Trailers Aren’t Just Boxes on Wheels Anymore
Learn the importance of industry relationships and the critical role improved trailers play in trucking today.
Episode 310: This heavy-duty roundtable discussion features David Seewack, CEO & Founder of FinditParts, Dan Millar of Hinton Transportation Investments, and Jamie Irvine, sharing their passions, highlighting the importance of building meaningful relationships and encouraging young people to be a part of the industry.
Together, they dive into the logistics and challenges of seamlessly delivering even the most challenging freight for, and in, trailers that today are much more complex than they seem.
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Transcript of Episode
Jamie Irvine:
You are listening to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine, and this is the place where we have conversations that empower heavy-duty people.
In this episode, we are continuing our round table discussions with David Seewack, CEO, and Founder of FindItParts. And this week we are joined by Dan Millar from Hinton Transportation Investments. Now we’re going to talk about the trailer business and how this is a truly unique segment in the trucking industry.
A lot has changed over the decades, and we have an opportunity to discuss where this segment of the industry is going. In this discussion, we also talk about mergers and acquisitions and the fact that consolidation has been ongoing for many, many years in the trucking industry.
And we’re going to talk a little bit about where we think acquisitions and consolidation is going to go in the future and what opportunities this presents for entrepreneurial minded people. We also conclude the discussion with some advice for young people who are looking to expand their careers in the trucking industry.
Now, there’s a bit of a twist in this advice, so when you listen to it, look for how we compare the economies of scale gained by a company who engages in mergers and acquisitions and consolidation, and how an individual person could use a similar strategy when it comes to acquiring skills and competency in the industry and then leverage that to their full benefit. I really thought the way that Dan framed that was very interesting.
So you check that out towards the end of the discussion. This is a really great conversation. It’s a bit longer than we normally have, but that’s kind of the point of these round table discussions. We want to be able to really get into the details and provide you with as much value as possible. So I hope you enjoy my discussion with David Seewack and Dan Millar.
My guests today are David Seewack, CEO, and Founder of FindItParts and Dan Millar, the Chief Commercial Officer of Hinton Transportation Investments. Now Dan is an experienced sales, marketing and operational executive with more than 30 years of serving various aspects of the heavy duty industry. Dan, welcome to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.
Dan Millar:
No, thank you. I’m thrilled and honored to have this opportunity. So thanks.
Jamie Irvine:
David, welcome back to the show. Great to have you here again.
David Seewack:
Great to be here, Jamie. Thanks for having me and Dan, great seeing you. And 30 years seems like a snap.
Dan Millar:
It does, doesn’t it?
Jamie Irvine:
Only looking back, David, for those who maybe are watching The Heavy Duty Parts Report for the first time, they haven’t seen the previous episodes. Could you give them just a brief overview of your history in the industry?
David Seewack:
Sure. So Dave and I’ve been in the truck parts business the better part of my life, so almost 40 years, which makes me feel old, but I still feel like a 30-year-old.
So I started in the brick and mortar business and we grew our business from one store to 24 branch locations and we sold our company and then I started finding parts and FindItParts as a virtual marketplace online. We’re the largest seller of heavy-duty parts online and I decided to go from a brick and mortar world to an online world.
Jamie Irvine:
And proof that you can reinvent yourself at any point in your career. David, you’re an inspiration to many. Dan, let me ask you something. For those who are unfamiliar with Hinton Transportation Investments, tell us a little bit about the company and tell us about the different business units that you have under your management.
Dan Millar:
Sure, sure. So first I think the most important part is we’re still owned or family owned company based here in West Michigan in Grand Rapids, and we started out as New Life Transport Parts and through a series of acquisitions and growth, we now have five different operating companies and we operate in all across North America, central America, and soon to be in South America.
And we serve everything from the intermodal business to the truck and trailer marketplaces, retail, wholesale, and everything in between I think.
Jamie Irvine:
Lots to take care of for sure. Dan, what is the role of a Chief Commercial Officer involved? Some people are maybe familiar with some of the classic C-suite titles, but Chief Commercial Officer, how is that different from a COO or a CEO?
Dan Millar:
Well, so because we’re a group of investments in the transportation industry, what we really felt like we needed was we needed a role to work with each of the individual operating companies that we have. So each company has its own leadership team and has its own growth strategy. And my role as Chief Commercial Officer is to work with each company, make sure their strategy aligns vertically as well as horizontally across all of our investments.
And then we have a lot of shared services that we provide to our member companies, if you will, and we make sure that those services are also highly coordinated. I’m also involved in acquisitions, so I also look for the next vertical company that we can bring into HTI.
Everything that we do at HTI is transportation oriented, so it’s really a lot of fun having a unique role like this. And so that’s why we chose Chief Commercial Officer from my position.
