Building JB Trailer: Grit, Growth & Heavy-Duty Service in Southern California

On this episode of Know to Grow: A Light to Heavy Duty Podcast, host Chandler Kohn speaks with James Bartlebaugh of JB Trailer about building a second-generation heavy-duty repair business in Southern California’s trucking hub. Jim shares insights on mobile fleet service, trailer collision repair, technician retention, leadership, faith-based business values, and the future of the heavy-duty industry, including private equity consolidation and the impact of electric trucks.

Chandler Kohn: Hi everybody. Welcome back to know to Grow a Light to Heavy Duty podcast. I’m your host, Chandler Kohn with FOCUS Investment Banking. Today I have on Jim Bartlebaugh with JB Trailer. Welcome Jim. Thank you for joining us. Tell us a little bit about your business and yourself.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah. Hi Chandler. Thanks for having me on today. So a little history of JB Trailer. We’ve been around for a bit. We. This was started with my father and I back in 1993. I guess I’m kind of listed as second generation owner of the company, but I’ve been here since day one. My father initially started this company. He was, you know, very much, you know, spent as much of his career in the heavy duty industry. He did everything from working on an assembly line at Fruehauf Trailers building trailers to, you know, director of maintenance of a big leasing company to working for a trailer manufacturer selling and leasing trailers to. And then coming up with the idea of, of opening JV Trailer. You know, my background is I, I started in this industry fresh out of high school. I was working for a. Another shop. I, you know, did everything from, you know, at the ground floor. I was a, I was a grunt. Whatever, whatever was needed, I did it. You know, we. I got to come in, in the process where they were opening up a second location and I was, you know, a bit instrumental in helping launch that, you know, that second location. And I ended up working in their parts department. You know, they, they opened up along with opening up their second location, they. They opened up a retail part shop or parts department. And I worked in that for a bit. And then that’s when my dad came up with the idea of opening JB Trailer. And he approached me with it and said, here’s my idea and here’s what I, where I want to go and what I want to do. And are you in? And you know, of course, you know, let’s go, you know. So, so yeah, so we, so we started that and it officially this was that that happened probably about summer of 92 is when he came up with the idea and then we slowly opened it up by. We were opened up by like fall, late fall of 92 is when we firstly first really got, you know, kicked off. But we always say 93 is when we were officially like up and running and going great.

Chandler Kohn: And where, where are you, where are you located?

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, so we’re in Southern California. We’re in Fontana, California, which everybody that’s in the heavy duty space knows Fontana, California is this area out here is probably not. Probably it is, it’s the biggest area as far as trucking goes. And heavy duty is, you know, just the amount of trucking here, the distribution centers here. Of course, you got the, you know, you got the, you know, the, the ports of Long beach and LA here. And so there’s just a tremendous amount of truck traffic, you know, within, you know, fontana is about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah, great, that’s helpful for, to, you know, to explain for, for east coast folks like myself. Tell the listeners a little bit about the, the number of employees you have and the services you offer.

James Bartlebaugh: Okay, so we’re running 20 right now. We’re at 20, 20 employees. We have two parts to our shop. We have, you know, we have a, we have the shop that does all types of, any, any and all types of heavy duty work on, you know, trailers and some, some truck work, a lot of liftgate work. And then the other, the other side of our business is our mobile fleet service business where we just send techs out in the field and do fleet service, roadside repairs and, you know, and all that. It’s about a, you know, as far as the numbers, why it’s about a 50, 50 split. You know, we’re, right now we’re at 8, 8 mobile techs and 8 shop tech. So it’s a pretty even split right now.

Chandler Kohn: Okay, and how many, how many trucks is that? Is that eight?

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, yeah, we have eight trucks. So that. Okay, yeah, the mo. The mobile techs, that’s all they do is they’re just out in the field all day running, running service calls.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah. And what trucks are you running from? From a mobile standpoint? I’m sorry, or what, what vehicles or you know, what capabilities do kind of.

