American Towing and Recovery Institute onThe Go
American Towing and Recovery Institute onThe Go
Legislative Advocacy and Tow Industry Progress with Bob Gorman
Discover the electrifying future of towing in our latest episode with Wes Wilburn, as he recounts his experience teaching an electric vehicle class and teases the upcoming events in Chicago and Indianapolis. We're not just talking shop; we're equipping you with the knowledge to stay safe and educated on the road. Also, we've got Bob Gorman on the line, sharing his insights on legislative advocacy and prepping us for the 40th annual tow show in Lake George, where industry camaraderie and innovation take center stage.
Imagine the bustle of Washington, the clink of glasses at a governor's luncheon, and the buzz of conversations among towing pros from across the nation. That's where DJ Harrington and I found myself, navigating rain and tight security to champion our state association's cause. Join me as I explore the unity forged through the Towing and Recovery Association, the tactical prowess of the Tremont strategy group, and the seamless execution at the leadership conference – all while setting the scene for an unforgettable tow show experience on the horizon.
June's Tow Show weekend promises to dazzle with a flurry of activities: from the setup frenzy on Friday to the glittering light show and toe-tapping dances on Saturday night. For our vendor friends eager to showcase their latest innovations, we share how to grab your exhibitor spot and make the most of the advertising opportunities to captivate your audience. It's more than just an event; it's a community celebration that we can't wait to share with you at the Holiday Inn and Tiki Resort – remember, "ESTRA" is your golden ticket!
Welcome one and all to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
Speaker 1:Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry. I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Tow Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilburn, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Towing Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina. He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States. Wes has been published over 100 times in major towing publications published over 100 times in major towing publications. Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrid, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles. Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers. He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-earth teaching style. No-transcript. Without further ado, here's my dear friend and a great guy for our industry, wes Wilber.
Speaker 2:Well, dj, as always, I appreciate your kind words. I do, and I thank you for being here and working with us again today. It's great to hear your voice, glad you're doing well. So I just got back from doing an EV class for the Tollington Recovery Association of South.
Speaker 3:Carolina.
Speaker 2:I did that with Spartanburg, which is what they call the upstate part of.
Speaker 3:South Carolina?
Speaker 2:I don't know that I've ever done any training in that exact area of the state, so it's nice to be there. They did a great job, ted Nan and all the association members had a great turnout these days. There had been, I think, 50 different towing companies represented there.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:For a Tuesday meeting. They had an association meeting before lunch, had lunch and had me for about two hours doing some training. It was a great turnout. It was a rainy day, so you know folks are busy. It was a great turnout, they really did so. They did a great job with that. I got to give them all the credit. Just got back from that Getting ready for an event coming up in Chicago here, May 3rd, 6 to 9 pm.
Speaker 2:We're going to do that on the EV electric vehicle class. It's going to be at Lynch Chicago. Saturday, sunday two-day heavy duty recovery with rotator. Classes almost showed up. People better register if they want to be part of that. About two weeks later we'll be in Indianapolis, Indiana, May 18th, for a one-day heavy duty and May 19th for a one-day light duty.
Speaker 2:Folks can get information about that on our website, wwwampowriorg, for our schedule of all our upcoming classes. Thanks to all the other stuff we do YouTube, et cetera I'm sounding like an old person calling it the YouTube DJ. I've got to cut that out. I think Sometimes it just naturally comes out like that sounding like an old person calling it the YouTube DJ. I've got to cut that out. I think Sometimes it just naturally comes out like that. Anyway, that's what's going on with me right now. We've got a great interview. I'll actually talk about where I will be in June the Estrus Show. We have a friend of the podcast that'll be here talking about what's going on. We're going to take a quick break. I know it's a short little segment, but I feel like I can talk about it. So we're going to get right to the break, get right to our guest. Hang around, listeners. We'll be right back, thank you.
