TRAXERO On-The-Go Podcast E18: Creating A Great Work Culture In The Towing Industry
April 30, 2024
In this episode of TRAXERO On-The-Go, Creating A Great Work Culture In The Towing Industry, we welcomed Ryan Pantusa, Owner of Pantusa Towing, who talked about how he grew his towing business at scale within just a few years and how he hires and maintains a healthy work culture to keep his employees happy and to avoid regular turnover. Click play to listen.
Laura Dolan:
Welcome everybody to another titillating episode of TRAXERO-On-The-Go. I am your co-host, Laura Dolan.
Shelli Hawkins:
I am your other co-host, Shelli Hawkins. And I have questions right now about what in the world the word titillating means.
Laura Dolan:
I’m glad you asked.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it though.
Laura Dolan:
Exciting, stimulating, suspenseful. I don’t know. Throwing out all the synonyms. But, yeah. So we are here and we are excited about our guest today. But before we get to that, just want to talk about what we’ve been up to since the last podcast. So Shelli, what is new in your world?
Shelli Hawkins:
I am obsessed with… I’m just going to say it whether you follow it or not, Iowa girls basketball and at the time of this recording, they are playing tonight and the game starts at 9:30 and they’re playing University of Connecticut. And so I normally go to bed super early and get up super early. So tonight I’ve got toothpicks for my eyeballs, my eyelids to keep them open and I’m going to be falling asleep and I want to watch this game so bad. Caitlin Clark is amazing.
Laura Dolan:
She’s a beast. She’s an absolute beast. Hey, it’s Friday night, so I mean grab yourself a coffee at six o’clock, you’ll be good.
Shelli Hawkins:
No. No. I expire. So I am four o’clock in the morning jumping up and down doing jump rope stuff at 4:00 AM. My friend says-
Laura Dolan:
You have sent me that meme a few times.
Shelli Hawkins:
Especially at trade shows, it’ll be like 8:30 and I will just be zoning and my friends will say, “And we have lost Shelli. Shelli has departed. Shelli is not here.” I have a shelf life. I expire. I do. So tonight it’ll be interesting because I really want to watch this game and I hope that Iowa will win.
I recently spoke to a lot of my friends back at the Zip’s World in Iowa and David Rottinghaus said, “Oh, my gosh, Shelli. People here are [passionate] about the Iowa girls basketball.” I talked to him yesterday night.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. It’s something to be proud of. So yeah. That’s really exciting for them.
Shelli Hawkins:
In other news, again, at the time of this recording, hello, Monday the 8th of April. Total eclipse.
Laura Dolan:
Total eclipse. Very exciting.
Shelli Hawkins:
So I played “Total Eclipse of the Heart” for Rene the other day. He’s like, “Turn that off.”
Laura Dolan:
So I’m taking Monday off. My husband and I have plans. We’re here in Columbus, Ohio. Not quite in the path of totality. Unfortunately, the path of totality is about two hours north of us. So when we first moved to Columbus, Ohio, we spent the first two months in different Airbnbs and the second one we lived in was in Caledonia, Ohio, near Marion. And they’re supposed to be in the path of totality.
So the Airbnb we stayed in was actually a nature center, and when you stay in there, it actually donates to the cause. So we were just really excited to be there, but it’s so beautiful. It’s right on the Olentangy River. And when we were there at that time of year in 2021, we saw fireflies at night and there were no lights at all so you could see the stars.
So we’re thinking we’re going to drive up there, hopefully, because it’s in a secluded area, maybe we won’t hit a lot of crowds or people. So yeah, think good thoughts for us. Hopefully, we won’t be hitting the [many] crowds. But yeah, we just thought we’d go up there and see it. My husband actually did order the glasses from Amazon. That should come today. And yeah, we’re excited. But also I need to report some breaking news that just happened during our recording. There was an earthquake in New York.
Shelli Hawkins:
I saw that on my notifications.
Laura Dolan:
Yes.
Shelli Hawkins:
4.8. 4.8.
Laura Dolan:
4.8, I texted my stepdaughter. She lives in Brooklyn, so she hasn’t responded yet. She may still be asleep, but yeah. That’s exciting. Apparently they felt in Boston and Philadelphia. So yeah. Well-
Shelli Hawkins:
That always happens in California. California is where you hear about the earthquakes.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. Well, I grew up in Southern California, so-
Shelli Hawkins:
You did.
Laura Dolan:
… I’ve been feeling earthquakes my whole life, so I’m kind of jealous because you don’t get them here in Ohio.
Shelli Hawkins:
And it’s interesting where it happened. You just don’t hear about it happening in the East.
Laura Dolan:
No. I remember the last time I heard about an earthquake, it was either 2011 or 2012, and I remember I was working in Carlsbad at the time in California, and I remember seeing footage from the top of the Washington Monument of the earthquake they had, and you could actually see the camera moving and people running and-
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s [wild].
Laura Dolan:
That was [wild]. So yeah, it happens. There are fault lines out there. So very rare but-
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s breaking news.
Laura Dolan:
Yes. Very cool.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s fascinating. We have Florida coming up in-
Laura Dolan:
Two weeks.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. Two weeks.
Laura Dolan:
Literally two weeks.
Shelli Hawkins:
Two weeks it will be here. I wonder if our guest will be there. We’ll ask him that a little bit later. But we are ready, you guys. We are ready. We’ve got all the things ready. We’ve got great gifts to give you at our booth. Please come see us and I don’t know. I can’t say anything. If you come to our booth, we’re going to have a podcast sticker so we’d love to give you one to put on your computer or wherever you want to put it.
Laura Dolan:
Computer, on your actual bumper of your car, your folders, anything you use. I will definitely put it on my barbershop folder. That thing is covered in stickers. Yeah. Very excited for that. Yeah. We will be in Booths 359 through 362. We’re going to have a very large area right when you walk into the show floor. You can’t miss us. You’ll see our bright orange everywhere.
So yeah. I am excited for my second time at the Florida Tow Show. So I feel a lot more seasoned than I was last year, because last year I was like three months to this whole thing.
Shelli Hawkins:
Laura, you are a tow show pro. Absolutely.
Laura Dolan:
I don’t know if I go that far but-
Shelli Hawkins:
Is that my alliteration for the day I think?