James Bartlebaugh: Oh, so yeah, so we, you know, I mean, realistically, we’re capable of doing whatever the customer wants us to do on site. Now it’s doesn’t always make sense to do everything on site. No, but we’re capable of doing any, just about any types of, you know, heavy duty repairs on site. But most of it just comes down to just fleet maintenance, you know, going out and doing your DOT inspections. And of course people that aren’t familiar with, with California and their laws because they have lots of them. One of them is they have a, you know, they require a 90 day safety inspection on all domicile equipment. So that’s a, that’s a big part of our business is just helping keep fleets compliant with, with their inspection. So a lot of it, you know, of course, with every inspection there’s always repairs that are, you know, that are found and. Yeah. And taken care of. So.

Chandler Kohn: And what, what’s your viewpoint on the industry right now in terms of mobile? You know, obviously it seems like at least from, from an investment standpoint, kind of where I stand, you know, that’s kind of the, the sexy space right now. But want to understand that a little bit from your opinion.

James Bartlebaugh: I mean, we’ve, I mean, we’ve been doing mobile for like, probably about the first four years we were open. We didn’t have a, we didn’t have mobile trucks. And then the demand started coming, so we, you know, slowly added mobile trucks to it. The demand’s always been there. It’s a little bit more. I, I think just because the industry has grown so much on just how much there is out there. And, and let’s face it, they don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to drag a trailer into a shop just to get a DOT inspection on. That’s, that’s a weight, that’s a waste of time for the customer. And it’s really just clogs up my yard with more equipment. We’re, you know, it’s, it’s far more efficient to send a truck out on site to, to handle it. What we discovered is the demand is as it continues to, to grow. I mean, we’re going to grow with it. And I know there’s, I know there’s some companies out there that are just building, you know, building their company around nothing but mobile. I don’t know if that’s the right direction to go because, because not everything. Yes, I say everything can be done on, can be done on mobile, but does the customer want you doing it on site? And the other thing you run into is just, there’s, there’s rules and regulations, there’s, there’s certain sites we go and do to. I can’t even, I can’t light up a cutting torch on site because, you know, because they have, they don’t have a, you know, permit to, for us to do that in their yard. So there’s just certain things that can’t be done on site. I know there is a lot of companies out there thinking that everything can be done on site, but there’s just, sometimes there’s, there’s things that, there’s roadblocks that get, putting us put in the way of us being able to do it on site. So therefore it’s good to have a shop to where, you know, because if I can’t do it on site and I don’t have a shop to do it. Guess what? They’re going to send it to a competitor and they’re, you know, that has a shop and they’re going to do it. Yeah.

Chandler Kohn: From an insurance standpoint, this is off the cuff question, but does it, does it vary to ensure your employees whether the business is predominantly mobile or predominantly in shop?

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, I mean the, the insurance companies, they’re, I, they, yeah, they do what they, what they really worry about on the, on the mobile side of it is what they’re, what gives them the most fear and where they pause when they, when whenever we’re shopping insurance is, is they’ll question us on the mobile side. And they always think because everyone calls mobile side, they’ll call it road service. Well, I mean, road service does happen on occasionally, but I mean, I would say at least probably 98 of the service calls we do are just to some yard. It’s at a distribution center or a customer’s location and we’re just doing the repair on site. So what the, what the insurance companies are really fearful of is, is the road service type stuff because it’s dangerous. You’re on the side of a highway. You know, we all know how bad drivers are and, and it’s, it is dangerous. So, but, but it’s, our road calls on the side of a highway are few and far between.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah, that makes sense. Going back to 93, when you started the business. Let’s look at the industry from kind of a, you know, a California perspective. How has it changed over the past, you know, 30 years or so? You know, kind of broadly speaking, you know, being in California.

James Bartlebaugh: Oh, I mean, just being in California. I mean, it’s just every year there’s a new rule or regulation or, you know, it’s, I mean, that’s probably the biggest thing has changed on it. And then it’s, and the other thing has changed is just, it’s, it’s, you know, the, I fight the same battle that every other shop and fleet service company does, and that’s fine. Finding employees, it’s become, it’s just gotten increasingly harder every year. We keep hoping we’re going to turn the corner and, and we’re going to, you know, be able to find more people that want to come into this space. But, you know, I face the same problem that all the other shops do. I get, you know, I haven’t, I haven’t, you know, my, my employees are getting older and, and it’s hard to, you know, I’M not saying I don’t have some younger guys that work here, but, you know, they’re. Those guys are, they’re, they’re few and far between to, to get the young people that want to come in here and do this, do this business. And, you know, and as an industry as a whole, we have to fix that problem. It’s up to us to fix it.

