okay it’s in here with a clint whitehead from western trailer how you doing sir i’m doing great thanks for having me yeah thanks for coming on we are here with another episode of recycled idaho excited to get back in these like i feel like things around here are truly just trying to get back to the all the way back to normal yeah yeah because so many people wouldn’t let me do this you know even though like i kept trying every month and i still did a bunch of them yeah so i really appreciate you guys doing it we just did the boots on the ground portion basically four locations kind of yeah essentially essentially including cj precision yep you know four different locations so that’s going to be awesome to share it with everyone but this is where i really like to dive into like the history your history so just kind of give us an introduction so western trailers is a semi trailer manufacturing company always been in boise idaho it’s going on third generation i just was able to hire a nephew okay um full-time he graduated college at bsu and

so yeah we’re excited to get another generation in there so are you second i’m second okay and my father got in he’s a idaho raised uh farm kid and um he was from eastern iowa and he um wasn’t room on the farm they sent him to boise he got to go work and he went into the air guard started working with sheet metal working in uh trailer repair earned truck repair back then and then this was at the air guard yeah the air guard he was learned sheet metal work and okay planes during the vietnam war and then um he is a really good fabricator so someone finally pushed him to make make him a trailer make them a trailer oh okay and so we built the first flatbed then we built some hoppers and we got into cow trailers where did he build his first trailer at so we were located in a barrack on the um air base right over here off gown road oh really yeah literally across the street pretty much that’s awesome yeah it was actually i think the first shop was maybe an old gymnasium on the base

so it was a there’s so many businesses one of them some of the most successful businesses out there all started in a garage yeah when you think of that it’s like someone’s actual garage yep but basically you started in a garage it’s just the air forces yeah dirt dirt floor in the shop you know that’s the way a lot of the manufacturing was though is just a lot of little manufacturers and a lot of those have grown into you know giant manufacturers that support whole nations and that’s what we do now we we sell all over north america and our used traders go down into south america i think when they’re used now we don’t have any representation down there but yeah we see our trailers everywhere now yeah yeah i see them all over you know obviously we use them yeah but anytime i travel too like it seems like i always pop you know because i’m kind of looking for it so subconsciously it’s like when you buy like a car you start seeing that car everywhere yeah same with like united metals trucks or bins or western trailers stuff so it’s

really cool and i always pointed out like if we’re down in utah it looked good we seemed to go there yeah every few years i’m like oh hey that’s one of my customers oh that’s a western trailer and you know my kids don’t really care but i still bring it up because i’m proud of it yeah i feel that same sense from you and your guys’s culture and your outfit it’s a great company it’s a great industry to be involved in you know just manufacturing it’s it’s neat it’s real rewarding we’re trying to always show that to new people and get them involved and because we love it i mean it makes for a great career it does man i think so many people kind of pooh-poohed it yeah for so many years because like everyone thought oh you gotta get a four-year degree yeah you know and you don’t need that to make a successful career you don’t you never and you never did no it’s just like um and that’s what i think i met you at the idaho manufacturing alliance yeah um that’s where we met and i get

a lot of value out of that so i’ve been part of that for i don’t know yeah since the beginning so it’s been a while now i really enjoyed that also and i i love it they do a great job sherry tiffany and everyone else involved with that they do great job and that’s where i get to meet people like you and there’s so many like-minded people in that room and i love like teaching the kids like i love like showing the kids like kind of hoping the next generation would get some more people that maybe would have tried a four-year degree when that one shouldn’t have been their route in the first place yeah you know yep yeah and that’s that’s changed with the schools and they’re trying to bring it back the rural schools really are doing a great job and boise could be a little easier to get kids into different trade classes they kind of make it inconvenient in this part of the city but other other cities around here in the valley it’s it’s really easy to get to yeah it seems like it’s getting better i

feel that way too i have two two daughters i know you have your three yeah so we’re seeing you know i i try to be involved as a as much as i can so i try to go to the career days and earth day yeah and stuff like that and just talking to you earlier like you’re not involved i felt like ivan is doing a good job but you’re on the next level and you’re going to talk to talking to a lot of students i like to get involved with the schools and i i can’t locally right here in boise but because they’re trade at one trade center and we participate a little bit in that the dennis technical center but the other school districts really invite us in and i like to do that and put on weld competitions just go and speak about careers donate scrap metal when i can something for weld things like that any way you can get back and you get to meet some great kids and if i can land a few of them and give them give them a great career you know that’s it’s excellent

