Jai? Just the board of director, correct? Or a director on the board.
Jai Grunewald:
I think it says board of directors on the forms.
Laura Dolan:
What are some of your responsibilities on the board? Do you just have to attend meetings and make decisions or what does that entail?
Jai Grunewald:
It’s kind of what you make of it. There’s different committees for all the different things that are going on and that they’re trying to improve.
Laura Dolan:
Making a difference.
Chase Leonard:
Our big number one topic right now is that EV training. I think the world is a little bit behind on that and we’re doing the best that we can to get caught up and to get our state at least educated on these new things that seem like they’re everywhere nowadays.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s really great. And what entity have you guys gone with as far as who’s going to do the training?
Chase Leonard:
It’s a company called EVsafe. I happened to get invited to a fire department here in my area and they put on a presentation, and his name got tossed into the hat and it turned out that was the one that got picked, and I’m really excited for these trainings that are coming in fall.
Shelli Hawkins:
That is fantastic. I love it. I want to talk a little bit about when I came to TRAXERO last September, I came into the knowledge of a lot of the folks that I know are already on TRAXERO products and Chase Leonard was right in the midst of our transition to upgrade our cameras, and there were some hurdles to overcome with our cameras because we were upgrading them to the new technology. And so I think that we talked through that and we are all good to go with the cameras, the GPS tracking, and I think that you have now taken a deep dive into the TowLien product for the lien processing, Chase. Talk a little bit about those two.
Chase Leonard:
The cameras are neat. I think we’re on what, version 3.0 of the camera maybe.
Shelli Hawkins:
Sounds about right.
Chase Leonard:
And this version has been working flawlessly, and my favorite part of it is they’re relatively small. They don’t make any noise. After a while, the guys don’t even know they’re there, so that works out well. The video is good quality and my biggest thing is the GPS on them and it’s all integrated into one unit. The GPS is a life-changer, as far as I’m concerned. On to TowLien. TowLien has completely changed the way that we process our inventory. It’s saves so much time, so much time.
Laura Dolan:
That’s amazing.
Shelli Hawkins:
We love that testimony, we really do. And Chase, can you imagine a world where you have a dispatching software that integrates your cameras and also the TowLien so that when you bring a car into the impound, you only have to do one entry and it all seamlessly works together? And with that, I’m going to transition over to Jai, who is on that software called Dispatch Anywhere.
Jai Grunewald:
Yeah, Chase is a little behind the times, but we love our Dispatch Anywhere setup.
Shelli Hawkins:
He’s going to catch up, it’s fine.
Jai Grunewald:
Eventually.
Laura Dolan:
We forgive him. He’ll get there.
Chase Leonard:
We’re on the front and the back, we just got to fill in the middle now.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it. You’re not wrong.
Laura Dolan:
There you go. That’s a great way to put it.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s good, Chase. I love it. Jai, you guys have been on Dispatch Anywhere for gosh, how long? Do you remember?
Jai Grunewald:
No. It’s been a while. We really enjoy it.
Shelli Hawkins:
10 years?
Jai Grunewald:
Right at the beginning of it, I think. We enjoy it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Good.
Jai Grunewald:
It’s very easy for the drivers to use and you’re not writing stuff down as you’re driving down the road anymore kind of thing. It all integrates really nicely for the drivers, for the dispatchers. We have the BudgetGPS on the trucks now, which is nice. You’re not questioning the guys, not even questioning but wondering where they’re at so you can give a customer a correct ETA. You just glance at the map and see where they’re at. The Dispatch Anywhere part is nice between the dispatchers, we have a couple of different offices within our building that could be taking calls. You’re not wondering where someone was, where’s that one at or where’s the next tow at kind of thing. Just very user-friendly and very, very modern.
Shelli Hawkins:
Good. I think making it as simplistic as can be for the folks that are in the dispatching software the most. So we look at all the different parts of dispatching software. There is the intake of the job, the give it to the driver, the driver goes on scene, he marks it complete, then there’s the impound portion of it. Then over on the backend there’s inventory management and then all the reports that you can run out of Dispatch Anywhere. The largest majority of transactions live in that dispatching portion, so for those dispatchers and for those drivers, you need to give them the biggest ease of the entire system in my opinion. Any thoughts on that?
Jai Grunewald:
Well, I agree with that and we also in the last year or so, Shelli, you helped us get TowLien and TowPay both on board with our stuff, and that’s really helped. The TowPay, you’re not going back to see if a credit card was ran. You click on the invoice, it’s already voided out so it’s already been done. And I can just go on one program and look and see if we sent out paperwork to TowLien for a car that’s in the backyard, just so we’re making sure we’re keeping within our state guidelines and everything like that, so it just works really well.
Shelli Hawkins:
It is. We talked to another company today about TowPay that’s on Dispatch Anywhere. And what does your mom say to me? “I wish I had it sooner.” I love talking to her-
Laura Dolan:
That is a famous quote in our department.