Jamie Irvine:
That makes a lot of sense to me. And certainly when you have that many companies, you need somebody who’s looking at things from that larger viewpoint because when you’re working in just one of those companies, you can get so close to the forest, it’s hard to see the trees.
Dan Millar:
Yeah, when I started here 2016, we were about 280 employees or so, and now we’re over 1200 employees. At the time I started, we were about 16 locations and we’ve got 42 locations, 36 of which are customer facing operating entities.
So quite a lot of growth and part of the reason that we didn’t vertically stack the company is so that we could create a flat leadership and create a highly flexible organizational structure to take care of the customers in a particular space. So we think it really works out well for us.
Jamie Irvine:
And being able to respond to needs in the market and being able to take care of your customers, that obviously is the paramount thing and that’s what helps you continue to grow. So that’s fantastic. Dan, you’ve got over 30 years of experience in the industry. Could you give us a little bit of background and history on how did you get into this business and what kept you in it all those years?
Dan Millar:
Well, a couple of things. So first, I was in the military out in California and I got out of the Marine Corps and I needed a job, so I was an accidental arrival. I was looking for an opportunity and I started with Penske Truck Leasing, started to get into the business, found it very interesting. I had the opportunity to make a jump to go to the Holland Hitch Company.
My family owned the Binkley company, the landing gear manufacturing company. When my dad sold that company, I picked up the phone as a joke and called the guy who was the operating manager and said, ‘Hey, dad always said he wouldn’t hire me, but now that he’s gone, my wife would like to get back to the Midwest. What do you think?’ And he goes, oh my goodness.
I got an opening and a few months later I found myself back in the Midwest working for Holland Hitch and then just kind of kept working my way up and my movement here to HTI was really, I’m now working for a customer of mine when I was at Holland Hitch. So I’ve stayed because of all the personal friendships. David and I have known each other forever and he and I know have mutual friends, and so we go to trade shows and things like that.
There’s a sense of comradery in our industry and friendship that gets developed that’s really unique and it really fits my personality. I really like these long-term relationships, the problem that people have when David and I get together, places that he and I start talking,
David Seewack:
Who talks more?
Dan Millar:
That’s hard to, I dunno, weigh in.
Jamie Irvine:
That resonates with me. I know when I go to the trade shows as well, it’s great meeting new people, but then you see those people that you’ve known for a long time.
Actually we were just at HDAW and I had some time with a sales rep that him and I had been on the road together when I was in my early twenties and he was in his early thirties and we had done sales together over 20 years in the past in Western Canada. And then you fast forward 20 years and here we are standing on a rooftop in Dallas and it’s like no time had passed at all.
David Seewack:
It’s so much fun about this business is that those relationships, I’ve watched my friends grow up, their kids get married. I mean to me that makes me feel like I’m part of a bigger family and it’s also part of how you drive yourself into this business because you have responsibilities that transcend just a transaction. It’s a wonderful place to be.
Jamie Irvine:
Let me ask you something. When you were in the Marine Corps, I know that all Marines are riflemen, but when you were in the Marine Corps, did you specifically work in a maintenance capacity where you were trained to work on heavy equipment and did you take that with you when you left the Marine Corps and came into heavy-duty or did you just start at Penske kind of cold?
Dan Millar:
I started Penske Cold. I was in the infantry in the Marine Corps in the first battalion, first Marines, and I got out, I finished my college degree and I went, oh, now what the hell do I do? And the first person that said, we’ll take you
David Seewack:
That was the job you got, right?
Dan Millar:
Yeah. It’s the first job I got. I needed money. So it worked out perfectly. So divine intervention maybe for me because it’s been a great career.
Jamie Irvine:
David, as you listened to Dan, talk about those relationships, I know because I’ve heard the story, but what role has relationships played in the arc of your career?
David Seewack:
I think it’s everything. When you’re my age or been around this long, I think the great thing is is that you grow up with guys. So I didn’t do business with Dan at Penske, but had I done business with Dan at Penske, we would’ve maintained that relationship moving on. I met Dan, I don’t remember, maybe at Holland was the first time I met him.
Dan Millar:
1999, we were both working for Fleet Pride.
Oh, that’s right. Oh my God. So I sold my company to Fleet Pride, thanks for reminding me. And yeah, we work together. But the great thing is, is that in our business, if you take care of your buddies and on every vertical, if you do business with suppliers and you treat them with respect and you do the right thing, you honor your contracts, you maintain a good reputation.
And when you’re older like us, if you haven’t done the right thing or if you’ve violated agreements or if you’ve gone against it, if you’ve done anything to piss anyone off, it follows you.
