We started the TRAXERO Titan Award to honor and thank those who give their dedication and passion to the towing industry, to tell the world about how amazing the people in the towing industry are, and how incredibly valuable the work is that they provide.

The TRAXERO Titan is one of the many of you who are on your feet, any hour of the day, facing challenges and providing quality service when people need you most. Jeremy Procon is one of many of you.

We are so excited to present our very first TRAXERO Titan Award to Jeremy Procon, Owner of Interstate Towing in Chicopee, MA. Jeremy has been a loyal InTow by TRAXERO customer since 2009. This is his story.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us, Jeremy. And congratulations again on becoming our very first TRAXERO Titan! Start off by telling us how you got started in the towing industry. What year? How many trucks and what kind? 

Jeremy Procon:

In 1995 when I was in high school, I was working at a car wash for $4.10 an hour. Nobody ever forgets how much they were making on their first job. And a friend of mine asked if I was interested in working at a tow company where he was working, and he said it was $8 an hour, and I said, “Holy smokes. Absolutely!”

And then I said, “What exactly do tow trucks do?” So he explained, and I’d never really thought much about tow trucks back then, but I ended up taking the job. I ended up training and absolutely fell in love with it the first couple weeks of doing it. Responding to police calls and helping people out, became an instant passion. 

Laura Dolan:

That’s awesome!

Jeremy Procon:

So, at that point, I was working at that company, and I stayed there until 1999 and decided to moonlight, buy my own truck. And after I purchased my first truck, I still maintained my full-time job, but my boss caught wind that I was moonlighting and immediately terminated me.

Laura Dolan:

Oh, man.

Jeremy Procon:

So, I turned what was going to be a part-time thing on my own into a full-time thing because my former boss absolutely despised the fact that I went and bought a tow truck. And it was motivation to really sink or swim. I had no full-time job, no insurance, no nothing, so I had to make this happen.

So, I started with one truck in 1999. I quite honestly went to every motor club that was listed and signed up, including AAA. And AAA is what really sort of fueled my tanks, so to speak. I ran around for bare minimum, but I had minimal expenses as well. So I was able to afford to do it on my own.

I started in April of 1999, hired my first employee in September of 1999 and bought another flatbed through the AAA finance program. And then one led to two, and two led to four. Eight, 16, 32, and we’re all the way up close to 90 trucks now.

Laura Dolan:

Wow. That’s fantastic! What kind of tow truck was your first?

Jeremy Procon:

It was a 1988 Ford F450. It was a flatbed.

Laura Dolan:

And, did you know what you were getting yourself into? Was it what you expected at first?

Jeremy Procon:

It’s funny. It started off very stressful because again, I had no full-time job, and I had to make it happen. It remained stressful because it’s a very competitive world in the tow industry. So you’re constantly working harder to keep everyone off your island, so to speak.

So, you have to gather more trucks, you have to work harder. If you let any of these calls slip through, the other company’s going to get them, and they’re going to have an edge on you. Competition was really motivational, and it still is today.

Laura Dolan:

Oh, I’m sure that part of it never changes. And just circling back to the amount of trucks you started buying, when did you know it was the right time to start buying more trucks?

Jeremy Procon:

Well, back then, if a truck went down, it was detrimental. We grew with AAA. And they’re absolutely fantastic. We don’t do a whole lot of it nowadays, but I think it really helped, and I can’t ignore the fact that AAA got me to where I am today. They were able to allow me to buy more trucks as we took on more territory.

So, as other competitors started dropping off, we would pick up their territory for AAA and go out and buy two more trucks, three more trucks. And again, it was detrimental to be down a truck, so I always tried to have a spare truck ready to go for one that was down.

So, in about 2007, we started a program where every 36 months I would simply get rid of that truck, whether it was a wrecker or a flatbed, and we would turn it over. I was able to capitalize on the depreciation. 

I learned a lot about this stuff just by flying to tow shows, taking seminars. And I learned that a lot of people around the country want to be everything. They want to be dispatchers, they want to be drivers, they want to be mechanics. And there’s no money to be made there. If you’re the mechanic, the truck’s not making money. If you’re the driver, the truck’s not making money because you’re not writing invoices properly, you’re not billing properly. You’re leaving a lot of money on the table.