Speaker 1:Welcome back listeners. You're listening, of course, to the American Tone Recovery Institute podcast with Wes Wilburn and DJ Harrington. Each and every week, we do our best to bring you the right episodes, like this one. Here and after this, you'll hear our guests for today. Make sure you download and listen. Make sure you download and listen. We're available on Spotify, itunes, andorra Stitcher, iheartmedia, amazon or wherever you get your podcasts. Well, wes, we got a guy that's been on before who's our guest, so why don't you introduce Bob?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Friend of the program. President of Astra, the Empire State Towing and Recovery Association, bob Borman how are you today, Bob?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. Wes. It's good to be with you and DJ again and have an opportunity to tell you guys what's going on and all your listeners what's going on in New York State and what's coming up the second weekend of June, our big 40th toe show in Lake George, new York.
Speaker 2:Yeah, boy, we're excited about that. We're personally attending our app, clever bb-clevercom, sponsoring the auction on Friday night. There's a whole lot of other things going on at the show and I'm excited you're here to tell us about that. But before we get to the show, what's been going on with the association?
Speaker 3:What have you all been up to up there? Well, a lot of lobbying at the state level. We've got some bills a cleanup debris bill that started in Long Island from a few obviously non-member powers that didn't want to clean up, and then a senator got a hold of it and wrote a whole bunch of stuff on assembly and they passed it and the governor was ready to sign it and we held it up Because in that wording was that we would not be able to charge, that the cleanup would be in fact part of the tow, and I'm like, no, you've got to itemize it. So we were working with the governor's office and the Senate and the Assembly have good working relationships, working with our lobbyist Ostroff, who's done a phenomenal job for us, and so we've got it handled. I actually went back up. I was as a new county legislator. I was up in Albany for a legislative conference. I actually physically met these people and went to their office and we had a good working relationship established. So we're working through the language of that. And we also have an insurance issue in New York, of course. After 9-11, we've all had insurance issues every business in New York State but towing especially in the five boroughs of New York City is especially getting difficult as carriers are pulling out and they're writing whatever county they want to write in New York, they write that county. So well, we've got some issues going on.
Speaker 3:And then we went to the Hill Day with TRAA Towing Recovery Association of America, with TRAA Recovering Association of America and their lobbyist Tremont Group out of Boston and Washington DC. We had 142 meetings set up. We accomplished 103. The House was in session with various bills that they were trying to pass and that was right before the State of the Union, and so we accomplished 103 meetings with the 62 people that came in from across the country. Very good networking amongst theers and even some competitors. But we're all there for one reason, and that was well, two reasons, the two main reasons we were. There is one, two the Senate had passed a bill for a slowdown move over. We were asking the House to also pass that so the president can sign it and it would be established in all 50 states across the country.
Speaker 3:The second item, which was a major item that was thrown in the 11th hour, was the Federal Trade Commission coming down on towers at the last minute over junk fees. The junk fees that the president and the administration were going after airlines and banks, et cetera. I think the trucking lobby at the last minute got towing, snuck in there. So I think we were able to convey our problems with that and I think everybody that we talked to, when we talked to all the key people on transportation government committees, I think we have a consensus that they said that the Federal Trade Commission was overstepping their bounds and to leave this a federal motor carrier, and I think we solved that. I think we solved that. Of course, you never know until you know, but I think that was taken off the docket.
Speaker 3:And while we were there, we were addressing other issues Insurance, insurance dumping. You know interstate trucking has to be regulated by a federal motor carrier. There is an insurance dumping where they have ghost trailers with little or no insurance and these rollovers and the cleanups are tens of thousands of dollars and there's multiple tow companies across the country that have multiple trucks and trailers that they can't get paid for because of this item. So we were addressing that insurance issue. We're also addressing that New York statewide as well, because you can have a car, medium truck or tractor trailer the same thing that's registered and licensed here in New York State and we're pushing for the liability portion of the insurance to cover the cleanup and disposal which is now with EV cars and vehicles and trucks. That's becoming a different issue. You know, you know with your EV training Wes that you know to put these cars into a container and fill it with water, but now it's, what do you do with the water? The water now can be called hazardous.