Chandler Kohn: I, I’m not sure you can. You know, a lot of this seems to be systemic throughout the, the U.S. economy. So, you know, knock on wood. But I don’t think things are changing anytime soon. You know, this is a second generation business. A lot of businesses don’t always make it to a second generation. You know, let’s talk about what your father got right, that you kept and then maybe what you, as a second generation came in and fixed. Fixed or adjusted?

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, So, I mean, I mean, yeah, this place was my dad’s vision. He was the one that, you know, he dreamt up the idea and it was his, you know, vision. He ran with it.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah.

James Bartlebaugh: Things he got, things he got right. I mean, my dad was a man. My dad was a hard worker. And, and I say that in pat in past tense because we did. My dad. I, we lost our, my, we lost my dad back in 2022. And so, yeah, he’s not with us anymore. And he got a lot of things right. You know, he, man, he instilled in me with, you know, worth at 8, work, work ethic, you know, grit, determination. And that’s just, that’s, that’s how we’ve survived for, for this many years. It’s just a lot of grit and determination. He had a, he had a trick. He, My dad was a, you know, he was in a, his background was in sales, so he was a, he was a pretty good salesperson. He taught me a lot on the sales. Sales side of it because as a, as a small company, you got to wear multiple hats. And you know, occasionally, occasionally I do have to put on my sales. My sales hat and I got to go out and make some sales calls and you know, and he just, but with all those contacts he made, I mean, we were able to grow as fast as we did in the beginning just because he just had so many contacts. He worked in the industry. He had spent, you know, prior to him opening up the shop, he had spent probably close to about close to 20 years in, in this industry. So he had just built up a tremendous amount of contact. So it was, you know, and then, you know, a lot of people Trusted in them. So it was easy. The business was pretty easy to come by in the beginning because they, you know, because of people trusted him and in his dealings with, on the sales side of what he was doing before, they said, yeah, we, you know, we’re, we’re ready to come on board. And so it was easy. So customers, customers were easy to bring in. My dad was a, Even though he, even though he was kind of a, you know, he worked in a white collar job, but he was very much blue collar. My dad was, you know, he was a gearhead. He was into working on cars and boats and anything that had, you know, an engine in it, he was, he was working on it. And it taught me a lot because I, you know, I grew up around that. Yep.

Chandler Kohn: Awesome. Well, let’s talk about a little bit about the business itself on a, on a, on a weekly basis, you know, what’s, what kind of comes in, in the, in the door, through the bays on average.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, so. So on a weekly basis. I mean, we have it, you know, in the shop we is mostly heavy repairs. You know, a lot of, a lot of collision repairs on trailers, a lot of, A lot of liftgate work. We do everything on lift gates. We do, we, we sell them, we install them, we repair them. So that’s, that’s a, you know, we stay pretty busy on the heavy work. But then we also, you know, one thing we do different than a lot of other shops is, is we welcome in the owner operators. There’s a lot of the big shops around here that don’t have time to deal with the owner operators and, and any shop that knows this, that, you know, sometimes they’re not always the easiest customers to, to deal with and, but they come in and we found, we found a little bit of a niche in that and, and welcoming them in and you know, them in here because it, you know, because last thing a guy does when he’s out on the road somewhere and he just needs to come in here, you know, he’s got a, he’s got a blown brake can. You know, he can’t, he can’t. That guy can’t afford to wait. He’s got a load waiting. And we get, we get calls all the time that just, hey, I gotta, you know, I got, I’m, I’m 30 minutes out. I got a brake can leaking on my trailer. Do you guys have time? Yeah, oftentimes we don’t because we’re busy. But we, you know, maybe it’s a flaw to our part is we Have a hard time saying no. We just say, yeah, bring it in, we’ll figure it out. And we just get them in and out. So yeah, so we have a lot of, a lot of, you know, a lot of owner operators, a lot of small trucking companies come here and of course we do it and then we do with all the deal with all the big fleets too. That’s where a lot of our big heavy collision work and stuff we do comes from the, from the big fleets.