And conversely, when you make friends, when people, when I was just starting, I was in sales or counterman and then I became the President of the company I was at. You start and meet people in lower level jobs and as they elevate up, like Dan, he was at Fleet Pride, then he worked at a manufacturing company and now he runs a really big corporation that is always acquiring companies.
So when you maintain friendships with people like that, you have access to them. So if I had a deal come up or if Dan has something come up, we’ll just pick up the phone. We trust each other and I think trust is about, trust is everything in our space.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, there are so many people that were my customers or I was their customer who are now senior leaders in this business. The relationship that you build, if you break that, you’re just never going to recover. I mean, it just, it’s impossible.
Jamie Irvine:
True. David, when you mentioned treating people in positions that maybe they’re entry level positions when you first meet them and making sure you treat them correctly, that really resonated with me. I remember my mentor, he said to me, you never treat the guy sweeping the floor as you come in as a salesman poorly because one day he might be the President of the company.
David Seewack:
Oh, absolutely. I remember when I was trained as a salesman and as opposed to going to the purchasing manager who really makes the decisions, I’d go around the back and I’d go to the shop and I would talk to the mechanics and I’m like, hey, what’s going on?
What are you working on? What do you need? I’d look to see who competitors had dropped off parts there, and then I go to see the purchasing manager. So when the purchasing manager would tell me we’re not working anything, I’m like, well, hey, I talked to the mechanic and they have a bunch of jobs working and I know you need parts.
And then the same thing is that mechanic, to your point, became the purchasing manager and moved up and they remember when you walk past them. And that’s a very valuable lesson anyone should learn is to treat, my dad taught me, treat the janitor like the CEO. And as long as you do that, everyone really responds well to you.
Dan Millar:
That’s important. I mean, we’ve got a few gentlemen who work in our company who started out delivering parts in trucks and now one of them is the head of new life transport parts and road equipment. So this business creates a lot of opportunity and I think it’s important for guys like David and myself and even you, Jamie, to be able to make sure that as we talk to younger people, that we try to impress those values upon ’em because they’re so important down the road.
Jamie Irvine:
Really, I couldn’t agree with that more because I think that this industry oftentimes is invisible to a lot of young people. They don’t realize what is available in terms of career earning capacity. And because it’s kind of invisible to a lot of people, there’s a lot less competition than other industries. So you can come in as a bright young person, hook up with the right people, get some mentorship, and it can set the course for your career for the duration of your entire career.
So I think that’s really important. And I would say for those, maybe you are from a different background, maybe you traditionally aren’t someone who has been in this industry in the past, we are welcoming to those people. We need more talented people. We’re not really looking at what your background is. We’re looking at what can you add to the industry to help us to grow and help keep this industry strong?
Because face it, the trucking industry is the backbone of society and a strong trucking industry is a good thing for everybody. So we want people to come and join us and we’re looking for those good people who are going to have the same values and who are going to build those relationships that we did during our career.
Dan Millar:
Absolutely. We recruit constantly here to try to bring young kids in from college and military and places like that. And we spend a lot of time talking about the culture of our organization, but also the culture of the industry and the stories that we can tell really start to resonate.
And now I’m watching some young kids who’ve been with us four and five years and they now have these really strong personal relationships with some of their customers and so forth. And it’s gratifying to watch.
And I also know that it’s kind of basic to our fundamental foundation of success as we go forward. So this has been a lot of fun. I don’t want to quit. I want to keep working for a lot more years. My wife won’t like that, but that’s how this works. Right.
Jamie Irvine:
Let’s shift our conversation to the trailer business. David, from the FindItParts perspective. Is there any differences between how you work with distributors of truck and trailer parts that kind of do it all and those that specialize in trailers?
David Seewack:
Not really. I mean, we’re agnostic when people are buying parts from us, we really don’t pay attention to whether or not it’s a trailer part or a truck part.
When we look for suppliers of parts, you can buy trailer parts from a lot of truck dealers or truck suppliers, but I think when you really want to expand your trailer offering, you’re better suited going to someone like Dan’s company who focus and specializes on that because they’re going to carry the whole breadth of all of the offering of trailer parts.
And it becomes, you’re a much better supplier to your customer base when you’re dealing with a professional company that focuses on that space because the trailer business is different, and Dan knows he can speak to it more than I can, but I do believe from a supply standpoint, I prefer doing business with companies like Dan because I think it offers better service and a better array of parts to our customers.
Jamie Irvine:
So Dan, in the years that I was training parts people, one of the things that I always taught them right at the very beginning is you pick up that phone or someone comes to the counter and they plunk something down and they say, I need this. The first question you should be asking, is that on a truck or is that on a trailer? Because even though it may be similar, there are some differences. So why is it so important for people to ask that question?
Dan Millar:
Well, I think it really begins this daisy chain of questions that you have to ask in order to drive to the correct part. And you need to start asking the questions, okay, it’s a trailer part, what kind of trailer? And you just start going down a series of questions until you arrive at where that part is.