Speaker 3:And it does when it gets tested. So a lot of issues, a lot of eye openers, both at the state level and at the federal level. Both at the state level and at the federal level we said, look, can we just pump the brakes on this EV stuff and all these mandates until everybody can catch up and be on the same page? And that was also well-received, because they're getting a lot of pushback on various manufacturers, not only towers, insurance companies. People just don't know what to do Until the recycling places are open and fully functional, until we have a better towability spec. I was mentioning that I'm like we need to go back to those days of Joe Sciroga and Tom Luciano with the Georgia Institute and towability of vehicles. These vehicles are just going to take too much time alongside the road to move out of the road. So that's pretty much a bunch of stuff. That was, yeah, some people had. I didn't have my Garmin watch on, you know, I'm I'm a Garmin person, but somebody, some people had their Apple watches in and they logged over five miles in those tunnels Because it just seemed like you know this Senator. We went there's two Senate buildings and there's three congressional buildings with offices, and it's just, you know it was a zoo, there had to be 25,000 people in those tunnels.
Speaker 3:And you got us and we split up into I think nine groups of six or seven people really smart sat down and put this all together that this particular Senator, uh, well, like Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, he was available at this time. So the New York people, chuck Schmidt and I from Long Island, um talk to him. And then the Texas people would just kind of be quiet and sit in the background or offer any supporting you know documentation or stuff. And then, uh, you know documentation or stuff. And then, uh, you know, we would go to a uh Texas, uh congressional um uh liaison there and we would go over talk to that. And then we come back to Senator Gillibrand from here right here in uh New York, her office and talk to her transportation liaison.
Speaker 3:And then then we went, so we would go back and forth and then we split up later on and it was just, it was a very well organized uh. Three days in washington, I have to say. We had a brand new hotel, um the only you know brand new rooms and stuff, um gorgeous uh stones, throw away from the capital, even though we got Ubers. It was raining and we were all dressed up.
Speaker 3:Definitely broke in all my new dress shoes. I just got my miles in on that day.
Speaker 2:A lot of work, yeah, A lot of people don't see all that effort. On behalf of the state association.
Speaker 3:You know they'll see the actual working classes, like what you do. But this is all behind-the-scenes stuff, the phone calls. Well, we have a governor's luncheon next Wednesday down in Manhattan, so I'm trying to coordinate, get some coverage down there. We've got Joe Robles, our treasurer, from Staten Island. He's down at a TRA meeting next week to Toshio in Florida. So you know all these things going on all over the place and we're all hands-on. So everybody's working together. Everybody's a volunteer.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:We're taking time away from our businesses. Yes, yes, that's exactly right, we have. Yeah, that was a lot of time, a lot of time. I mean even the Albany Capitol. There's some walking to do there when you're walking from one side to the other and up and down stairs and elevators and stuff, through security I mean. And of course, capitol security was on point, with the State of the Union coming up and everything. So that was tight as well. Yeah, it was good. It was good to see people. One of our vendors was down there, auto Data Direct, the new one, new associate member. He'll come up with his people and have a booth. So, yeah, that was good to see those people.
Speaker 3:We actually had another eight Congress people and speakers come in and talk to us, including a representative from the Federal Motor Carrier. He listened and I'd be surprised. There was a ranking member, a woman from Las Vegas, congresswoman, and she knew our stuff inside and out and we didn't have to. She just blurted it right out. She has been on our side the whole time and it was good to hear from her go through that. So I have to say a little shout out to our. The friend of the industry is gay rochester from ina. She's down now in kentucky.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we had a fabulous uh dinner where 30 of us went out sat down at one table and then they were still another half a dozen that had to go out to outside tables. It was phenomenal. But just the networking that happened right there and sitting next to people from Vermont, sitting next to TDI Herb he was great with his input A gentleman from Alabama Toa Association there's only like five or six of them in that association. It was just good to sit and meet everybody and find out how they run their associations and exchange ideas and go through what training needs to be done and everybody's problems. So everybody's having very similar problems. It's good to keep everybody together in one place and have one entity TRA as the fighting force for us.