so what year were you guys officially founded so western traders became western trailers in 1969. prior to that it was called kotem and okay my dad owned kotem but they did mainly truck repair and very little trailer manufacturing but it became western trailers in 1969 because you guys just had your your 50th a few years ago right gosh that’s already been a few years now huh yeah i felt like we just went to it yeah it was that was a good sell your dad spoke of that right yep yeah we had the governor and the mayor you go yeah i met your dad for the first time there i refreshed my memory jerry okay jerry so jerry started it yep he’s uh now he’s the chairman okay and uh they made me president two years ago and you’re president okay so he’s still involved he’s still involved yeah he’s um semi retired a little bit still involved a lot well he’s earned it he’s learned to take a break you know if he wants to i think a lot of people don’t want to they don’t they he’s like us they love coming to

work every day yeah that’s the beauty i was just talking to to our video producer brady about like how much i love coming to work because i wish everyone loved coming to work like i did like you know and i i try to i try to figure out how to get people to think like i love it like and i realized like that one’s gonna think that way and i also realize people a lot of people think i’m probably full of sometimes we’re not but i’m not i’m not um so going back so kind of give me like a a rough run down like you’ve shown me all these different locations but that couldn’t have been i had to take time to get all that because that was impressive what you just showed me yeah that all has been built up over time we’re always growing we just purchased land in california we’re going to set up a parts department down there and we’ve got a sales guy in woodland california we’re going to have to add more manufacturing are they just going to do parts in california are going to do a repair

like they’re just in here just the parts okay there’s a lot of really good repair shops down there already that we use um we’re always looking for more growth we’re gonna add another manufacturing facility cover kind of shut down our plans to build a new manufacturing facility and we’re letting materials kind of calm down but in the next two years we’re probably going to have another whole manufacturing facility just to build um aluminum flatbeds and aluminum belt trailers right here in boise um either in boise or somewhere in the treasure valley somewhere yeah you gotta find the spot people yeah whatever yeah people can’t afford housing here in boise right now you know it’s we have a lot of um we have a lot of family down in california in the fontana area la area yeah and my wife’s cousin just bought a house they finally were able to and he actually it’s kind of cool i don’t know the name of the company but her husband works at a place that builds trailers and he’s really proud of it he always shows you look what we built yeah and i was like oh

man i know some guys that build stuff like that so they’re down there um but they bought a house in the la area literally it was about the same prices here wow so it’s crazy like and everyone’s having that same problem and we might as well i might as well ask you what are you guys doing how important do you think it is to have a good culture to get employees there it’s like because i think about that a lot we do we’re always looking at that and holding different meetings trying to make sure everybody’s happy what what’s going on with the culture but we’re always working on retention a pretty cool thing that we did to just make it a great place to work is we we put in our own doctor’s office i didn’t know if you knew that that’s part of the tour that we didn’t do but we could i can film that we could we should we should do that part no i went to your grand opening yeah so we actually have our own doctor’s office free medical care for our employees and anyone selling their insurance free

prescriptions you know and a thirty dollar copay is a lot of money you know when you’ve got kids and you know any time you have to go somewhere it’s 30 bucks so they can go there for free no co-pay they don’t want to accept money there they don’t have a cash register not at all okay nothing everything is free for employees if you gave someone 30 dollars when you’re there they were doing something wrong yeah so that’s pretty neat we’re always looking at ways to to make it saving money make it a great place to work how long has that been open the the office years now okay yeah touch it because i remember going to that grand opening that was really cool and we’re working with um i’m out selling it to other businesses because if i can get a couple other businesses involved it’ll just reduce our costs and then we may be able to share a clinic across the valley so we could have one in nampa one in boise okay so our guys don’t have to drive clear to that one they could go to the closest one yeah

if they live in caldwell they want to drive out here yeah so i’ve been doing that for the past couple years and i think i got a couple people that we’re gonna team up with so we can offer more that’s great man i’m sure your people are loving it and it’s it’s tough right now just to find employees but you know the ones we have they’re like us they love coming to work yeah i could i could feel that over there like it seemed like everyone no one was like slouched over like no yeah i’m bottling around because i when i see that i’m like i always ask me did someone shoot your dog last night no i’m like what’s what’s the problem here let’s fix it yeah we also got um two employee vans so we have guys as far out as past caldwell ontario we have a van um an employee starts picking up people in ontario fruitland he drives they pile in seven eight people and they bring him clear to boise and so we subsidized that and we’ve got another van that comes from mountain home so we’re always looking