Jai Grunewald:
When I brought it up, everyone kind of looked at me in our office like, “No, we’re not changing credit cards again.” And I’m like, “Well it sounds good,” and they were like, “It sounds good, it sounds good,” and now we’re doing it all and they’re like, “We should have listened. We should have did it sooner.” So it’s nice because you’re not doubling back, and then even with everything in one program, it’s nice just being able to do everything. You can do everything on the fly or I might be in the truck and I might have to dispatch in the middle of the night, and I can enter something right off my phone and dispatch it to a driver in a dealership parking lot kind of thing. So it just very user-friendly.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s so incredibly important because we bring efficiencies to the business, clear communication when you’re communicating to drivers or every single person in the whole process, and then managing the business on the backend and the reporting. Those are the three main pillars.
Laura Dolan:
Along with the ease of use and eliminating the element of surprise, especially when it comes to fleet tracking. It takes away the ambiguity of where your trucks are. Are they idling? What’s going on? It’s that transparency that it brings is second to none.
Shelli Hawkins:
This has been awesome you guys. We really appreciate you coming on. I did have one last topic I wanted to throw out there.
Laura Dolan:
Is it the weather stuff? Because I’ve been waiting.
Shelli Hawkins:
It is the weather stuff, and I want to tell you something that Rene and I talked about this the other night. I’ve coined the phrase the California syndrome, and let me tell you what I mean by the California syndrome. So I know a lot of towers out in California and if you understand how intense and rigorous those regulations are and what you have to pay and do to be a tower out in California, the only way that I can figure that towing companies thrive out in California are that’s all you’ve known. They grew up in it. That’s all they’ve ever known is the price that you have to pay to be in these saturated areas like Sacramento, Los Angeles, all up and down in California. That’s all they’ve ever known. You guys, the California syndrome applies for you because all you have ever known is the intense winter of Wisconsin.
Chase Leonard:
That is 100% correct. There is no getting used to this cold, either. It doesn’t matter how long you’re here or not here, you never get used to it.
Shelli Hawkins:
I believe it. Rene and I get Snapchats from you with your balaclava on and covered in all the ice and snow, and Jai also.
Jai Grunewald:
When it starts getting [wild], and Chase can tell you, you’re on day three of doing windshields for the law enforcement to keep the roads open, you just get that it’s just fun. As long as no one’s hurting, you’re just doing car in the ditch or semi in the ditch one after another, it’s just enjoyable.
Laura Dolan:
Does it make it more difficult though when it’s cold? Because you have to wear more gear, you have to wear gloves. I would imagine it’s kind of hard to grip things, right?
Jai Grunewald:
The first snowstorm, yeah. By the third one, you’re out there and it’s 0 out and you’re in a sweatshirt and people in Florida, it’s 70 out and they still have a coat on. You just kind of get used to it.
Laura Dolan:
Sure. You adapt.
Jai Grunewald:
The winds are what you can’t get away from. You can dress the weather, the snow, the cold weather is one thing, but that wind is a whole other story.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s brutal.
Chase Leonard:
As long as you can keep your hands and your feet dry and warm, you’re good to go. But as soon as your hands or feet get cold or wet, it sucks the wind out of your sails.
Laura Dolan:
You’re done.
Shelli Hawkins:
I bet.
Jai Grunewald:
We had a pretty bad winter a couple of years ago. I think it was three, maybe four years ago and it was a bad month, but then we had a bad week and a half where it was just [wild] weather and you were three, four days out for a truck tow and that was with these heavies running nonstop. Every business around here was nonstop. You’d walk in and there was 85 truck tows pending and you’re like, “Holy smokes. When are we going to get these all done?” And it was fun, but it was overwhelming and you were just trying to take care of your loyal customers first and foremost, and anyone that was roadside. We had office girls going out and picking up customers. I mean it was just nasty weather out.
And at the end of that week, we had one of our customers roll over a loaded tractor trailer down in embankment, and actually, this is where the whole Towing Association comes together. Chase, myself, and two other towing companies, we didn’t want to bother any of our guys and I think we all brought either ourself or one other guy, and we came out and did this job about 20 minutes from my shop. And it was fun to do it together, but it was kind of like we’ve asked these guys to do enough, let’s just do this one together, and it was just a real good camaraderie to finish out the season.
Chase Leonard:
That was a phenomenal job. That was the year it got down to -30, isn’t it Jai?
Jai Grunewald:
Yeah. We had a bad month and then we had a bad 10 or 11 days, and all of our guys were burnt out. And it was like now we get this rollover, it’s like you didn’t want to tell them about it all. We didn’t want someone to get hurt and it’s like, “You know what? Let’s go have fun with this one and do it together,” kind of thing. That was -30 and then the windchill was real bad in there too. Wasn’t it another 20 or 30 on top of that?