So in 2007, we probably had about a half dozen trucks, and as we took out more AAA territory, it really grew our fleet, and I was able to concentrate at the desk and dial in every mile, dial in every toll that we might have been missing. Focus on my employees, getting out of the truck and certainly not playing mechanic, we were able to really excel and do what we’re best at, make money on the road.

Laura Dolan:

That’s awesome. So, looking back on it now, what are the differences in towing now compared to when you started the company? Have you noticed any trends or anything in the industry that you can make note of?

Jeremy Procon:

Yeah. I made it through all of the 2000s without dollies. Maybe 80% of the cars were not all-wheel drive. Now, it’s 90% of the cars are all-wheel drive. So, dollies are big on wreckers. The all-wheel drive aspect is huge. Everyone wants a flatbed or everybody needs dollies. It’s very rare you’ll pull up with a wrecker and be able to tow that vehicle.

So, the simple stuff. The costs up until recent years, the astronomical costs of doing business between fuel and insurance, etc. But over the years, just because we’re growing, we’re starting to dial into 401K, benefits packages, FMLA. So a lot of those things that we never had to deal with in the first decade of business.

The second decade of business, as you start to get 75, 80, 90 employees, you need an HR department. It’s not “Grandpa’s Towing Company” anymore. My full-time job is really overseeing HR, maintenance, purchasing, our controller, etc. So, I have heard something that many people have said in business, and I think it’s so true. This is certainly not my quote, but I hire people who are much smarter than I am. And I think that’s why we are as successful as we are. I hired good bookkeepers. I hired good HR. I hired good operators.

Laura Dolan:

Switching gears a little bit, have you noticed any supply chain issues, especially since during COVID? Has there ever been a situation where you ordered a truck and you just had to wait for it?

Jeremy Procon:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s funny because when one negative thing happens, a positive thing pops up. So, for example, what’s a negative thing? I can’t reorder black trucks. I just can’t find black trucks, can’t find trucks period. Never mind if they’re my color. So, the one thing that’s sort of popped up over the past five, six, seven years is wrapping vehicles with vinyl.

Laura Dolan:

Sure.

Jeremy Procon:

So I’m able to buy trucks sometimes. I just bought a couple of trucks, and they’re fire engine red. So that’s something I could never touch before because they were red, and it’s just not my color. However, I sent them off to be wrapped, and they completely wrapped the truck to our black and green color.

Laura Dolan:

Cool!

Jeremy Procon:

So, when one door shuts, another one opens. So, yes, supply’s tough, but I’m able to buy any color out there. It can be purple with pink coconuts. It doesn’t matter because it’s wrapped. Whereas 10 or 12 years ago, you had to paint the truck. So, it would be counterintuitive.

But yes, we are experiencing major supply issues as far as availability and getting trucks like we used to. Of course, cost. I’ll give you an example. In 2017, we bought a 35 ton Kenworth JerrDan wrecker, and we paid $330,000 brand new. We just turned that truck in and bought the exact carbon copy replica in 2023, and we paid $558,000. And there’s no difference between the trucks. Exact same truck.

Laura Dolan:

Unbelievable.

Jeremy Procon:

Some of these flatbeds that we were buying just prior to COVID, our normal flatbeds back then were $105,000, and now we’re paying $155,000. The exact flatbed. That’s just a three-year difference.

Laura Dolan:

Oh my goodness. Hopefully that starts improving in the next few years and things calm down. But in the meantime, are you having to make sacrifices or adjustments to go along with those increased expenses?

Jeremy Procon:

So, the adjustment we’re making is we’re trying to stay uniform with the trucks that we’re buying. We’re trying to buy as many international MBs, for example, versus Peter Builts and Kenworth because of the price of the filters. The price of maintenance is getting out of control.

So we figured if we’d buy the same truck and stock the things that break often, water pumps, pulleys, belts, filters, things like that, if we have uniform trucks, we’re able to stockpile that supply and not have to depend on the dealer to have it when we call for it. That’s a small adjustment we made.