Now, some of ’em, like a wheel seal, you can identify pretty quickly, but then you’ve got to break it down even further. I think that’s one of the things that’s really interesting as I was kind of going through my parts career learning all the intricate details of these parts, how they fit, why one chooses one brand or one part versus another that goes in the same space on the vehicle and they’re highly specialized.
So the truck side is its own unique animal and it has multitude of subcategories and the trailer side does as well. And the hard part is trying to blend the two of those to get somebody who is adept enough to be able to go down both pathways. And I think curiosity becomes a good element of an individual figuring out what the parts are.
But specialization is ultimately where that decision tree goes when you’re trying to figure out the parts and then you’re helping your customer because if you can quickly move through that process, then you’re at the point where David and I were when we were younger, standing on the counter plopping something down on the table and you go, okay, I got to get this guy in and out of here quick, what his employer expects, and I want him to have a good experience.
So I think those are great starting points for any individual coming into this industry.
Jamie Irvine:
When we all started in the industry, we were using paper catalogs. Things have changed quite a bit now. So David, let’s talk about accurate data on heavy-duty parts. It’s such an important part of providing customers with confidence when they buy online from the aftermarket side of the business is accurate data on trailer parts a significant challenge?
David Seewack:
I think data in general is a challenge. If you are an OEM, like a Freightliner or a Peterbilt, they have the ability to look up a part by VIN number. So whenever they have the VIN number of their name plate, they can look up any part of that vehicle.
I think conversely in Dan’s business that he can speak to, they have exclusivity on certain brands of trailers, so they can look up by their VIN number, everything that’s on their trailer, but in the aftermarket, we don’t have access to that data. So it really is incumbent upon the supplier to provide that data to us.
So sometimes we’ll get parts from suppliers, and many times you’ll have a supplier, you don’t know if it’s a truck or a trailer part, and they may have a picture. In many cases they don’t. And then they might have a description from something as short valve or they’ll be much more detailed in their description.
So I think our industry is a lot different than auto or any other consumer brand where there is significantly more data available because they need it to. So in automotive to be able to sell to the big box folks, it’s driven by a catalog, they have to have all the images and the features and the benefits and so forth.
And I would say the truck parts business is probably 10 years if not further behind. So it’s really incumbent upon the suppliers, the manufacturers, to start building that content because before they didn’t really need it as much. It was in their catalog and now people are going to digital catalogs. So it’s really a function of transitioning to this new data model.
Dan Millar:
So I would build on that by saying then what happens is the manufacturers and the trailer side of the business, they produce engineering numbers, but they don’t necessarily cross reference those engineering numbers to purchasable part from Meritor or somebody of that nature.
Here at HTI, we have a team of seven people dedicated to taking the information from the manufacturer and our OEM partners, pulling it together and trying to create information that we can deliver to the marketplace, which can be discernible in terms of a replacement part, even down, and David, David, you really touch on it.
You’re kind of going there, take an axle or a suspension system at a trailer and then break it down into the hundreds of parts that they become. Because if you’ve got to do a wheel seal replacement or you’ve got to do a bearing replacement of some sort on a wheel end, you then got to go spend a lot of time trying to figure out what those parts are.
And so one of the innovations that David’s company has is if you’ve got that information, he’s delivering the content, it’s a great reference point, and he’s got a good organization that’s delivering some real value to the market.
When you’re in the brick and mortar side of the world like us, we have a customer walk in and plop something down on our table and then we’ve got to go try to figure that out. And content, content data, data, data is so vitally important to providing value to our customers.
Jamie Irvine:
So I’m curious about something, Dan, when you are working, when I was selling parts and I was working with some fleets, they would often rig up a truck in a certain configuration. So let’s say that they were doing oil and gas and then that commodity market went down, so then they were going to shift some equipment over to logging and they would have to rig the truck differently and that would change specs on suspension, gear ratios, things of that nature.
Does that kind of thing happen on the trailer side as well? Because I know when you have a VIN number that’s all great, you can say, oh, well when it came off the line, this is what it had, but third owner later, if all of those changes, that doesn’t mean that’s the part that’s on there now. Does that kind of thing happen with the trailer world as well?
Dan Millar:
It happens all the time. Trailers are constantly being reconfigured for different applications. A trailer might start its life in the van world and the next thing you know they’re putting lift pads on it and they’re making it ready to go on trailer on flat car, or they’re taking a trailer, which is very common to take a trailer from swing door and convert it to rolled door or vice versa. And so then somebody shows up with a 10-year-old trailer and he’s on the phone and he’s, okay, I’ve got this.