Laura Dolan:
It’s kind of the homonym for the day or the-
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s it. Homonym. Thank you.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. Tow show pro. I like that. It almost sounds Latin.
Shelli Hawkins:
Tow show pro. That’s it.
Laura Dolan:
Tow show pro.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s what you are, indeed. For sure.
Laura Dolan:
Love it. Thank you. I accept.
Shelli Hawkins:
Well, we are here to talk to an amazing individual in the towing industry. We got lots of questions for him about all the things. So without further ado, we are going to bring on our podcast guest Mr. Ryan Pantusa of Pantusa Towing in San Antonio, Texas. Welcome to the podcast, Ryan.
Ryan Pantusa:
Hey, guys. How are y’all doing?
Shelli Hawkins:
We’re doing great.
Laura Dolan:
Great. Thanks for being here.
Ryan Pantusa:
Thanks for having me.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
We’re super excited to have you. And I’m just going to flat out ask you the first question straight up. With these stickers that we’re giving out and one of them being a podcast sticker, Ryan Pantusa, since you’re on our podcast, would you put the podcast sticker on your Ferrari?
Ryan Pantusa:
Gladly. Yeah. Definitely.
Shelli Hawkins:
I’m sure you will not.
Ryan Pantusa:
I’ll put it right over the logo.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, my gosh.
Shelli Hawkins:
Right on top of it. Yeah. Just-
Laura Dolan:
That took a turn.
Shelli Hawkins:
I’m like, “Would Ryan?” Because you’re somewhat of a car aficionado, would you say or vehicle anyway?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Big time.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. Big time. I don’t know. Indulge us. Run down a list of your cars that you have sitting that you enjoy driving, riding, and all the things. Go for it.
Ryan Pantusa:
So right now I think one of my favorites is my 1997 Toyota Supra. That one’s fully built. It makes a thousand horsepower at the wheels. And then I daily drive a Ford Lightning, the supercharged pickup. That one’s pretty fun. And then, yeah, I’ve had all kinds of cars. Ferrari F8, Ford GT, lots of different Corvettes, ’03, ’04 Cobras. I mean, yeah, a little bit of everything.
Shelli Hawkins:
Any Lamborghinis in the family at all? Any Lambos?
Ryan Pantusa:
No. Not a Lamborghini fan. I think once I got into that first Ferrari and really went out and put it on the track at the Circuit of the Americas, I was hooked, for sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. The power when that right foot, what do you say, depresses the accelerator aggressively.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yes.
Shelli Hawkins:
The feeling is irreplaceable. And you say buckle up buttercup. Right?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. For sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
So your wife, Dorian Pantusa, does she ride along with you in these adventures and escapades for all of the fun speed, or do you have one of your children that loves to go with dad?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. So Dorian’s definitely not about the speed, and she’s always telling me, “Don’t drive [wild].” Every time I take the Supra out. But I have my middle daughter, Eralyn. She’s like a car fanatic. She wants a GTR when she turns 16, and we had her racing go-karts when she was a little girl and she’s all about it. So I do have her, but yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh, I can see Dorian saying, “Don’t drive [wild].” Okay. I’m sure.
Laura Dolan:
I’m sorry. I just want to interject here. I would love to challenge Ryan to a race. Husband and I have a Tesla Model Y and that thing screams. So-
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Those are cool.
Laura Dolan:
That’d be fun to go head to head.
Ryan Pantusa:
That’s what Dorian daily drives is a Model Y Tesla. It’s really fun.
Laura Dolan:
It’s so fun. We used to have a Model 3, but we had to trade it in when our lease was up. And the Model 3, because it’s lower to the ground, I feel like that goes faster but they both just take off.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. It really puts you back in your seat, right?
Laura Dolan:
It does.
Ryan Pantusa:
It’s almost like it’s not even real or something. I don’t know how to describe it.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. And rumor has it there’s a ludicrous mode.
Ryan Pantusa:
I saw that.
Shelli Hawkins:
What?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Laura Dolan:
Yes.
Ryan Pantusa:
A ludicrous mode coming out for the Model 3s. Yeah.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. The Model S has it. And have you ever seen “Silicon Valley”? I’m sorry. I’m going off the rails here a little bit.
Shelli Hawkins:
No. You’re good.
Laura Dolan:
Have you seen that show?
Ryan Pantusa:
I haven’t seen that.
Laura Dolan:
It’s so good. It’s so good. But one of the characters has a Tesla and he basically, I think to get out of a ticket, he takes a cop on a test drive and they go into ludicrous mode and their faces get distorted because they’re going so fast.
Shelli Hawkins:
I want to see that.
Laura Dolan:
I got to find the YouTube clip, Shelli. I’ll put it in the podcast notes because it is so funny.
(The following clip contains harsh language, viewer discretion advised.)
Shelli Hawkins:
What is the show again? I mean can I-
Laura Dolan:
Silicon Valley.
Shelli Hawkins:
Can I look it up on all of the-
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. I think it’s on HBO Max.
Shelli Hawkins:
Okay. I have that.
Laura Dolan:
It’s streaming now. It was one of our COVID shows that we watched. But yeah, such a good show.
Shelli Hawkins:
Love it.
Laura Dolan:
Basically it’s making fun of all the tech companies in Silicon Valley. There’s supposed to be a Google versus all these different companies. So yeah. So the character, it’s basically making fun of Mark Zuckerberg from what I could tell.
Shelli Hawkins:
Nice.
Laura Dolan:
Like he’s got this startup and I won’t give it away, but it’s so good.
Shelli Hawkins:
So Rene and I were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we got a ride share and it was a Tesla. And we were actually with a friend of ours that had never been in an electric vehicle whatsoever, and we were interested to see the reaction, so we let him sit up front.
Well, she was in the far left lane in five lanes in Charlotte, and I think Rene asked her, “How fast have you had this car? How fast have you been in this car?” Her response was not answering the question. She goes, “It goes really fast.” And we were like, “Okay. Show us.” 150 miles per hour on the interstate in Charlotte, North Carolina in a ride share.
Laura Dolan:
She did not!
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. She did.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, my gosh.
Ryan Pantusa:
Dude.
Shelli Hawkins:
At 10:30 at night and I was trying to get my camera out to take a picture of it, because you’re not going to believe it.
