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Trailer repair career leads to metal fabrication business, other offshoots

Mississippi metal manufacturing entrepreneur builds a business empire one piece at a time

McKinney, Michael, Boykin

While founder Larry Michael credits the entire staff for the growth of Precision Trailer Service and its subsidiaries, he also cites two specific individuals for their outstanding contributions and long-term service. L-R: David McKinney, manager of Transport Trailer; Larry Michael; and Gabe Boykin, general manager of Precision Machine.

Fifty years ago, if you had asked Larry Michael what he planned to do with his life, his answer probably would have been two syllables: “Fix trailers.”

To the uninitiated, this might not sound too exciting, but among people who love to use tools and get their hands dirty for a living, it’s hard to beat. He didn’t set out to work on little camper trailers or cargo trailers for consumers, but trailers at the other end of the market. Not just big, but very big, trailers. He set his sights on the 10,000-lb. units that semi tractors use to haul loads that can exceed 50,000 lbs. By some recent estimates, semi tractors tally more than 200 billion miles on U.S. roadways annually. The trailers get a lot of use and, on occasion, some abuse. Trailer repair is a service that is always in demand.

It’s hard work, but one upside is the variety of the work.

“When you repair trucks, trailers, and refrigeration units, you learn to do a lot of different things,” Michael said. Anyone who ever did his own car repairs and routine maintenance learned to do a lot of things—some mechanical, some electrical, some hydraulic—and working on semi tractors and trailers is like that, but making a living at it means learning a lot more. Also, everything is scaled up and the work is a lot harder.

“Repair work isn’t easy,” Michael said. “Neither is building a business based on repair work. It takes a lot of sheer will and determination.”

Of course, even this sort of career can become much more rewarding for a person who opens his own business, as Michael did. It can become even more interesting when such a person sees another opportunity and opens a complementary business, as Michael did. And then another. And another, and another, and another, including a metal fabrication business.

A Vision in the Making

Originally from northern Mississippi, Michael worked in the Chicago area for several years, learning the ins and outs of repairing semi rigs, trailers, and refrigeration units. This was the foundation of his career, from 1964 to 1969. He ventured 535 miles southward, working for a few years in Memphis in the early 1970s, and later moved to Tupelo, where he opened Transport Trailer Service in 1972, initially using a service truck to do on-site repairs. He wasn’t quite home, but he was close enough.

“Tupelo is the largest city in northeast Mississippi,” he said. With a population of 39,000, it’s not quite a hub like Memphis, Nashville, or Birmingham, but it is on Interstate 22. This roadway connects Memphis and Birmingham, which means it also connects Atlanta with many points to the north and west, including St. Louis and Kansas City. It’s not a bad location, and it’s only 30 miles from Boonville, Miss., where Michael was born and raised.

“It was just a repair business in the beginning,” he said. He later realized that he could buy trucks and trailers on the used market; do some repairs and refurbishment work; get them back to a reliable, roadworthy state; and make a bit of profit in each sale. The shortage of skilled workers is nothing new, but it wasn’t as acute in those days. Finding reliable, motivated workers was easier back when high school vocational programs often had enrollments at capacity, blue-collar jobs were much more common, and young men were eager to prove themselves in testosterone-laden careers.

Larry Michael's original and latest service truck

Much has changed in the 50 years since Larry Michael founded Transport Trailer Service. The modern look of its latest service truck is a world apart from the original, an update provided by a subsidiary company, Celebrity FastWrapz.

A no-nonsense leader, Michael has had quite a bit of success in hiring the right people, providing the necessary training, and getting out of the way. Hiring has never been too difficult for Michael, and retention is high.

“The veterans here have 450 years of combined experience,” Michael said.

Some of the newest employees have been with Transport Trailer for more than 15 years, and the average tenure is more than three decades, he said.

Although the foundation is made up of Michael’s vision and leadership, he credits the employees for the company’s success. A core group of Transport Trailer veterans with more than 15 years with the company, which has 18 members, has a combined experience with the company of 450 years. A key figure in this well-oiled machine is David McKinney, the manager of Transport Trailer Service. A 45-year veteran, he oversees the parts department as well as the repair shop, and is instrumental in keeping the gears turning.