for creative ways to save money you know we can if we can get seven people we we buy another van and we’ll put them in it oh wow and then just helps with the commute saves fuel prices are going up so that’s worked out pretty good too i just ordered a brand new one for the guys in ontario yeah that’s awesome that’s very cool it was a great idea too um let’s talk about you though me did you always know did you always know brett brett always says i always knew i was gonna work in scrap like i wanted to you know because he’s always very vocal about like i would love my kids too but i’m not like expecting them to i want them to do if they want to you know which as any parent like that’s what we all hope for we want our kids to find something they really to go back to that they like to do yeah we want to have happy people so i worked in the plant all through my younger years so i you know i probably started sweeping when i was like 14 in

the plant okay sweeping and then by the time i was 16 as weldon plumbed and wired i worked in the paint shop i pretty much did all the jobs over there um i probably couldn’t run half the machines that are now because everything’s cnc yeah there’s some new technology you don’t know how to turn them on anymore it’s evolved but knowing my um in my 20s i left and i went and did a bunch of fun single guy jobs i did bogus i drove snow cat worked for some construction did some truck driving then i came back into sales i wasn’t in the plan anymore so i went into sales and then i’ve sold on both coasts west and east coasts and had territories there and then sold utah idaho montana big territory there and then as my dad got older they um promoted me so became a director and then president and love sale so so your path wasn’t direct you took a little blip yeah which is nothing normal for any 20 year old yeah you know and then i even there was a time i was uh managing a guest ranch

in atlanta idaho so i went there and i was doing packing for uh outfitter and guy two in my spare time i plowed snow up there and so that was just fun stuff but there was you know i had to settle down find a wife have kids yeah so finally did all that and came back into sales and and just evolved from there so i’ve been back i’ve been back 16 years i think somewhere right in there okay yeah and there’s so much value to starting like you started sweeping pushing a broom like you being you know the son of the owner you have to get you earn those stripes you know and like um like for me like i started undoing cans i’ve taught i tell everyone that story yeah that’s where i started i did that for six months all i did was take pop cans out of bags all i did you know and then i started to see like hey there’s more to this like and i’ve been and i’ve always told brad like i would plan to stay here for maybe a few months she needed a job because

i found a girl i wanted to marry and yeah i had to ask her to marry her i couldn’t ask her without a job but i just saw the culture that’s what attracted me here the culture and the potential yeah you know and you doing all those jobs granted some have new equipment and all that like i think there’s so much value to that rather than just starting up here yeah and not knowing how to you know to do some of the painting or some of the machining and all that stuff you know so so kudos to you for that so this you kind of touched on it you got a lot new equipment now yeah more automated more automated you’re keeping up with technology you have to one thing i’ve noticed about you guys is um that you’re always trying to make a better process you know that’s one thing i think we try to do too yeah like we’re always trying to and i always say it this way we always try to put ourselves out of business yeah and people like kind of scratch their head when i say that yeah

i’m like oh man like um i mean that by like we need to figure out a better way to do it before someone else does yeah you know because the way we’re doing it now you know there was there wasn’t an uber uber’s around 20 years ago you know what’s that doing to that industry so you want to be like the uber of your industry like where you’re now we have experts at our place manufacturing engineers that study the processes to cut labor hours out we probably got i don’t know 20 engineers up there in draftsman and just you know building better parts making trailers more repairable for our customers making a better product so yeah it has to evolve you can’t go stagnant you know we’re always got new models that we’re trying to work on that we can’t even get to we’re so busy but we’ve got numerous models that we would love to bring to market and we’re just we just can’t get them there especially but you’re working on them so some some like two new styles yeah new styles new products lighter weights in our industry lightweight you know

that’s what that’s what you need right and long life so we’re always and i think the interchangeable parts yeah it’s gotta be big like you know that way you don’t get a little tiny accident you know how to get a new trailer you want to be able to unbolt it and put a new one on you know yeah and that’s not as common like that philosophy that it’s not as common in this day and age more of it like things are built to like if one thing breaks out by a whole new thing yeah that’s a lot and i think it’s refreshing to see in your industry that’s not the case still yeah you know so do you see any big swings any big changes coming to your industry that you can foresee or or any innovations that you’re hoping to see i i don’t know you know i mean it’s some of the stuff’s gonna be forced on us like climate rules luckily we’re in you know we’re so diverse that we’re not just building vans and reefers we sell those we sell great danes but you know aerodynamics and different different fuel