Laura Dolan:
No. Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Somebody just tells the story.
Laura Dolan:
Did you get a picture of the odometer?
Shelli Hawkins:
I did not. The other fastest time… No. The fastest. I love that we’re going off the rails. This is fine.
Laura Dolan:
This is fun. This is fine.
Shelli Hawkins:
Ryan would love this. Can you name the vehicle that I was in in Bakersfield, California with a man named JR Kady and Rene, of course, on the streets of Bakersfield. We were in his Trackhawk.
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, yeah. That’s right.
Shelli Hawkins:
The white and orange one, and let’s just say we had a great time. Let’s just leave it there. Thank you, JR Kady for the ride in the Trackhawk. I think I did a snap of it, and I said, “JR, tell the people out there in Snapchat land about this vehicle.” And he gave all the level one Hennessy kit and all the modifications. And I go, “Well, what does that mean?” He goes, “It goes really fast.”
And it did. I love it though. We all have the things that we have to enjoy in life and I love that you do that, Ryan, for sure. With the vehicles.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s cool. Fun.
Shelli Hawkins:
So we are going to unpack a lot of things here, but I just want to take a couple steps back and we want to hear your story about how you got into business and all those things, but just give us an overall umbrella view of today Pantusa Towing has currently locations, employees, truck count, etc.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. So current day Pantusa Towing has seven locations, which are in Atlanta, Georgia; Macon, Georgia; Nashville, Tennessee; Dallas, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; El Paso, Texas; and Colorado Springs, Colorado. Across all those locations, we have about 80 trucks right now and we have 100 employees.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s outstanding. How does it make you feel listing off all that to us right now?
Ryan Pantusa:
I’m real humble and quiet guy, and so I don’t really talking about it that much, but it is pretty cool. It is pretty cool, for sure.
Laura Dolan:
Definitely something to be proud of. You guys cover a lot of different regions, so that’s great.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. For sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
I have some friends that are thinking about moving to Colorado Springs so-
Ryan Pantusa:
So Colorado Springs is our favorite location by far. It’s so beautiful there and everybody’s so nice and we just really enjoy our time out there. And we have a small station out there. We only run six trucks, but that does what we need in that market and we’re just super happy with it.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it. Had you ever opened up a shop in a state that was really difficult to operate in and end up shutting it down?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. I’ll definitely talk about that. So it was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and we ran that location for a little over two years. And, wow, that is a very difficult market to do business in.
Shelli Hawkins:
It is.
Ryan Pantusa:
I mean not only is it like dog-eat-dog, but it’s super expensive to do business there. God bless anybody that’s running a business out in Philly. And it was rough. So it was about the same time that we opened up in Dallas, and so it was kind of like we traded off Philly for Dallas and Dallas is a million times easier to run.
Shelli Hawkins:
Any specific things that make Texas, Dallas easier than Philadelphia? What were some things that you came up against in Philadelphia?
Ryan Pantusa:
Massive toll costs are one thing that you’re going to run into out there and there’s surprisingly a lot of competition in the area, and so that really drives prices down. And so I felt like the towing market was somewhat undercompensated for the conditions that they were having to face in that area.
And then also the PD contracts and stuff are really politically driven, which makes things difficult for a newcomer coming in and that combined with the employee market in the Northeast, it is a lot more difficult to deal with in the south or southeast regions. I’ll just leave it at that.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. No. That’s fine. So understanding that and understanding all of your locations, I can only imagine how the decision to shut that location in Philadelphia down. I mean it just wasn’t something that you did. You had to think hard, people are going to lose their jobs that you had hired, and I think so often that our towing industry is really good at expanding. They want to grow, they want to buy more trucks, but when economic times get tough or a situation that you ran up against in Philadelphia, it’s very difficult to contract the business, because we don’t want to admit that we had a failure.
And I personally don’t think that you should even say that that was a failure, because you were testing a market, you’re learning and you’re putting more tools in the toolbox.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Definitely. I don’t look at it as a failure at all. I mean we had really good success out there, honestly, we could have kept going, but it was just the sheer fact of, one, logistically, it’s very hard to get from San Antonio, Texas to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There’s not a direct flight, and so traveling out there is a whole ordeal in itself. It takes an entire day.
So that was one of the factors that went into it. And then a part of being in business and what I enjoy about the company that we’ve built is I have a lot of fun with it and I have a lot of fun with the employees. I like the trucks. I like the customers that we deal with. And I just wasn’t having that much fun out there. And so I just figured, “What are we really doing out here?” And it didn’t align with our other locations at the time or where we wanted to expand either, so it was definitely a good learning tool. Definitely not a failure.
Shelli Hawkins:
Great way to put it. I can only imagine that there were, you mentioned about the tolls and the cost of the tolls. There had to be many more layers of complexity to be accounted for in the business out there than opposed to somewhere like you mentioned Dallas.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. And I mean the tolls were big, but it was all of it. Everything’s super expensive out there. And so it’s just different. Doing business in the Northeast is way different animal.
Shelli Hawkins:
You were-
Ryan Pantusa:
I commend Jeremy from Interstate Towing for the incredible business he’s built out there. It’s so awesome. I know he’s in Massachusetts, but still-
Shelli Hawkins:
Still.
Ryan Pantusa:
Still. Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. I could not agree more. He was one of our former podcast guests. What a great guy.
Ryan Pantusa:
That was my favorite episode, by the way.
Shelli Hawkins:
Was it? Thank you.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Yeah.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, wow. Cool. Thank you.
Ryan Pantusa:
Because of how candid he was and hearing about how many years it took for him to get his first police contract and all those things. I mean it was a good story.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it. Fantastic. So you grew up in San Antonio, Texas?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
What was that like?
Ryan Pantusa:
It was pretty easy going. Yeah. I was born and raised here and went to UTSA for college and now fortunate enough to be raising my own family here in San Antonio as well.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. So you are 100% a Texas born and bred, Texas driver’s license, all of it. I remember the day Rene had to turn in his Texas driver’s license at the Iowa DMV. Heart is breaking, right? There’s so much pride. He’s just crying. He’s like, “I’m going to turn this in.” I’m like, “Corn? What? No.”