We’re taking advantage of technology. We’ve installed Samsara in all of our trucks. It shows us our fuel economy, how many times we back up, things that we pay attention to that we never really had to before. Idling times, giving drivers a warning that their truck is idling, things of that nature.

Laura Dolan:

Continuing along the lines of technology. Which TRAXERO product do you use and how has it improved your business over the years?

Jeremy Procon:

It took about 10 years for me to realize that I wasn’t making any money in a truck. It was counterproductive, me running a tow truck, so I put my cell phone down, and I switched to a dispatch program. We actually started with Tracker. And that was in 2001.

By 2009, we went with TRAXERO’s InTow. InTow offered a more advanced program, which was customizable. InTow has been absolutely fantastic. They’ve always been very aligned with our needs.

For example, if I want to get a text message every time there’s a crash, that’s exactly what happens. I get a text message every time there’s a crash. Now, whether I know it’s happening, I can call in, I can call to dispatch, make sure they’re okay. I see what’s rolling. I get a text message when a heavy truck is rolling, and that’s all automatic. Things that I’ve appreciated over the years with InTow, it’s very customizable.

Here in Massachusetts, we have a very strict state police policy, and you cannot deviate from that policy, so we had customized invoices based on our state police contract, which is separate from everything else, and InTow was able to break that apart from all the other police contracts that we have. It’s customizable forms. Just good stuff. They’ve been fantastic to deal with and continue to be.

Laura Dolan:

Thank you so much for that testimonial. That’s just fantastic. Are there any other types of software that you were thinking about adopting or any other software that you do use as well?

Jeremy Procon:

Yes. So, InTow by TRAXERO integrates with Samsara. Samsara is one of the things that we’ve recently implemented just over a year and a half ago that geolocates our trucks. It automatically puts us on scene, which is imperative. Sometimes dispatchers just either forget or they’re too busy, which hurts our times.

For example, if ABC police call us, and we get on scene, we give them reports of what our ETA is and how quickly we can get on scene. We give quarterly reports. Sometimes my dispatcher’s busy, and they can’t put them on scene. Samsara geolocates with TRAXERO, and it automatically puts them on scene. So, it takes all the human out of it, which improves our numbers.

That software also allows the user to see our truck, which is great. It’s like the Uber effect. We’ve noticed that if you can see us driving towards you, you’re less apt to complain or call us every 10 minutes asking where we are. Because you’re constantly updated. Just looking at your phone, you can see our truck driving towards you.

Laura Dolan:

Yeah. There’s not that unknown factor anymore. They see what’s going on there, and it’s pretty accurate.

Jeremy Procon:

Yeah. It’s live. You can actually watch your driver move down the road.

Laura Dolan:

That’s awesome. So, how many employees do you currently have?

Jeremy Procon:

Around 77.

Laura Dolan:

And you’re just located in Massachusetts, or have you expanded at all?

Jeremy Procon:

We’re only in Massachusetts right now.

Laura Dolan:

And what does the future look like for Interstate Towing?

Jeremy Procon:

In my opinion, we’ve exhausted our area. We’ve captured our market as best we could, so it’s time to possibly move into another market. Our headquarters are in Chicopee, Mass. But in 2018, we expanded to Sturbridge, Mass, which is about 30 miles east. So I could see us moving 30 miles to another market, whether it’s northeast, west, or south.

Laura Dolan:

Awesome. And obviously people in the area know you, so you’re probably not going to have to work very hard to find a new clientele. That should make things easy.

Jeremy Procon:

Yeah, exactly. We would definitely go into a market where the service is needed or warranted.

Laura Dolan:

Absolutely. Every single day people need tow trucks. You just never know what the situation is.

Jeremy Procon:

Yes. I’ve been saying that since day one. Haircuts and tow trucks, everybody needs them.

Laura Dolan:

Exactly. That’s a great saying! Well thank you, Jeremy for taking the time to speak to us and congratulations again on becoming our very first TRAXERO Titan, it was a pleasure talking to you.

Jeremy Procon:

You as well, thank you!