Even if we have the VIN information and the system, very often on the older trailers, you end up running into a little bit of a mystery puzzle that you have to solve in order to be able to figure out what parts that customer needs for his trailer, and that’s where people come in. You can’t replace the people, but you take technology and that technology can enhance what the people do.
And I think, again, that’s one of the things that’s so cool about what David’s company does is that they’re a reference point for us and for many others to be able to take that technology in your knowledge and your smarts and your communication with that customer and find that right part in the shortest period of time possible.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, my mentor always told me that. He said, I can tell you the answer or I can show you how to figure it out. Which one do you want? And I always chose, show me how to figure it out because I figured that if I could learn that skillset, then no matter what came across the counter, I might take a little time, but eventually I could figure it out. And that’s also where the relationships came in, right?
Because as time went on, you built up more and more relationships and you had people you could phone and ask for help. So that personally for me was one of the reasons I love the parts business so much because it was dynamic. Every day was a little different. You were always learning something new. And if that appeals to you, then you should really think about a career in this business.
Dan Millar:
Absolutely. The investigative stuff is so much fun.
Jamie Irvine:
And it does take a little bit of a certain mindset and skillset to be good at it, but once you start to grasp the concepts of how to identify parts, then you can become a go-to resource for your company. We’re going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors. We’ll be right back.
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Let me ask you something. When you’re selling small parts like valves and things like that, logistics are pretty easy.
You start selling skids of product. I know when I was doing a lot of drivetrain, we were sending out transmissions and diffs and we were doing a lot of brake jobs, so there was skids of brake material and drums and things of that nature. Trailers have an even maybe let’s say larger logistical challenge. Why is that?
Dan Millar:
We refer to the freight that we move around on our own trucks is ugly freight. We’re either moving a slider box or a 52 foot rail, and quite frankly what happens is we’re moving 52 foot rails, coils of roof and slider boxes and we’re putting it all on the same trailer and we’re moving it across town or across the country.
And so we just help our people understand that ugly freight is what we do, but to watch the team load a 52 foot rail and 52 foot E-Track into a trailer, and then to watch the customer pull it off and the tools that they have to use to do that is it just blows people’s minds to watch this big 52 foot rail, get a strap wrapped around it and a tow motor in a yard pulling this thing out and six guys standing there trying to bring this thing down so you don’t scratch the bottom rail.
It’s amazing and it turns a lot of people off and unfortunately we damage a lot of product just because it’s so difficult to handle. That’s what makes us unique because we believe that we do that really, really well and have been for 40 years and it kind of helps us position our company a little bit differently in the marketplace I think.
Jamie Irvine:
If it was easy, everybody would do it right, Dan?
Dan Millar:
Exactly. If it was cheap, everybody do it too, and it’s not.
David Seewack:
Yeah, that’s where content comes in. So for instance, if we were to load a trailer part and we didn’t know what the content is and it says frame rail, we might load it and it may be light. It doesn’t necessarily have to be super heavy. So when we realize, okay, we have a frame rail, it’s on our website and someone buys it, we don’t realize that that’s 53 feet long.
So all of a sudden we’re like, oh my goodness. And then when we call our suppliers, so that just further explains why content is so important when you have weights and dimensions and so forth because you need to rely upon a delivery vehicle system, a process like what Dan offers, where you can get the parts around the country.
So that’s really critical because you have to get it to the customer and then to what Dan’s point is, they have to take it off the truck. So it really requires coordination on both ends. And that’s what, in my view, the limited of what I know about the trailer parts business is really what is different about trailer parts than truck parts.
Dan Millar:
The size of these things, the weight and all of that. We’ve worked really hard with David’s company to make sure that we’re identifying those long pieces of material and things that can’t ship LTL and so forth so that we don’t inadvertently put ourselves collectively in that position where somebody needs a part delivered someplace that can’t handle it, because that’s really expensive when that happens, and it does occasionally, but boy, if you ship a single rail across the country, it’s cost prohibitive. Can’t afford it.
Jamie Irvine:
Dan, for a long time, trailers were considered just boxes on wheels. I know that some guys who worked on trucks, they had a bit of an attitude about trailers. The complexity of trailers is changing, technology is changing. Could you talk a little bit about how things are changing in the trailer world?
Dan Millar:
When we first started in this industry, trailers were 45 feet in length, then they quickly moved to 48, and then they’ve now moved of course to 53 foot. And the construction and manufacturer of these trailers has evolved dramatically. Most trailers used to be sheet and post type trailers and now, and the quest has always been, how much more room can I create on the interior of the trailer to put more freight on it and then balance that out with weight because weight’s important to maximize it.
So as the engineering capabilities and the tools for the manufacturers have become more advanced and more advanced manufacturing techniques, the trailers today to the untrained eye probably still look the same, but to us they’re completely different and they’re becoming more specified and more specifically built for the applications that they’re going to be put into for the first owner.