Ryan Pantusa:
I still consider him a Texan though.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh, 100%. Yes.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. He would wholeheartedly agree. But the culture is very different as you’ve experienced with your other locations, for sure.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
The employees that work for you out in Colorado are just so different than the ones working for you in El Paso. How do you bring all those cultures together of living?
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, wow. That’s a good question. So you are right, when you’re dealing with a set of employees in Atlanta, it’s a total 180 from the people that you’re dealing with in Colorado. But as far as managing those employees, I think it’s still important to have the same structure and processes across the board, which is what we do. And just treating everybody like a human.
When companies get real big, the employees tend to turn more into numbers, and so it’s really important for us to embrace everybody’s uniqueness and empower them and believe in them to make the right decisions and do the right thing every day with our name on the side of the truck. So that’s really how we do it and treat everybody the same and embrace everybody’s differences.
Shelli Hawkins:
That is beautiful. That’s a great statement. You have to just feel good about that.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. For sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
So you grew up in San Antonio.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
College, high school, early education and all that, like you mentioned, I think that our parents and what our parents do really shape us to some extent. Those are the formative years. So what were the professions of your mom and dad growing up?
Ryan Pantusa:
So my mom worked in HR at USAA and she did that… Well, I was born in 1990 and I think she left USAA around the mid-90s, maybe ’95, ’96. And then in 1992, my dad started an insurance agency, nationwide insurance agency, and him and my mom together ran that agency all the way up until 2022, May. Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Wow.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. And so definitely seeing them run their own business and all the benefits that they saw from it and all the time that I got to spend with them over the years, it made me want to be a business owner, for sure. But funny enough though, in high school I didn’t really think about owning a business or anything like that. I was just kind of focused on racing cars and being a rock star. I was all into playing guitar and in a band and stuff like that.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, nice.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
You still do that?
Laura Dolan:
You still do-
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
What’s the name of your band right now?
Ryan Pantusa:
I don’t have a band right now. In high school we were called Sacco Vanzetti and it was kind like a pop punk hardcore band.
Shelli Hawkins:
Are you the lead singer? Are you the lead singer or do you have a voice for drums?
Ryan Pantusa:
What do you mean?
Shelli Hawkins:
I have a friend that’s an excellent drummer. He cannot sing at all. He cannot not carry a tune, so he always says, “I have a voice for drums…”
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, yeah.
Laura Dolan:
That’s hilarious.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. I’m the guitar guy.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh, cool.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. And so I still play in my free time. And then, but after high school, I really wanted to be a detective. And so I went to UTSA and I pursued a degree in criminal justice and I was just thinking, “Okay. Well, I’m going to go and I’m going to be a LEO, law enforcement officer for five years, and then work my way up to detective.”
And then it was right towards the end of my college career, my dad got sick and had to have a stent put in his heart or something like that. So I started working more in the insurance agency at that point and it actually ended up working out really well. We doubled the size of his agency once I came on full time with him, and then we acquired another agency, and then I just led it all the way up through the sale and acquisition in 2022. And so it worked out really well.
Shelli Hawkins:
Congratulations. That’s something-
Laura Dolan:
That’s awesome.
Shelli Hawkins:
… again, to be proud of. It’s a good job. You know no doubt learned a lot of business principles.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. A lot. And that’s really brought a unique aspect to running the towing company is because myself or Dorian, we had no experience in towing prior, and so I just brought in all the business practices that I knew from my years of experience working in the insurance agency and it’s worked out good, for sure. Definitely a unique characteristic of our operation.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it. And so dad with his own insurance company, the question to be answered is, Ryan, of all of the industries out there that you can go into, what turned you onto towing?
Ryan Pantusa:
Well, it was a combination of things. It wasn’t just one flip of a switch. I worked with several towing companies as clients of mine at the insurance agency and I learned a lot about their businesses and licensure and what type of trucks they were buying and issuing certificates, insurance for them for different motor clubs and things of that sort.
And so I kind of knew a lot about the towing industry. And Dorian and I really wanted to start our own business and one year, we were coming back from the beach. It was in 2015 from a summer trip, and I saw a tow truck and it was loaded and we were like three hours down south of San Antonio and I saw that the truck was from San Antonio.
And so I looked at Dorian, and I was like, “Man, I bet you that is a really expensive tow to get your car taken from Corpus Christi all the way back to San Antonio.” And I was like, “I wonder what that would be like? Maybe we should look into starting a towing company because really to get started, all we need is the truck and a driver and I already know what accounts we can run for. I know where to get the insurance [inaudible 00:26:55].”
And so we just went back home and started researching and-
Shelli Hawkins:
Dorian did not respond with, “Have you lost your mind?”
Ryan Pantusa:
And she was all about it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Cool.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. She was all about it. Dorian’s super adventurous and she was in the military and so she’s always up for a challenge and she knew that she wanted to be a business owner too, and so this is the start, and so she was totally game.
Laura Dolan:
That’s awesome. What a cool story. It makes me wonder though, what is a San Antonio tow truck doing in Corpus Christi? Doesn’t Corpus Christi have tow companies or-
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Come to find out that happens all the time. We go there every day basically.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, wow.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. And so it’s just the way it works, I guess. We’re transporting cars for different accounts and a lot more hubs are located in San Antonio, and so if cars need to get shipped out or whatever, then they need to get moved. But yeah, it happens all the time.
Shelli Hawkins:
Love it.
Laura Dolan:
That’s so cool. One tow truck. How long did it take you to expand to the volume you have now?
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, yeah. Well, first off with the one tow truck, I just want to give a quick shout out to Dualtech. Believe it or not, I know this is super not traditional, but I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s okay.
Ryan Pantusa:
So I went on eBay and I bought a tow truck on eBay.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, my gosh.
Ryan Pantusa:
And it was a-
Laura Dolan:
You could actually do that.
Ryan Pantusa:
Dualtech had listings on there, and so I bought one and the guy’s name was John Ryan from Dualtech and John and his wife, they’re really one of the big reasons that we were able to start and be so successful. They got that first truck financed for us and we had no prior experience. Dorian and I flew out to Knoxville, Tennessee to go pick up that truck, and John came and picked us up from Knoxville and drove us another hour east to Bean Station where their factory is.