“We’re well-known for timely service and the workmanship of our repairs, night and day,” he said. A healthy inventory of parts doesn’t hurt. The company doesn’t stock just the most commonly needed items but thousands upon thousands of parts.

Its reputation has spread far beyond the local area. The company is known throughout much of the southeastern U.S. and as far north as southern Indiana—a 300-mile radius from Tupelo. That’s 70,000 square miles.

“We’ve had great growth over the last 50 years,” he said.

Branching Out. Semis and trailers aren’t the only big vehicles on the road. Buses and motor coaches ferry passengers to and fro, racking up mile after mile. Often more luxurious are motor coaches used for the tourism industry, and at the top of the market are the stretched and thoroughly tricked-out vehicles used by entertainers, celebrities, and a few businessmen who want to travel in luxury.

“A friend in the furniture industry had a motor coach and I got a chance ride in it,” Michael said. Of course, most people are impressed by the comfort and conveniences associated with high-end modes of travel like this, as was Michael, but he saw a different side of it: Big vehicles need service.

When he had an occasion to see a coach customized, Michael was impressed, interested, and intrigued. He confided in the coach builder that he could do it himself. “He said to me, ‘No you can’t.’”

Transport Trailer employees

Transport Trailer's founder, Larry Michael, is known for hiring, training, and getting out of the way. The sheer longevity of a core group of employees, with a combined tenure of more than 450 years, is testimony to this management style.

Challenge accepted. Michael bought a motor coach and got to work, first cutting, then welding, then assembling. When he was done, he had stretched, raised, and widened it. And of course, he got the hang of it and turned it into a business, Pyramid Coach. He sold that business in 1999 and in 2005 founded another, Celebrity Coach.

Next up? Motor coaches, buses, and commercial trucks of nearly all types traditionally need custom paint jobs, whether to deck them out in the company color scheme, display the company’s logo and phone number, or to get some attention with an interesting graphic.

These days, custom-made vinyl wraps also are popular. A vinyl wrap allows more versatility than paint; transferring a photo to vinyl is a straightforward process, this makes it easy for business owner to deck out a van or truck with an eye-catching image. After doing some market research—Michael never takes a leap of faith but bases every decision on due diligence—he created Celebrity FastWrapz.

For customers who need more corporate branding—in the form of clothing—Michael has it covered. Quick Stitch does embroidery and monogramming on jackets, shirts, caps, and the like, and it prints business card as well.

Another offshoot is Precision Hose & Industrial Supply. Like the other businesses, it was intended to reinforce the others, but it has grown beyond the semi and trailer industry and carries hoses and related items, such as O-rings, gaskets, fittings, and belts for many industries. It’s also a metals service center, one with an inventory of substantial amounts of hot-rolled, cold-rolled, stainless, and tool steels.

Never a “No”

Truck and trailer repair is not an easy way to make a living. Having driven a service truck out to some remote section of interstate to find a hapless driver sitting on the shoulder—make it a rainy night just to keep it interesting—all the repairman wants to do is get this over with as quickly as possible. The driver’s not making any money, and somebody somewhere is hot under the collar to learn that his shipment is going to run late.

A typical tale involved a burned-out axle. Transport Trailer would remove the axle from the trailer and call around to find a machine shop that could turn it down and cut new threads. This wasn’t difficult, but getting it done quickly was a problem. Often the projected wait time would be a week, and often a week would come and go and still no axle. It’s the same old story that prompts many manufacturers to stop outsourcing certain services and invest in new equipment.

Under the circumstances, the driver would usually ask two questions: “Is that axle done yet?” and “Can you lease a trailer to me?” Both prompted expansions in Transport Trailer’s services, which eventually led to new businesses.

One is Rent-A-Box, which wasn’t much of a stretch. Michael was in his element in dealing with trailers, so why not acquire a few extra units and make them available to a trucker in a jam? By last count, the company had an inventory of 1,200 units for lease.