Chandler Kohn: And yeah, the heavy duty collision space is, is an interesting one. What portion of your revenue is from body repair?

James Bartlebaugh: Oh, you know, I’d be lying if I say knew that I knew that exact number. But it’s, you know, roughly on the, on the shop side of it, what comes into the shop, it’s probably about 50 of what we do.

Chandler Kohn: Okay, and do you have, do you have a paint booth in there?

James Bartlebaugh: No, we don’t have, I don’t do any paint work. I mean a little minor work, but you know, when I say collision work, I’m talking about on trailers. We’re changing bottom rails, top rails, side skins, you know, and then, and then we do a lot of heavy structural repairs, you know, the, you know. Yeah, welding, you know, fabricating, you know, we do some specialty type stuff. We do, you know, some modifications on trailers. You know, we deal with a lot of trailer dealers and trailer dealers, you know, come in and say, hey, I need a, I need a side door installed on a, on a trailer here. Can you do it? Yeah, of course. You know, we’ll, you know, we’ll, we’ll put a side door in.

Chandler Kohn: Makes sense. Let’s talk a little bit about what fleets, you know, what separates a shop that fleets trust from one they tolerate. I would think a lot of that comes down to your text, but you know, you’ve had, I would imagine there’s some turnover with tech. So tell me a little bit about what you’ve done over the past, you know, 15, 20, 30 years to build that trust with your clientele.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, so, so turnover wise, we have, we have a very, very low turnover rate. I, I, we try to create an environment here where we do, you know, we bring texts in and we, for a long time. Yeah, I mean I have, I have more than one tech here that’s been here 20 plus years. And, and I think with that, with, you know, because there’s a, you know, there’s amongst, you know, multiple industries that, you know, they seem to have accepted that turnover is just part of doing business. And I say Absolutely not. Turnover is expensive, you know, so, so when I get, when I bring a tech in, my goal is to keep them now, now that I, you know, I don’t expect anybody to stay forever. They’re welcome to if they’re, you know, you know, as long as we like them and they like us, you know, but yeah, turn, turnover is bad. It’s bad for businesses. It’s expensive. Anytime you bring in a new tech, it costs you, you know, it costs you money because you got to train them to do, do things your way. So I think with, with doing that, we create consistency in what we do. You know, they, they learn the way how we operate, they learn the way how we want repairs done. And of course that, of course that goes, you know, that bleeds over to the customer. They see that consistency. Customers like consistency. They like when they, when they get a trailer repaired here, they don’t have to, you know, inspect it with the magnifying glass after the repair is done, because they know it was brought here and it was done. Right.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah, that’s, that’s helpful. Trailer repair. What, what is kind of misunderstood? You know, it looks pretty straightforward from the outside. What’s, what’s misunderstood about trailer repair?

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I get that question a lot to people that don’t understand the trailer pair. When they, when I tell them, oh, what do you do, what do you do for a living? I work on semi trucks. Oh, really? What’s there to do on those? I mean, and there, there’s a lot, I mean, they’re, you know, they, they’re obviously not anywhere near as advanced as a, as a semi truck, you know, or heavy on the heavy duty truck side. But there is, there’s been some technological advancements on them, I mean, because, you know, ABS has been around for, you know, you know, multiple, you know, a couple debt over a couple decades now. It’s been around. But, you know, that, well, it’s, you know, I kind of look at, on the collision side of it. Not everybody’s cut out to do collision. There’s a bit of an art to, to being a good body repair guy on a trailer, you know, and what I found out over years, there’s just certain guys that just aren’t good at it. There’s, you know, and when I find a good body man, I hang on to them because like I said, there’s an art to it. There’s an art to hanging a side panel. There’s an art to changing out a bottom rail. And you know, because when we do repairs, do body collisions on collision work on trailers. We try to put it back to exactly how it was and how the factory built it. And there’s a bit of an art to that.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah, that’s really neat. Appreciate. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve had anybody on here that really specializes in, in trailer repair, so I like what you’re doing. Let’s talk about the philosophy a little bit of the, the business kind of, I guess the, the art side of the business, if you will. You know, you’ve mentioned that your faith in a higher power helps shape how you run the business, help the listeners understand that. Because I know you’re, you’re certainly not the only heavy duty owner that, that tends to operate that way.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, I mean, yeah, my, my life is grounded in my, in my faith. I’m a Christian and it just keeps me from, keeps me from driving myself off in a ditch and making poor decisions. Not saying I get it right all the time. I, I still occasionally make a bad decision or, you know, screw up and you know, but what it, what it’s really taught me is just, is, is just honesty, you know, being, you know, and being caring to my, to my, not just to my customers but, you know, but to my employees. Yeah, you know, it’s, you know, it’s also, you know, I, you know, in my, in my faith and my beliefs, I don’t believe that, you know, my faith, I don’t believe I own this company. I believe God owns this company and he’s given it to me to steward. And I take that on as a, that’s a great responsibility of me as he expects me to steward this company well, treat people well, and that includes my employees and customers. And I just run, I try to run this company by that, by my faith every day. And like I said, I don’t get it right every day I screw up, I make mistakes. I, you know, you know, I’m still human. I still, you know, I still make plenty of mistakes and don’t get it right every day.