And the first owner may use that trailer for eight years, but as we all know, that trailer might likely be around for 20 to 30 years. And so there’s a second owner and a third owner that takes that vehicle and starts modifying it along the way. Of course, we’ve all seen the advent of GPS and things of that nature.
So now those companies are coming in putting trailer tracking, there’s barcoding that’s going on these trailers so that you can check the trailer in and out of a yard. There’s tire inflation systems, all sorts of things to help the operators of these equipment do things more efficiently to make sure they’re squeezing the pennies out of the transportation dollar that’s being spent. And we all have to try to keep up as members of this ecosystem.
As these trailers come more and more complicated and more sophisticated, it’s incumbent on companies like ours and David’s in order to be able to again, grab that content, train people on what these parts are, help a mechanic understand why this component is different than that, and why the evolution has occurred. It’s been fascinating on something that most people look like.
My wife driving down the road, oh, there’s another trailer. And I look at it and I go, oh, I have not seen that one before. It’s to the trained eye and to the person in our industry, it’s really a lot of fun and a great journey.
Jamie Irvine:
I’ll just tell you a quick story about my wife. When we first got married, I lived in Vancouver and I used all the truck route to get around the city so I could sell parts. And she came to move from Alberta to British Columbia once we got married.
And for the first couple weeks we were driving around the city. And then one day she looked at me and she says, Jamie, people used to say that Vancouver was such a beautiful city, it’s kind of ugly. And then I realized I’d been taking her through all of the industrial parks.
So I said to her, I said, okay, let’s stop looking at trucks and trailers. I’ll take you on a different road and I’ll show you the beauty of this area. And so we took her and then she’s like, oh, now I get it. So yeah, our poor wives, what they have to put up with us truck parts and trailer parts.
Dan Millar:
I can’t believe she doesn’t find this a sexy business.
Jamie Irvine:
Well, I know mean finally, after all these years, she’s now joined our company and is working full time with us, but it only took 17 and a half years.
David Seewack:
In my experience. I go to cocktail parties and they say, well, what do you do? And I say, I’m in the truck parts business. That’s pretty much all they want to know. They don’t want to hear anything more because it’s like, really? And then now I can say I’m in the e-commerce business, and they’re saying, oh, that’s exciting. What do you guys sell?
And then I say, truck parts, and they’re like, eh. So I know it’s a great business, and I remember telling my wife that we do it and she goes, oh my God, I can’t believe how many trucks I see all day long on the freeways.
So she goes, it makes me feel really good that there’s so many trucks on the road. So it really changes people’s perspective of they don’t really think about trucks and everything in our world revolves around the distributed of parts of everything we buy through a truck or a trailer. It’s like everything we do has been touched by truck or trailer.
Dan Millar:
Can’t get to your door if it’s not on a vehicle. Right?
Jamie Irvine:
That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And I think sometimes people think, oh, these big trucks on trailers on the road, they’re such a nuisance, but they don’t realize. It’s like, yeah, but everything you’ve come to rely on and everything that you not only want, but you genuinely need, things like energy for your home to keep you warm and cool in the summer and food and medicine, and it’s like the list goes on and on and on. That’s why I always say the trucking industry is the backbone of society.
David Seewack:
Certainly is.
Jamie Irvine:
So let’s talk about the future of the industry and keeping this industry strong. David, you’ve built your entire business in its current iteration online. You’ve also always been somebody that has challenged the status quo in the industry. So where do you see things going in heavy-duty parts, let’s say in the next 10 years?
David Seewack:
Well, I think Dan can speak more towards it because he’s involved in the OEMs that are building the vehicles or involved in the suppliers of these trailers. As we adapt, I think for us, the changes that we’re seeing is doing business with better fulfillment partners. So as we do business with more sophisticated suppliers, their footprint of distribution is such that you can get a part from A to B much quicker.
And because they have a full breadth of inventory, you’re able to get those parts specifically for the application because there’s so many different part numbers. A distributor that may carry trailer parts may carry the fastest moving parts, but doesn’t carry the full array of parts.
So I think as I see it, we’re going to get a better source of supply of parts. You’ll have a lot more people replicating and having replacement parts for trailers. But I think what you’re going to see is you’re going to see more sophistication like what Dan spoke to technologically, understanding predictive maintenance. And we really follow that.
We don’t lead that market. We really adapt to supplying the parts for that. So I think Dan could speak more critically as it relates to what are the changes and how the business in fact is changing on his side.
Dan Millar:
It’s really evolving. I think what David and his company are doing from the technology delivery attributes and the information surrounding each part is really, really important.