The other question took a little more thought, and certainly some more long-term planning, but considering Michael’s background, it was inevitable.

“We bought an old lathe and before long we had a full-blown machine shop equipped with quite a few CNC lathes and machining centers,” he said.

Enter Precision Machine

Now in it its 30th year, Precision Machine & Metal Fabrication grew from its humble origin to become something else entirely. Originally a captive machine shop founded to provide a single service—axle refurbishment—it’s now a job shop that provides shearing, waterjet cutting, and thermal cutting (laser, plasma, and oxyfuel); machining by milling, turning, and electrical discharge machining; forming by rolling and press brake bending; welding mainly aluminum and steel (gas metal arc welding, gas tungsten arc welding, shielded metal arc welding) and related processes such as arc gouging; powder coating; and engineering.

It might sound like the company does a little bit of everything, but it actually does a lot of everything.

“Our sales pitch is to get prospective clients into the shop,” said General Manager Gabe Boykin. The company’s expertise is so substantial that it has worked its way up the supply chain. Where it once made repair parts for trailers, it now makes parts for OEMs in the truck and passenger vehicle markets.

While the Precision Machine staff prefers to receive CAD drawings, it doesn’t shy away from a challenge, and it has been known to work with the anecdotal drawing on an envelope or dinner napkin. “We have three people in our engineering department who develop the CAD drawings that get the process started,” he said.

An F-105 Thunderchief is a typical example of a Precision Machine project. Developed and built by Republic Aviation Corp. and introduced in 1958, it was in service for more than 25 years in fighter, bomber, and electronic warfare roles. Like all aircraft, it eventually was outclassed by newer designs, but the “Thud” still is highly regarded by many USAF veterans and aircraft aficionados. It was fast and capable, and Precision had a hand in preparing one for a static display in Tupelo. An homage to all affiliated with the F-105, it was intended especially to honor two Mississippi natives: Col. Carlyle Harris (of Tupelo) and Lt. Col. Gene Smith (of West Point), who were shot down in an F-105 on a mission over North Vietnam.

Initially scheduled to be scrapped, the aircraft was missing quite a few parts and spent two years on the premises of Precision Machine while two of the primary drivers, Michael and Boykin, searched for the parts they needed and built the ones they couldn’t find, including the wings and a stand for mounting the airplane. When it was finally ready for display and painted, Transport Trailer provided the transportation to Veterans Park in Tupelo.The company also was instrumental in building a statue that was installed at Tippah County Veterans Memorial in Ripley, Miss.

“We never know what we’re going to do from one day to the next,” Boykin said.

No Loose Ends

Some initiatives are finished only when the project manager looks at the result and ties up any loose ends. Michael’s approach is bigger than that: He launches new companies to tie up loose ends. Need repair parts soon? Launch a company. Need hoses and hydraulics lines, along with fittings and gaskets, to restore a trailer to tip-top condition? Launch a company. Do any locals need high-end motor coaches? Launch a company? Need a way to promote all of these companies? Launch a company.

“Everything is connected to everything else,” Michael said.

“The way Larry works is intriguing,” Boykin said. Everything seems to move faster than an F-105 (top speed: Mach 2). “When he was working on the plans for Precision Hose, he worked with a gentleman who knew a lot about the hose and belt industry. We came out of a meeting and drove past an empty lot, and Larry pointed it out to me. He said it would be the home of Precision Hose. This was in December 2018. We were in business in August 2019, and within two years we were doing $2 million in sales.

If it sounds like it’s all business all the time, it’s not.

“I think Larry was more business-minded at first, but these days, he’s business-oriented and family-oriented,” Boykin said.

And this probably explains why the company has many 20-, 30- and 40-year veterans.

About the Author
FMA Communications Inc.

Eric Lundin

2135 Point Blvd

Elgin, IL 60123

815-227-8262

Eric Lundin worked on The Tube & Pipe Journal from 2000 to 2022.