Chandler Kohn: Have you, have you ever, maybe you have an example to share where you’ve ever run into an issue where kind of your faith or, or maybe if you will, the morality of a potential decision conflicts with, you know, the numbers or what you think on paper is, is a better business decision. So do you have an example when you kind of lean, you know, went with your faith or leaned on that side of, of decision making versus kind of just strictly looking at the numbers?

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, I mean, when it comes down to, you know, as when you own a business, I mean you can always, there’s always things you can cut corners on. And when I mean cutting corners, I don’t mean just cutting corners on a job, but it could mean cutting corners on laws, rules, regulations. And, and this was instilled into me, you know, years ago with my fathers. My, my father always believed in doing things the right way. And he always would tell me, he’s like, he said, look, I just, you know, I like being able to sleep well at night and if I don’t do things right and I’m, we’re cutting corners, we’re not obey, you know, we’re not obeying, you know, laws and regulations. He says, I don’t want to lose sleep over, you know, those type of things. And my dad was, my dad was a Christian and very much grounded in his faith too. And, and I believe it, you know, I don’t believe, I don’t. He, we never, I don’t know if we ever got any of those deep discussions, if that’s where it all came from. But you know, that’s just what he taught me is, is to do the right thing. And there’s a lot, I mean there’s a lot of things as a business owner, you know, there’s lots of things you can do that kind of in the gray area of, you know, hey, that’ll save me a buck here and there. But that’s, we’re kind of riding in some gray area right now that could be a borderline illegal to do something like that, you know, and we just, we don’t run that way.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah. And I, I see it all the time, especially on the financials and embedding things in certain line items and driving down, you know, kind of that net income and you know, it’s just such a, it’s an interesting position to be in as a business owner when it comes to things like that. For sure. You know, people that your tax that show up every day, you obviously depend on them like every other heavy duty shop owner. You know, what do you think you owe the people that show up every day and then in return, what do they owe you?

James Bartlebaugh: You know, I mean I, my text to show up every day. I mean, I think really the only thing they, you know, owe me is just an honest age work. I mean that’s really all I expect out of them, you know, and like I said, we don’t, you know, I don’t always get that. I don’t always get that right with my text. I mean, these are, you know, I take every day. Every day is a learning process. And when you’re dealing with, dealing with people, it’s turns out all of us were all pretty difficult. We’re sometimes difficult to get along with. There’s, we don’t know what someone’s got going on in their, you know, behind the scenes, in their personal life, what they’re dealing with at home, you know, and, and when I’ve, you know, the fact that we’ve had, you know, some people here for 20 plus years that, you know, I’ve gotten to know these guys, you know, pretty well and yeah, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know where I was going with that. But, but, you know.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah, yeah, I get it. I get it. Question, you know, you’re talking about. I, I know the size of your company. I’m not going to divulge that to the audience, but I, I think that you mentioned that you have about 20 employees. Maybe it seems slightly high for kind of your business and I guess maybe if you, you break it down on, on bay count, it seems a little high. Help me understand that a little bit. Is, Is, is trailer work more demanding than, than truck work? I mean, is it help. I just need to understand the, the employee count a little bit more.