And it’s like the funniest thing because we went to go pick up the truck, it was a, I don’t know, 2016 F550 Rollback and we’re signing the papers and stuff. And I was like, “So you think you could show me how to use it?” And he looked at me like, “Are you serious?”
Laura Dolan:
Uh-oh.
Ryan Pantusa:
So he had to walk Dorian and I out there and show us, “Okay. This lever makes the bed go back and this is what the winch does and all this stuff.” It was funny. So that was super cool.
Shelli Hawkins:
What year was that again?
Ryan Pantusa:
That was in 2016. I think maybe December 2015 or January 2016.
Shelli Hawkins:
That was the year I started with Zip’s Truck Equipment.
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, wow.
Shelli Hawkins:
You got your first truck the year I started with Zip’s.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Go ahead.
Ryan Pantusa:
So anyway, that was a super fun couple of days because we went and picked up the truck and it was Dorian and we were just so pumped and we drove it to Nashville and stopped in Nashville and went and partied and stuff and celebrated. And then we drove that thing all the way home, me and her, and it was just so exciting.
Laura Dolan:
That is exciting.
Ryan Pantusa:
I still like looking at pictures of it, of that trip.
Laura Dolan:
Have you done anything to it since then? Have you had it wrapped or painted or is it still the same? It’s still the same.
Ryan Pantusa:
No. I sold it.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, okay.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Yeah. Because that was a little over eight years ago, so the life cycle of the trucks is not that long.
Laura Dolan:
Sure. Right.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. That was fun though.
Shelli Hawkins:
And so you really had no prior industry knowledge and you just started searching online for tow trucks and came across this one on eBay. Well, you didn’t know any of the brands. You didn’t know the Doodle Check brand. You weren’t familiar with it at all. He said, “Well, this one looks like it’ll work.”
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Pretty much. And I was excited about it because the load angle on the Dualtech is really good. I was thinking, “Okay. This is going to be good for [high-end] cars and stuff.” And it was a good truck, for sure. We bought a bunch of them after that. And then later once we got more experience and stuff, we started switching over to the Miller products.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s a beautiful story. It really is. And I love your industrial candor, just being honest with us and not knowing a whole lot, but that’s what a lot of folks do when they come on here, as you’ve heard in the past I think. Sharing the stories, sharing how much they know or don’t know, and life is a learning process, is it not? We do not have all the tools in the toolbox to function like we do as we learn our lessons.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. And you’ll never know everything when you’re going to get your start, and it doesn’t even matter what industry that applies to. I always just tell everybody, it’s just important to just start doing something. And that’s really what we did. It was like, we really got to get on our game. We want to be business owners, let’s just do something. And so this is what we did, and it’s hard to believe it’s been eight years already.
Shelli Hawkins:
Wow.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
So you started in San Antonio, one tow truck, and then you started expanding. What was your next location to open up?
Ryan Pantusa:
We ran in San Antonio from February of 2016 until January of 2020. And 2020 is when we really blew up.
Laura Dolan:
That’s interesting.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Right?
Laura Dolan:
During a pandemic.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. It was kind of wild.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
I mean it was still busy. We had a lot of volume. We went to El Paso, Texas. That was our first expansion in January of 2020. And then once we figured out, okay, we can run a location that’s seven or eight hours away from us and it’s going smooth, and this is how we did it. We were like, “We should probably do this a few more times and just diversify our book of business.” And so January 2020 was El Paso. May 2020 was Atlanta. October of 2020 was Nashville.
Shelli Hawkins:
Wow.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. All in one year.
Laura Dolan:
Now did you plan for those locations or how did you choose those locations?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. El Paso was a test market that somebody asked us to go to, one of our customers, because that one’s always like, “Why are you there?” It’s a really good heavy duty market, for sure, I’ll tell you that.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
But Atlanta is just one of the fastest growing cities in America, and from what we heard from our clients was that, that’s always been a really challenging market for them to get proper service in. So that was an easy one. Nashville is just absolutely booming and growing. And so that was another market that we targeted.
And then Dallas later on, I mean that’s pretty obvious. That’s another big one. We were just focusing on, aside from Philly, we were just focusing on the south, southeast, biggest cities, growing markets. That’s really what we’re going for.
Shelli Hawkins:
Makes sense.
Laura Dolan:
Definitely.
Shelli Hawkins:
You learned the lesson about just the travel out to Philadelphia, and no doubt you looked at that as well, how easy can we get to these locations from where we are?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. That’s right. I have direct flights everywhere now.
Laura Dolan:
Nice.
Ryan Pantusa:
It’s like I’m only two hours away from most of my locations if I hop on a plane. So it’s pretty ideal.
Shelli Hawkins:
I would love to see you open up a location in Portland, Oregon, because I love that city. Have you spent any time out there?
Ryan Pantusa:
I went once. Super beautiful.
Shelli Hawkins:
I feel like they would be towing friendly.
Ryan Pantusa:
You think so?
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. And the people group would be really similar to your Colorado Springs. So as your free business consultant today, Ryan Pantusa, I’m just going to make that recommendation. Okay?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Just another reason-
Ryan Pantusa:
I’ll consider it.
Shelli Hawkins:
… to explore another city. That’s awesome. So we really want to focus today on the hiring process for you guys, what that looked like in the beginning, what it looks like now? And then you have what we call here at TRAXERO a culture of growth. And we really want you to unpack that for us, because I’ve heard from the folks that work for you, and I’ve also heard from you and Dorian, that we don’t hire people here to be steering wheel holders.
We want to give them a path of growth in their career. We don’t see them as a number like you mentioned earlier. So if someone wants to work for you, what are the beginning steps? And then what does that look for one, two, three, four, five years and beyond?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Great question. So we’re always looking for talented people, and it’s not just for operators. With a company like ours where we’re growing and we’re trying to meet big goals that we have set for ourselves. We’re hiring for sales positions and we’re hiring for management positions in different cities and really anybody that can kind of carry us through to the finish line.
But number one, anybody can go on pantusatowing.com, click careers and be able to submit an application on there. That’s the absolute best way. And those applications do still end up in my inbox, and I do review them. As far as the hiring processes go, for the operators, we’re fully DOT compliant. And so if somebody came to apply as an operator for Pantusa Towing, they can expect to provide us with seven years of pre-employment history, at least. And then that goes along for the verification of employment, and then they’ll go through the standard background testing, drug testing.