I think the other thing that certainly is a major strategy of ours at HTI is to make sure that we create speed to market for the product and how that translates for a fleet, whether it’s my old employer, Penske Truck Leasing, or it’s Amazon, they have a growing organization, and so there’s always pressure on utilization for the equipment.
So speed to market contributes to a reduction in repair time for a vehicle. So at HTI, we make sure that we do the very best we can to support our OEM partners. In the middle, we expand our footprint in order to get parts placed more closely to the marketplace so that we can make good on that promise of speed to market.
We try to create strong partnerships with people built on this trust thing that we talked about earlier in the discussion because we’ve got to have that trust factor so that they’ll be willing to invest in the parts and put ’em on the shelf. And then when the fleet says, okay, I need something, then he can rely on this ecosystem, if you will, in order for him to be able to more efficiently put that truck or that trailer back into the market for use.
Because if an Amazon or a Target or pick the company that’s trying to grow, they’re going to need more and more equipment. So pressure on utilization increases. And so we see ourselves as a conduit through this whole ecosystem of getting the parts, taking the technology that’s available, moving it out into the marketplace, and then responding when the fleet needs that repair part or needs that replacement or crash part, we can get it to ’em quickly.
And this is a constantly evolving process where we hit a milestone, we hit a level of achievement, and then we say, now, what are the next three things we need to do in order to keep moving that down the path, so to speak.
But it’s all about speed. Price is not one of the most important things that has to be taken into consideration. It’s utilization and it’s repair time, doing things as efficiently as possible. If we lose our attention to that, we’re going to lose our place in the market.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I would say the last 25 years, consolidation has been something that has really marked the heavy-duty parts industry. We’ve seen it at the brick and mortar distributor kind of level. We’ve even seen it at the manufacturing level. You’ve consolidated some businesses and acquired them over time. Do you think that we’re going to see consolidation continue? Do you think there’s ever going to be a time where there may be a reversal and we see a swell of new mom and pop or let’s say entrepreneurial driven companies popping up?
Dan Millar:
I think there will be a constant consolidation hum that will always go on. This is an expensive business. It requires a lot of mass in order to be relevant in the space, but at the same time, there’s enough niche that for the entrepreneur to break away from the bigger organization and create something and fill a gap. And so while one thing is being consolidated, there’s a gap getting created someplace else. More than likely we refer to that as white space.
So while HTI may continue to buy organizations that are ready to sell and we’ll put ’em in our ecosystem and we’ll accomplish some great things, we can’t be all things to everybody across the country. And so there’s still this entrepreneurial churn that’s going to be allowed to happen because we’re going to look at something at our new size and go, that’s not something we want to attend to.
Let’s have a customer deal with that or a new entrepreneur attend to that. He has his opportunity at that point for his own growth and future. So I just think it evolves it’s evolution, right? It’s not necessarily revolution. And so there’s still a great spot for an entrepreneur in this industry in my mind.
Jamie Irvine:
Well, I mean look at David, right? Saw that in the brick and mortar side of parts distribution. There was an opportunity there and you did a complete shift in your career to be able to tap into an opportunity. You might’ve even been a little early on that.
David Seewack:
I would say I was very early. But to Dan’s point, consolidation will always continue, but as you consolidate, those companies become more sophisticated and in doing so, they’re paying more attention to inventory turns. So they might have the A part, they might have some of the B parts, but they won’t have the full breadth of inventory.
So I think it’s no different than a large big box, let’s say hardware company versus going to a smaller hardware company where you have the entrepreneur and the family and so forth. So I think the degree of service that you’re going to get through a smaller entrepreneur, they might find just pockets of opportunity where people don’t focus on that.
So I think there’s always going to be entrepreneurs springing up with highly specialized segments of the business, but I really do think that the business will continue to consolidate through the years. But I always think there’s opportunities for entrepreneurs to still get in this business.
Dan Millar:
You’re spot on. I mean, we can’t cover everything. We’re going to do a really great job in our area, in our space, and we’ve got hundreds and thousands of products that we offer to sell, but there’s always that opportunity for specialization. And that specialization we don’t know what it’s going to look like five years from now, but somebody else might see it might be another David coming up and filling another part of the space. The future looks bright.
Jamie Irvine:
I agree. So just go with me on this for a little bit. So when you consolidate, one of the big advantages is you create economies of scale, you get a wider perspective. You can take advantage of, let’s say the larger volumes. All of those things, they all contribute to making the business more successful. The sum of all the parts become greater as they get brought together.
At least that’s the goal. Now, if you’re just somebody working in the industry as a parts person, how could you kind of take that mindset of trying to expand your skillset and apply it to your career where in essence you could kind of almost accomplish the same thing. Dan, do you have any thoughts on how someone might do that, as opposed to just being a straight up specialist?