James Bartlebaugh: Well, I mean there’s, yeah, there’s a lot, you know, there’s a lot of trailers out there. You figure for most, most trucking companies, for every, you know, for every truck they have, they, you know, I don’t know the exact number on it, but I would say it’s a good, on average they have two trailers for every truck. That’s what a lot of companies operate. You know, so there’s, there’s a lot of trailers out on the road. So it’s, you know, I don’t have any problem keeping, keeping as many texts I have, you know, busy and like, and like I said with, with California and the, the extra inspections that we have to do on trailers versus wherever else and not to say that other, other companies out there, they do adopt the 90 day inspection process, but California, you don’t have any choice. It’s you. Every fleet that’s domiciled here has to abide by it, you know, so that creates a tremendous amount of extra workforce, you know, on the mobile side, you know, just, you know, our mobile techs going out and keeping, you know, fleets on the road with it, you know, keeping them, you know, up to date on their 90 day inspections. And as, as far as like, you know, keeping the shops, you know, busy. I mean, yeah, there’s, there’s no shortage of work out here. I think, you know, anybody that’s been to Fontana would, you know, to this area. They call this area the Inland Empire, which, you know, Fontana, you got Fontana, San Bernardino, Riverside, and then you got, you know, cities in LA and Orange county and stuff. There is just a. There is. If you’d never been out here, you just. When people come out here for the first time that are in this industry and they’ve never seen it, they’re blown away about how much is out here. And it’s. And I’ve, you know, since I’ve been here my whole life, I’m a native Southern Californian, I, I’ve seen it grow. It is. And I’ve been here in Fontana for, you know, know, since 1989. So it’s, I’ve watched how much it has grown out here. I mean, it is unreal how many distribution centers. You know, there’s very little vacant land left out here. It’s, you know, if there is a vacant piece of land, it’s getting gobbled up and whatever’s on it’s mowed down and another, you know, million square foot distribution center is getting built on it. And with every distribution center is a truck and a trailer. That gets you multiple. That get put into them.

Chandler Kohn: Yeah, that, that’s helpful. So the next question is I’m, I’m going to ask you in a roundabout way, you know, where you want to be in 10 years for JB trailer to be successful. But kind of taking a step back on this question, I think last week I had three or four potential new private equity firms come to me. They’ve seen the podcast, some of what I’ve written in some of the magazines and, and all that, and, you know, trying to develop a thesis in the heavy duty space. You know, they want to learn more, have a conversation tomorrow with somebody about it. And sometimes I get a question of, well, how is. How are electric trucks going to impact the industry? And obviously you’re a great person to ask because you’re in California and California is very forward thinking. How, how are electric trucks going to impact the industry, if at all?

James Bartlebaugh: Well, I mean, they’re, you know, they’re going to impact the industry. It’s just, I think it was, I think, I think California was a little premature on how fast they thought they could ramp up the electric truck industry. There is fleets out here that, that have adopted them, but not A lot. I mean, it’s. You don’t see as many on the road as you. Is the way they put it. Like they were, you know, they had, you know, they had these huge plans of, of just electrifying, you know, the entire industry with within a short amount of time. And the problem is we don’t. The infrastructure isn’t there, you know. You know, yeah, we can have electric trucks, but if we don’t have the infrastructure to charge them, fleets don’t want to adopt them. You know, so it’s, you know, is it. It’s here. Is it gonna. Is it gonna be here as. And. And expand as fast as what they. What they thought it would? I don’t think so. I think there’s. There’s already some fleets that are already step. Taking a step back and having second thoughts on it. Of course, a lot of it has to do with, you know, you know, with the new administration in is they’re not, you know, quite as big on as, you know, of forcing this down the throats of. Of fleets. And I’ve got nothing against electric trucks. I just think. I think there’s probably a better way we could do it and bring it into the industry slowly and make sure we, you know, for one, we got to have the infrastructure do it and we have to have techs that know how to work on them. You know, we’re already, we’re already struggling in the industry to find techs. Well now we’re bringing a whole new, you know, different type of technology that none of them know how to work on.