And the whole process usually ends up taking about a week to make it through everything and to get the prior employers called and get their responses back and everything like that. And then for the other positions in the company, the hiring process is probably a lot different. It just depends on what department you’re hiring for, but we do have multiple interviews when it comes to management positions, and usually there’ll be panel interviews too, but like Dorian has said a lot in the past, we rarely hire on experience. We hire on the person.
And so we can look at their resume and if they’ve been in a totally different industry, we welcome that. And during the interview process, we really like to feel them out and really like to see what their goals are? What they’re looking to do? Where they’re looking to go? And if they’re wanting to grow with us. As far as the growth goes, if somebody was looking to apply as an operator and they’re wanting to work their way up to management, the good news is, is that every single one of my regional managers was an operator.
So the path to move up definitely exists. The VP of Operations in our company started as a driver in San Antonio. And so there’s a lot of opportunities to grow within our company.
Laura Dolan:
That’s great.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it. Such a great story. I was just going to ask springing off of that, you no doubt have churn, you lose employees.
Ryan Pantusa:
No. For sure. For sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. This is what I hear over and over and over again. You can’t find people to work, you can’t find folks that want to be in the towing industry, and you can’t keep them because we are in a very challenging, dangerous, all hours, exhaustion in the mind, exhaustion in the body, and above all, it’s just dangerous to be out there on the roadways. What do you do to combat that? What have you set up for your employees to retain them?
Ryan Pantusa:
I would say that Pantusa Towing’s benefits are robust. So our employees have access to a 401k plan. We offer a company paid life insurance, medical benefits, dental, vision, paid time off, sick leave, maternity or paternity leave. It’s a full benefits package that our employees get.
And one thing that’s really unique about us that we just implemented in January is an insurance plan that if the employee attends a baseline visit with a telehealth doctor within the first 120 days of them enrolling, they will have zero deductible, zero copay, zero out of pocket, and even most approved pharmacies are free as well.
Laura Dolan:
Wow. That’s incredible.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. It’s a really, really unique health plan that we have.
Laura Dolan:
That would get me to stay.
Ryan Pantusa:
For sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. That is unheard of.
Ryan Pantusa:
Those sorts of things, those play a big factor into retaining employees. And then the culture is really important as well. The equipment is really important and just making sure that people feel like they have purpose and they’re getting fulfillment out of their everyday job. Because, man, if you think about it, the employees in this industry spend a lot of time at work, a lot.
Laura Dolan:
Yes.
Ryan Pantusa:
And so if you’re not being fulfilled and with all the time that you’re putting in, and it’s not just pay, you have to feel good about what you’re doing. And that’s what we try to do for our employees.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
And dealing with the motoring public is challenging, especially on the day where they need a tow truck. Emotions are escalated, they’re crying, they’re frustrated, and those emotions no doubt are passed on to your operators and dispatchers and all the things. So I love that you have all of those benefits in place for them.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Just out of curiosity, do you have scheduled shifts for operators and dispatchers, or do they have their truck on call? One more question before you answer it all, or does it depend on what level of size tow truck that they’re in?
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, okay. So it definitely depends on the size of tow truck. So a majority of our business is light duty. I would say our heavy duty side of things is only like 10% of our total revenue stream. But on the light duty side, I’ve always thought that it is [wild] when people tell me that, “Oh, yeah, well, I have to work Monday through Friday, and then every other weekend I’m on call.”
And I’m just like, “How are you okay with this?” I get a lot of that. So our light duty guys, they have a set schedule and we abide by it 100%. Everybody gets, they work five days and they’re off two. And so that’s how we roll on that. And even on the heavy duty side of things, it’s still a set schedule. I think we usually do four on and two off, and it just kind of rolls that way.
So it’s not like the light duty side, you could be Monday through Friday and be off Saturday and Sunday. The heavy duty guys, it’s like their days off kind of roll. And then if we get in a pinch, they’re usually willing to go out and help even if they’re off. And then the dispatchers are on a set schedule just like the light duty guys.
Shelli Hawkins:
Love it.
Ryan Pantusa:
Some of them work four days a week and some of them work five days a week.
Shelli Hawkins:
That is fantastic. It really is. Another way to help you create a great culture and retain employees, for sure. I love it.
Laura Dolan:
One question I want to ask, this is kind of a morbid topic, but obviously your operators aren’t just dealing with stressful situations where people are in a panic mode when they’re calling for a tow truck, but I’m sure there are some instances where they roll up on the scene and it’s very graphic. It may be a fatality situation. Do you offer any kind of mental health support services or anything along those lines to help people cope or is it just one of those like, “This is the nature of the job, this is what you signed up for?” I’m just curious if there’s anything like that that’s being offered.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Honestly, through our health program, there is services available for that situation. And so that’s one thing that we’re really thankful for is that the employees do have access to that if they need that. But you know how a lot of these guys and girls are, they’re tough and that’s what they signed up for and-
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. I think you have to be, because it is definitely something that’s inevitable because you guys are literally first responders. Sometimes you’re there probably before the paramedics and other emergency personnel. So I would think that there’s a lot that you see that you probably can’t unsee. So that’s got to be tough.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. For sure.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
Have you ever been to the Wall of the Fallen ceremony in Chattanooga, Tennessee? Have you been to the Tennessee Tow Show in September?
Ryan Pantusa:
No. I’ve never been.
Shelli Hawkins:
Laura and I would both highly recommend that you attend that. It’s a show that’s unlike any trade show. All the trade shows out there in Tow Summit, etc., have all of their different reasons for being in benefits and that kind of thing. But Tennessee is, as you know, the heart and soul of the towing industry, Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And so every year they have a ceremony called the Wall of the Fallen. They have the museum there, international towing and recovery hall of fame there, showing all the people. So it’s just like the Mecca, I guess, you could say. And it’s a time of celebration. There’s an auction on Friday night. Saturday night is the induction of all the Hall of Fame people.
And so the group of people that gather for this Tennessee Tow Show, Laura can attest to this. She came last year, is really epic and unlike any other show of the year.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. I’ll have to check that out.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
September?
Shelli Hawkins:
September. There’s a lot of fantastic leaders in our industry that will be there that have helped shaped what we’re doing today.