Dan Millar:
And being a specialist is a really great thing. And there will always be guys who are, I’m a trailer guy and I focus on wheel end and brake or something, and they enjoy that and that’s great. If somebody wants to go find a really great career in our industry, the opportunity to diversify themselves is always around the corner.
You go from a person who might be specialized or very well experienced and knowledgeable and wheel and brake, then you could make the jump over to refrigeration or you could make the jump over to the power side of the business and you could be an engine and attaching components and rotating electrical, and you could go educate yourself in that.
So I think reflecting on my own career and reflecting on how to help and mentor people coming up, I always say, do your current job really well.
Ask for opportunities and then go do things that are very different from what you have been doing or very complimentary and just keep asking. And the next thing you know, you’ll turn around and you’ll be one of us old guys in the industry and you’ll have done everything and your employer will watch you create value.
And if you create value along the way, then there’s always somebody knocking at your door saying, hey, I see this base of experience you have and we could use that here and help us go down this pathway. So I think it’s being curious, being driven.
You certainly have to be driven and asking for things, not expecting it. Ask for that next opportunity. Give me this education. How do I go here? I had to ask to go get my international experience and travel all over the world as a result of it, but it wasn’t sitting there waiting for me. I had to go ask to go get it. And I think that’s really important for people in this business, right?
David is a leading edge entrepreneur who got the industry into a higher level of technology because he was curious. He saw an opportunity and he had diversified his experience to be able to put himself into that position and create value from himself and all of his employees. So I think that’s the key from where I sit.
David Seewack:
And from my perspective, in the old days, you go to work for IBM, you’d work for 35 years and you’d retire and those days are over. So as we’re learning more when we’re interviewing people, I think curiosity is key and working hard is key. So if you go into a job, whatever that position might be and you excel at it, you’ll be recognized. And then you want to keep broadening your career. So someone might start in the counter and they might be a generalist, and then they feel like I want to get more sales experience.
So now they can go out in the road and be a salesperson, but have a good enough fundamental understanding of what they sold. It makes ’em a better salesperson. And then all of a sudden an OEM might come to them or a manufacturer and say, okay, you have really good sales experience. You’ve been on the counter. You understand what that world is like.
We would like you to represent our big brand and then call on those distributors. So I think if you keep focusing your career on being the best at what you can, at whatever it is you’re doing, you’ll become attractive to other people and you’ll build a more well-rounded experience in your tool belt. And I think it’s going to give you the opportunity to continue to build on your career and have new opportunities you may not have had before.
Jamie Irvine:
You’ve been listening to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine, and we’ve been speaking with Dan Millar, the Chief Commercial Officer of Hinton Transportation Investments. To learn more about Hinton Transportation investments, head over to hintoninvestments.com. Links are in the show notes. Dan, thanks so much for being on the show. It was great to have you here.
Dan Millar:
Well, thank you very much. It’s an honor and I’m really proud to be a participant in our industry and have an opportunity like this to talk about it and to try to encourage the young people in our industry to keep driving for the future because it’s out there. So thank you.
Jamie Irvine:
And if you’d like to purchase any of the parts that we talk about here on The Heavy Duty Parts report, head over to finditparts.com. David, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Really appreciate you having you here.
David Seewack:
Jamie, I love being on your show and you’re always so kind, and it’s great that you understand so much about the business. And when we were talking about relationships, Dan, I can’t appreciate you or thank you enough for coming on the show.
It’s really great getting a perspective from someone that’s been in the business as long as he has, and I think he offers so much and a wealth of knowledge to the people and the listeners here. So Dan, thanks so much for joining us. Jamie, you’re the best and I love being on your show. Thank you.
Jamie Irvine:
I hope you enjoyed my discussion with David Seewack and Dan Millar. The trailer business really is a unique segment in the industry and there is a lot of opportunity. Just before we conclude today’s episode, I wanted to let you know that in a couple of weeks, I will be heading back to Grapevine, Texas this time to attend HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting.
I’m very honored to have been invited to come and speak at that event. In a round table discussion, we’re going to be talking about how to engage young people in the industry, and we’re going to be talking about the challenges associated with having the older and younger generations work together.
Productivity is a major challenge in our industry, and I will be highlighting some research about what’s going on with productivity as each generation has come into the workforce and what to do to maximize productivity with people across all the different generations.
It’s going to be a great event. If you would like to have me as a speaker at one of your corporate events, head over to heavydutypartsreport.com/speaker. That’s heavydutypartsreport.com/speaker. It’ll take you right through to our consulting website, speaking and training page where you can learn more about the type of speaking events that I do and what I can offer your company at your event.
Looking forward to having the opportunity to work with you as well. Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. If you haven’t already, sure that you head over to heavydutypartsreport.com and hit that follow button that will take you through where you can subscribe to our weekly email.
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