Chandler Kohn: So that, that’s my second question. Obviously the internal combustion engine goes away, but if you break it down into electronics and diagnostics, maybe suspension steering alignments, you know, if you break it down into kind of, you know, these subcategories of service, where do you think the complexity comes in with. With electric trucks? And maybe. And then second question is, what won’t change with electric truck trucks?

James Bartlebaugh: I mean, I’m not, you know, man, I’m no expert on. On electric trucks, man. I think we just. There’s going to be a massive learning curve to, to finding the text that want to. Want to work on it. And it’s. And there. And I’ll be in just the chatter you hear amongst the old timers that work on the, on these trucks. A lot of them don’t want anything to do with them. There’s. They’re like, oh heck, heck no, I don’t want to work on those things. You know, I think it could do well for, you know, for the younger generation as we bring them in, young people are far more technologically advanced than old guys like me. And, you know, I think as we bring young people into it, I think, you know, they would be the ideal people to train on how to work. How to work on these. Yeah, I mean, I’m just not an authority on that. Since I’m not big into the, on the, on the truck side, I realize I’m going to have, you know, as we grow the company, I’m going to get more into the truck side. So it’s going to be something I’m going to have to learn for sure.

Chandler Kohn: That’s helpful. And then, you know, going back to the original question, you know, how. How is JB going to be successful in 10 years? Where does the company need to be to continue to grow over the next 10 years?

James Bartlebaugh: Well, I mean, I said I set a massive, massive goal for myself. Some people would say it’s not even, not, you know, is it even attainable. But I said I set, I set a goal of, you know, I can’t believe big goals are set unless you have a really big goal set. And my, my goal is to 10x the company in three years. That’s a, That’s a massive undertaking. It’s going to take a lot of work. It’s going to take a lot of capital to do it. But that’s my plan and that’s, that’s what I’m going to do. So you say, where am I at in 10 years? Not just in Fontana. In 10 years, I plan to be every. All over the, all. All over the western states. That’s my plan. Yeah. Is to have multiple, multiple locations. Our expansion plan is, is to, you know, go into the truck side of the business and, you know, and also to go into, as we expand into other locales, we’re going to, you know, do it in, you know, the way of, of launching mobile trucks and, you know, as where the demand is. I, you know, a lot of my customers now are fleets that are based all over the country. So, you know, so that the easiest way to, you know, to, to launch a new location is to hit those customers up that you’re already servicing out here. Hey, do you have a. Do you have a location here in, let’s say, Phoenix? Oh, yeah, we got lots of equipment in there. You know, that’s, that’s, you know, that’s my goal is to, you know, is to. Is to launch in multiple locations. So you say 10 years from now, 10 years from now, man, 10 years from now, I’m gonna be close, you know, I guess, you know, we call it retirement time. I don’t know if I’ll ever retire. I guess I will at some point, but, you know, 10 years from now, I mean, truth be told, I’ll be 65 years old, but I don’t, I don’t have any plans of hanging it up and quitting. I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve set a massive goal and it’s not, and it has nothing to do with money, but it has to do with, you know, building a company to where I, you know, I feel like the country is, is, is in no short supply of, of. We need good business owners, we need ethical business owners and we need, you know, you know, not everybody wants to work for big corporate America. There is still a lot of people that like, you know, like working for an independently owned company, love it.