Ryan Pantusa:
Very cool.
Shelli Hawkins:
That was completely unsolicited and off the rails, but here we are. What do we say? But here we are, kids.
Laura Dolan:
No. It’s okay. And I wanted to add that the auction they do, all that funding goes toward the museum and goes toward the families who suffer losses like that? Right, shelli?
Shelli Hawkins:
Survivor fund, for sure.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. The Survivor Fund.
Shelli Hawkins:
And you just don’t know what’s going to happen at the auction. You need to get there early, you need to get a seat. It is structured. There is an auctioneer, but I’ll tell one of my favorite stories from a few years back when Mr. Lee Roberts of Roberts Heavy Duty in Lexington, Kentucky grabs the microphone.
They were auctioning off a quilt, I believe, made by Danny Horton’s wife. And he said, he grabs the mic and it was like, “I’ll give 500. I’ll give 700, 800.” Lee walks up there, grabs the mic, he goes, “There’s not one towing company in this room that can’t afford to give a thousand dollars. Now let’s all donate a thousand dollars and hang this in the museum.”
He raised, if I’m not mistaken, $45,000 for this quilt.
Ryan Pantusa:
Wow.
Shelli Hawkins:
All for the Survivor’s Fund. So completely spontaneous. So it’s later on in the evening, people are relaxed, enjoying an adult beverage, and collectible guns.
Laura Dolan:
They’re feeling more generous.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. Collectible guns, that I mean you just see these guys that you know and follow on all the socials just going at it bidding up, and it’s for a great cause. There’s wreckers that are made out of wood, made out of metal that are collectible, and-
Laura Dolan:
They’ve got toy tow trucks. They’ve got merchandise as far as apparel. I mean the variety of items to bid on was actually pretty impressive, and it took up the entire perimeter of the ballroom we were in. So every time I thought I was done looking at the different items, I was like, “Oh, my gosh, there’s more over here.”
Shelli Hawkins:
Okay.
Ryan Pantusa:
Wow. So cool.
Laura Dolan:
This is super cool.
Shelli Hawkins:
Here’s what’s going to seal the deal for Ryan Pantusa to be there and Dorian. Ready?
Laura Dolan:
Okay.
Shelli Hawkins:
They also auction off… And people donate. Everything coming in is a donation. They auction off a lot of collectible bourbon.
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, I’m going.
Laura Dolan:
Sold.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
I told you.
Laura Dolan:
There you go.
Shelli Hawkins:
I told you. So they’ll do things like, I think that they had Buffalo Trace like white dog, which is a part of the distilling process. Things that are unique and you don’t always see, but are highly valuable to sit on the shelf for somebody’s case back there.
Ryan Pantusa:
Wow.
Shelli Hawkins:
So a lot of classic things. So yeah, it’s so much fun. The auction, Friday night, Tennessee Tow Show.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. It’s a great event. They serve dinner, they serve dessert, appetizers. It’s great.
Ryan Pantusa:
Sweet.
Shelli Hawkins:
Okay. And there’s some super cool places to stay too. We can make all the recommendations after that.
Laura Dolan:
Yes. I would like to switch gears really quick and just I want to talk about your website. So coming from a marketing perspective, just looking at it, I am so impressed by it. It’s just so cool. You go there and there’s actual video footage in the background along with their branding. It’s right up there, right up front. The branding colors are consistent.
Sorry. I’m just nerding out over your website and it’s so beautifully done, because it’s just perfect. It’s perfectly laid out with the locations and your services, your gallery, your FAQs. It’s just great. And so Shelli said something, I’m going to pull the curtain back. She says something at the beginning of the podcast before we hit record that she said, “Would you say pants USA?”
Shelli Hawkins:
Yes. The name looks like pants USA.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. I mean it’s Pantusa, obviously, pant USA, but now I can’t unsee that. So thanks a lot, Shelli, put that in my head. And now I just put it in all your heads, so you’re welcome. But, no, in all seriousness, it’s a beautiful website and whoever is running it is doing absolute wonderful job. Did you hire somebody third party to design it, or is somebody at your company actually regulating it and updating it and basically just keeping an eye on it?
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, yeah. Well, we hired a third-party marketing firm to build this website out and we were actually customers of theirs for two years. And they were doing social media and they would maintain the website and all the things. It was a full service marketing firm.
Laura Dolan:
Okay.
Ryan Pantusa:
But actually right now, we’re servicing the website in-house. So we didn’t design it, but we’re keeping it up. But yeah, that marketing firm did a fantastic job. We get so many compliments on the website.
Laura Dolan:
Yes. I mean even your logo is eye-catching. I can see it on your shirt right now. So it’s consistent. It’s just perfect. So kudos to that.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. Your brand is everything.
Laura Dolan:
Yes, it is.
Ryan Pantusa:
Because at the end of the day, I mean we’re all towing cars and everybody’s about the same price. And so what are you going to do to set yourself apart from the rest-
Laura Dolan:
Exactly.
Ryan Pantusa:
… to gain clientele? What better way than looking super cool like that website?
Laura Dolan:
100%.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. And my brand on a sticker on your Ferrari.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
That’s going to happen? I agree.
Laura Dolan:
The website sticker, it’s going to be very famous very soon.
Shelli Hawkins:
Going back to the employees a little bit, and if I’m meddling, that’s southern term for asking too much, you can just let me know. But your operators, are they paid on commission or like a straight hourly rate? How do you motivate them or how do you encourage them, I guess is a better word, to be more and do more?
Ryan Pantusa:
They’re on commission. The operators are. And I go back and forth on this all the time with Dorian, and it’s such a hard thing to know what is the right thing to do? Would an hourly pay bring more consistency and cause less turnover or is the commission the way to go? I mean this is probably a topic that gets talked about every day in the towing industry throughout it, but for the last eight years, the operators have been on full commission.
Shelli Hawkins:
It’s kind of like if it’s working, you’re not losing people, the company’s getting paid in a timely manner, then go for it. And of course, I speak from Rene’s experience and stories that I’ve heard from other towers, because I’ve heard both sides. And so when Rene did work for Southwest Towing, he was on an hourly rate and he loved that because he was not ever… and they did a lot more commercial than you guys were doing. The majority of what they do at Southwest is going to be commercial, not consumer.