saving concepts are coming out and and they’re forcing these rules where there’s not even technology that has caught up to it and those nobody likes to be forced to do anything but that’s some of the stuff that we’ll see coming but like carbon fibers and things like that coming into the industry i mean it’s common but it’s not quite there it’s not readily available everywhere electric vehicles you know i mean that’s something that’s coming with the semi trucks but the cost like we priced one out just for our local truck yeah and you know it’s 200 000 bucks 250 000 more than what we pay now so we’re not going to run out and buy this stuff you know just to not run fuel there’s so much new technology it’s kind of like i almost compared to like when blu-ray came out there was also i don’t remember what it’s called like there was a different one there was two of them yep i feel like that’s the case with so much of this technology so it’s so hard to know what to do and i’ve been talking about a dvd player like

we’re spending 200 000 it’s a big commitment yeah you know and i i talked to a guy named pete thomas about pgm markets planet palladium rhodium he’s been talking about the tokyo olympics running all on hydrogen fuel so that’s different now they’re talking about hydrogen cars not just electric not just like you’re not just your teslas yeah something more like in the middle and i don’t even unders i can’t wrap my head around at all you know but well it’s not here yet no it’s not here and is that gonna come our way is that gonna change i’m a i could change a lot of things like i could in my industry too because those cars have different components that are recyclable we have to deal with the the batteries into life you know yeah and then i never even thought about the aerodynamics of your trailers coming into yeah they’re making us do um you know low rolling resistance tires on trailers going into california tire pressure is that all government stuff yeah okay and it’s and certain models will be forced to put all that stuff on i mean just that’s no

option you have to buy it this way and there’s probably some stuff they haven’t looked at though some some risk they’re accruing by putting doing everything that you add adds cost and weight you know and so some of it just doesn’t make sense to me and you know it it really doesn’t make sense if they ever force you know agricultural guys to do it shorter hauls doesn’t make any sense they never get up to speed yeah and they’re losing payload and so we we try not to just the new gimmicks just put them on our traders we try not to we we know it costs money and it adds weight and so whatever we don’t have to we’re not unless you know or do your proper research yeah we do some cool things like we work with university of idaho we did some mini wind tunnel testing on some of our traders just to check okay what we currently build you know and is there an improvement the way we build our trailers and there is you know like our hotel trailers and then our posts we were checking our posts and we put

nose cones we’ve been doing that for years on the front of curtain vans and and different ag traders okay and we actually got some really good data from them that you know like the miles per gallon yeah that’s what they’re after yeah it just saves you a little bit of fuel so some of those make sense and we’ll see what what’s coming in the future well i’m excited to see maybe do a follow-up in a few years yeah well i kind of like to end it this way like give us like your number one person who’s inspired you number one or two two as many as you want to say well my you know my dad’s got big boots that i got to try and feel that guy is amazing yeah and that he’s he’s not college educated at all he’s straight from a farm yeah you know he passed high school that’s it but it’s just he’s just through hard work and um in this industry he’s kind of you know really learned trailers he’s he’s like an engineer but he’s not yeah he just knows trailers and what’s going to work

and what doesn’t work and just trying to gather as much of that information as i can while he’s still around um has been that’s just been one of my main goals oh yeah other than that i don’t i don’t know i don’t have any people that i really look up to no one famous or anything yeah i think the number one answer is that’s my answer yeah i’m dead you know so he’s pretty amazing guy in the trailer industry and oh manufacturing and i’m really excited to get uh younger generations you know my kids my nephews involved yeah and get them to you know have a good work ethic um love their job just want to go into work every day and and work hard and you know and then and and take that into next generations also that’s important that is really important and that’s something that our industry and the scrap for cycling like i think that’s what we could be better at it’s like trying to get the younger people i love scrap well i did too you know but before i started working here i had no idea about it

i didn’t even think about it you know and i was like holy crap like is all this coming into this little yard it’s huge and that’s where i want to talk to you later about maybe getting involved some of those high school things yeah like uh i think we could kind of do some some teamwork on some of those yep and tours the tours yep yep all right man well thank you so much yeah thank you have a good one it’s been great thank you