Chandler Kohn: And then, you know, let’s kind of COVID this last session. Private equity. I, know you’re getting unsolicited calls all the time. Everybody is weekly.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chandler Kohn: What, what does this mean for, by the way? I know most of them that are making those phone calls pretty well. What, what does it mean for you? You know, what, what does it mean for us? You know, kind of a smaller independent shop like you, the consolidation and private equity.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, I mean, I’ve, you know, I’ve got, given it a lot of thought on the private equity side. Honestly, you know, up until, you know, a couple years or so ago, I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought, you know, but the phone started ringing about four or five years ago where, you know, I say the phone, it was more, you know, however, you know, reach out, email, letter, whatever. And it didn’t really, you know, at first you’re kind of flattered that someone’s reaching out to you, like, oh, wow, you have an interest in buying our company. But then it’s, you know, but, you know, not having an understanding of private equity. I figured the only way to take, to have an understanding was to start engaging in conversations with them. And I have engaged in conversations with a lot of them. I’ve never gotten into serious in depth. I’ve, you know, I signed one NDA with one company and then I changed. Yeah, I said it’s not for me and I backed out. But I still have regular conversations with them just to help me understand what they’re trying to build. And they’ve come into this space, you know, big. They’re, they’re here. And I mean, you know, of course we know, like, you know, the biggest, probably one of the biggest ones out there. You know, Amerit Fleet Services, they’re private equity owned. They’re here, they’re in my backyard. I compete with them. You know, I know with my huge plans that I have to expand this company. Yeah. I don’t have the capital to bootstrap that into 10x this company. So I’m going to have to make some decisions on where do I want to go, do I want to bring in private equity? My thoughts are right now is no, I don’t have an interest in exiting this company. I have a legacy. I want to carry on that. I want to keep this going. Now, does it mean, do I not bring in an investor in here at some point and entertain that idea? Possibly I might have to. I don’t know. Like I said, I can’t bootstrap this and I don’t know if I could borrow that much money to 10x’s company. So I might be faced with the, you know, that I might have to, you know, consider that. Yeah.

Chandler Kohn: And the, you know, the capital to grow is a chicken or egg scenario. It’s always been that way. Right. Nobody’s going to hand you $15 million to go and theoretically build, you know, two, three, four, five shops.

James Bartlebaugh: Right.

Chandler Kohn: The risk is, the risk is just. Is too high. And, you know, for owners like you, you know, majority recapitalization makes a lot of sense where you’re not looking to retire. Right now, you want to roll some equity into the new co, but use somebody else’s capital to kind of help fund and grow that business. Your options really are close to unlimited. There’s a lot of folks that are looking to get in the space, and it’s not just the pe back to Barrett’s and Tree Norths and all that. There’s. There’s a lot of, you know, small quality investors that have a lot of money, a lot of capital behind them as well that can support expansion. You know, you’re the operator, they’re the capital provider. So majority recap is certainly always something to consider. Usually I end the podcast on kind of a word of wisdom, but with, with Diesel Connect coming up next week in Phoenix, Arizona, you and your wife are going to be there. Tell me what you’re most excited about this year.

James Bartlebaugh: Yeah, I mean, probably what I enjoy the most is just connecting with other shop owners and just hearing, you know, pain points and successes and. And, you know, when you’re an owner of a business. I mean, as you know, there’s oftentimes, as you hear, it’s, it’s very, it could get very lonely, you know, because you don’t have, you know, you know, a lot of people, if they don’t own a business, it’s hard to. For people to relate to you, what you’re dealing with and when. And it’s, it’s nice to be able to connect with other shop owners and just, you know, and just have a place to, you know, have a conversation with each other and just say, hey, here’s what my struggle is. What’s. What are you dealing with? And, and you get some good advice like, oh, here’s how I dealt with that. I’ve dealt with that before and, you know, and I enjoy the speakers. There’s always, there’s, you know, Diesel connects, you know, has some good speakers. Good. You know, that’s kind of where I’ve got the, you know, that’s kind of where it kicked off, this idea of growing this company. I mean, we were, you know, we’ve been kind of stagnant for several years. And my first time attending Diesel Connect, it kind of got my wheels turning to talking to other shop owners and see where they’re at and, and seeing the opportunity that’s out there. That really got my wheels turning of, you know, hey, where can I, you know, hey, that, you know, I want a piece of this, you know, you know, I’m not satisfied with where we’re at. I want to grow this company and then, you know, I’ve, I, this will be my third time, you know, attending it. And, you know, so it’s the last year really got my wheels turning of just where I, you know, where I want to go, what I want to do with the company. And yeah, so I’m just, I’m looking forward to it and it’s always nice to get away. We, you know, we plan a little extra couple days here and there just to, you know, to get there a little early and treat it as kind of, you know, my wife and I, my wife works with me full time in this business and you know, as being a small shop, you don’t get a lot of time to get away. So it’s nice to get away for a few days. Well, fantastic.

Chandler Kohn: I’m, I’m looking forward to it as well and look forward to seeing you there. Jim, I appreciate you joining the show to Scott to discuss Heavy Duty trailer repair. This was very insightful. And we’ll connect over email about some times to meet next week. So thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it.