Chase Leonard:
Yeah. It was -30 straight up and it was -60 or so with the wind. It was the coldest I’ve ever been in.
Laura Dolan:
How do you exist?
Jai Grunewald:
The office girls were just shaking their heads. You get one customer to call and it’s like, “Hey, they just called in 11 heavies at one time.” It’s like, “Great. What are you doing with all these now?” But that’s how all of us were.
Laura Dolan:
Do you feel that when you get past a certain threshold of cold, it all just feels the same? I used to live in Phoenix and I feel like-
Shelli Hawkins:
I do.
Laura Dolan:
… when it gets past a certain, if it’s 110 or 120, it doesn’t matter. It’s just freaking hot. Is it the same thing when it’s cold, if it’s 10 below or 20 below?
Chase Leonard:
I would say probably about that -10 threshold. After that, it’s just cold. You’re cold.
Laura Dolan:
It’s just cold.
Jai Grunewald:
When it gets that cold, Chase is out here doing all the tractor tows from the rear. He ain’t trying to take those tractor trailers on the side of the road that he is putting the drive shaft’s on. Everything works colder, and that’s what a lot of people don’t think about. All the ice that’s on the drive line bolts and the air systems that don’t air up and all the stuff like that. Your battery powered stuff doesn’t move.
Chase Leonard:
It just stops.
Jai Grunewald:
It gets miserable.
Chase Leonard:
It just stops. It goes from 100% to no percent.
Laura Dolan:
How do you combat that then? What do you do? Do you have a backup plan or some kind of piece of equipment you can use instead or how does that work?
Jai Grunewald:
Not really. You’re just dealing with it.
Chase Leonard:
Yeah. You take it one bite at a time. If you got to warm up, you got to warm up. If you got to warm your gun, you warm your gun and you just keep fighting through it because you really don’t have any other choice. You’re there, you said you’d do it, you got to do it.
Shelli Hawkins:
The law enforcement is looking at you to clear my roads.
Jai Grunewald:
Chase is in the same situation. You’re the family. You are getting it done. It’s not, “I don’t want to do it because it’s cold.” You’ve worked hard to keep that customer happy for generations, so there’s times where you don’t want to be out there, but you’re out there.
Chase Leonard:
Right. Yep.
Laura Dolan:
And that’s why-
Chase Leonard:
And like she said, the pressure from the highway patrol or whatnot, it’s not fun all the time, but it sure feels good when you finish it.
Laura Dolan:
Sure. And that is what makes you guys the heroes of the road because you’re out there, you’re literally battling the elements, so we appreciate everything you do. Trust me, it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Shelli Hawkins:
Thank you guys for hanging out with us this evening. Have we missed any topic? We’ve covered a bunch, for sure.
Laura Dolan:
My last question, I know we touched a little bit on Facebook, but how can our audience find both of you gentlemen? What are your websites? What are your social handles? Chase, I’ll let you go first.
Chase Leonard:
We have a Floyd’s Towing Incorporated Facebook page. I’m on Facebook as well. Our website is floydstowing.com. I’m going to recommend you wait about a week because we are dropping a fresh, updated website. So don’t waste your time quite yet, but maybe in about a week it should be up and running.
Laura Dolan:
All right. It’ll be just in time for this thing to drop.
Chase Leonard:
Exactly.
Laura Dolan:
We just went through that here at TRAXERO, so we feel your pain.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh gosh. Yeah.
Chase Leonard:
There’s been some hurdles and you’re dealing with people that are unfamiliar with the business, but they’ve done a great job and it’s another local company here in Racine that did it, so we’re excited.
Laura Dolan:
Excellent. Jai, where can we find you?
Jai Grunewald:
Our business one is under Ken Weber Truck Service. We have that on Facebook and then obviously I have my personal one. And then we’re actually, kind of like Chase right now, in the middle of making a new website. So we’re a little behind the times on that, but just something we’re trying to get all put together here.
Laura Dolan:
I love it. I love that you’re putting in the effort to update your tech. That’s amazing.
Shelli Hawkins:
Well, good luck as the winter is approaching. It’ll be here before you know it, guys. For sure. Please be safe out there, we know that you will. Thank you for joining us. Laura, were you going to say one more thing?
Laura Dolan:
No, I was just going to tell them to stay warm even though it’s still August, but-
Shelli Hawkins:
I feel like we need to send them both a care package.
Laura Dolan:
… you can never prepare too early, right?
Shelli Hawkins:
Just wash it up. Chase, Jai, thank you guys, we mean it from the bottom of our hearts, for being loyal customers to us. We genuinely appreciate it.
Chase Leonard:
Not a problem. Thanks for having us. We appreciate it.
Jai Grunewald:
Thank you for having us. We enjoyed it.
Shelli Hawkins:
You are welcome. You guys have a great night and be safe out there.
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.