So if you’re paid on commission, you’re frustrated because you’re sitting there waiting on the check to come through before you go to the next. And so when you’re hourly, you don’t have that stress on an operator and so that’s one thing to think about.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. That’s really what the main thing is because some guys they get it. You got to take the good days with the bad. Not every day is going to be slammed busy all day long. But if you know that the day before you had a day where you made three or $400 in commissions and then today you make 200, well, it’s still a good average. You know what I mean?
And you’re not going to be sitting forever, it’s not going to go on for days and days. But, man, if you have a couple hours of downtime, don’t freak out. It all works out in the end. The guys who show up to work on their scheduled shifts and do the right thing, those are the ones that always end up sticking around. They’re not worried about if the call volumes this day or this hour or this minute, they’re just there to do the shift that we have lined out for them, do a good job, and we never have any issues.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love it. This has been fantastic.
Laura Dolan:
There it is. Shelli’s magic word. She says it every episode. At this point, it’s kind of like an Easter egg. Is Shelli going to say it or not? I have one last question, Ryan. I just want to know what the future looks like for Pantusa Towing. Are you planning on expanding, opening up new locations, buying more trucks? What does that look like right now?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. That’s a great question. So Pantusa Towing is actively looking to acquire other towing companies, especially in the markets that we’re in. So if anybody is listening to the podcast and they’re like, “Hey, I have a towing company in Atlanta, I kind of want to go sit on the beach all day instead of doing this.” That’s what our growth strategy is going to be moving forward is M&A.
It’s been super fun opening up locations organically from the ground up, but at this point it makes more sense for us to consolidate a little bit. The towing industry has been fragmented for a very long time, and we’re finally starting to see some consolidation happening now with two or three major players. And so Pantusa Towing wants to be a part of that, for sure.
We’d also be open to being a part of one of the three big players that are out there right now and growing that way. But we’d love to see our brand continue on. We want to grow our company to have 400 trucks. That was our goal.
Laura Dolan:
Wow.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. So hopefully we can get there.
Shelli Hawkins:
I think I know who the three major players are because they might be in my brain, but who do you call the three major players? Just say it.
Ryan Pantusa:
Just say it?
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. Just say it.
Ryan Pantusa:
Go for it?
Shelli Hawkins:
Absolutely.
Ryan Pantusa:
All right. So Guardian, for sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
Collins Brothers and Vehicle Management Solutions.
Shelli Hawkins:
VMS.
Ryan Pantusa:
VMS.
Shelli Hawkins:
So there’s another one, and I’ll send you the article that ran in Tow Times a month ago about First Line Road Solutions.
Ryan Pantusa:
Oh, yeah. Okay. So those guys are out of Minnesota or something like that, or where are they from?
Shelli Hawkins:
Arizona.
Ryan Pantusa:
Arizona. Okay. First Line.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. So I feel like that they are very much up and coming, private equity backed company out there. But yeah, put that one on your radar. Yeah.
Ryan Pantusa:
I’m going to Google it right now.
Shelli Hawkins:
I can see Ryan and you’re googling them right now. Great. Great folks, for sure.
Laura Dolan:
Yeah. And for those who are listening, if you’re interested in doing business with Pantusa Towing, tell them Ryan how they can find you. What are your socials? What’s your website?
Ryan Pantusa:
Sure. So you can find Pantusa Towing on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and you can also go to pantusatowing.com. Tons of good information on there. If somebody wants to do business with Pantusa Towing, they can fill out a corporate accounts form on there. You could schedule a tow online. And so you can find us all over the web.
Laura Dolan:
Perfect. And the handle is just Pantusa Towing?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yes.
Laura Dolan:
Okay. Fantastic. I will put links to all of those sites in the show notes, so if you’re following along, you will find them very easily.
Ryan Pantusa:
Cool.
Shelli Hawkins:
Thank you. Thank you so much, Ryan. This has been a really great podcast. Thank you for sharing the story. You’ve been a wonderful guest.
Laura Dolan:
Yes. Thank you for coming on. Great conversation.
Ryan Pantusa:
Thank you all for taking the time to put all this together and doing this for the industry. It’s really fantastic. It’s great to hear everybody’s stories.
Laura Dolan:
Absolutely. And we enjoy it too. And for me, it’s definitely a learning experience.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. I just want to know one more last thing. When you were in Philadelphia, did you get a Philly cheesesteak?
Ryan Pantusa:
Of course.
Shelli Hawkins:
Okay. Good.
Laura Dolan:
Oh, you got to do it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Yeah. Rene and I, we could be in Philadelphia in two hours, of course, depending on traffic. That’s what you always say. Right?
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah.
Shelli Hawkins:
So that’s something that we’re going to get up there and do, because we are only three to four hours from New York City where we are. It’s pretty cool to live up here in the northeast.
Ryan Pantusa:
And I’m just going to say it too. Pat’s is way better than Gino’s so.
Shelli Hawkins:
Oh, shots fired. I’m sure-
Laura Dolan:
Fightin’ words.
Shelli Hawkins:
… if you’re out there in Philly, you heard it here.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:59:02].
Laura Dolan:
Don’t shoot the messenger.
Shelli Hawkins:
I feel like we’re going to have some Philly people out here like-
Laura Dolan:
Uh-oh.
Shelli Hawkins:
… hating on the post, but I love it.
Laura Dolan:
We’re going to get some bots and troll comments, I am sure. But bring it. Hey, that means we made it, right?
Ryan Pantusa:
For sure.
Shelli Hawkins:
I love these mergers and acquisitions season that you’re going into. What a great, great strategy for real. Because, yes, this is what we’re seeing more and more of. I feel like we are in the economical season of doing that. You see it happening on a regular basis.
Ryan Pantusa:
Yeah. It’s really exciting. I love it.
Shelli Hawkins:
Good. Well, we can’t wait until the press releases come out now, things happen. Good luck.
Ryan Pantusa:
Thank you.
Shelli Hawkins:
And thank you again for coming on the podcast.
Ryan Pantusa:
Thanks for having me here.
Laura Dolan:
Absolutely. Thank you all so much for tuning into this episode of TRAXERO-On-The-Go. We will see you next time.
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.