Speaker 3:I think this Tremont strategy group does a phenomenal job with their lobbying. We had little tow trucks to give out to the people with children, so they would be surprised how many little knickknacks all these Congress people and senators had on their shelves from all the different organizations. So we had the TRA tow truck and you know we had brochures. All our talking points were highlighted and put in this nice folder for each person that we talked to. So it was a very professional, well-done leadership conference that they had there and I was happy to be involved. I hadn't been as involved in the last few years and I was glad to get back into it and do that, so I think we made a difference.
Speaker 3:Boy that's good to hear.
Speaker 2:That really is. I'm glad that you went down there and represent the industry. Now I want to talk about us. We've got to talk about what's going forward. We've got a great show lined up. We're up against it. We've got to take a short break. Right after the break, will you come back and tell us?
Speaker 3:about the show Bob. Yeah, sure it's going to be phenomenal.
Speaker 2:We'll be right back, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, welcome back listeners. Of course you know you're listening to the American Tone Recovery Institute podcast. Our special guest today is Bob Gorman, so remember to like, review and share everywhere. We can't thank you enough. This is the number one podcast in the towing and recovery industry and it's because of you referring us to fellow listeners and fellow towers. Remember, if you want to hear a professional like a Bob Gorman, dial our hotline number here at the studio, 706-409-5603, and Wes will do his very best to get that pro on the line. So, wes, I'll turn it back over to you and Bob and we're all interested in the show, all right?
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, dj, I appreciate that, and, of course, thanks to our listeners. So Bob we got the 40th anniversary of the AstroTrek show coming up at Lake George, New York. Looks like it's going to be a great event. We're happy to participate as a small part of it, but tell us about what's going on this year.
Speaker 3:Well, really you weren't too small of a part. I'll just go through the schedule real quick, you know. So everybody knows what's going on. It's June 7th, 8th and 9th. It's the second weekend in June, so we're up there Friday. We'll set up on Friday morning, we open at 1 until 5. And then we break to a meet and greet dinner and that's sponsored by Marshall Sterling, which also has insurance offices across New York State and is our meet and greet dinner, and that's sponsored by marshall and sterling, which also is uh, has insurance offices across new york state and is our uh uh administrator for our safety group with state insurance fund for workers comp. So they are the sponsor for the dinner there's usually I think I'm.
Speaker 2:I tell you that much.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah they also do the cigar. They they bring up the cigars for the cigar night with the cognac and and that's at the hotel. Um, and we were trying to move that down to the light show, but we'll get to that in a second and uh, so at the meet and greet, that's where Wes you kicked in and said, hey, you know, about a week before the tow show, why don't we do an auction? Never really did too much with auctions, but we had a phenomenal time with a live auction and Wes, thank you so much. That was a huge, uh infusion of cash to the association. Not only that, but it was fun, I mean because typically I'll just get up there and we'll have awards and everything. But you know, chuck Schmidt, I think, got an antique truck. You brought some interesting things. We had Haas Alerts there. We had Big Toes there giving out classes, house alert gave out alerts and and memberships for their devices well, we had.
Speaker 3:I asked the board of directors to bring a basket that of wines and items that were grown in their region of the state. So we had that as the silent auction, but the live auction everybody kind of got into it. So it was very similar to the boat. Remember, wes, we did that on the Minnehaha. Remember, wes, we did that on the.
Speaker 2:Minnehaha.
Speaker 3:And, as a matter of fact, with my friend Marianne that was doing the credit cards, she was doing the Vanna White thing. You were going around In fact we sold your hat to somebody and then we gave it back to you or something. Somebody bought your hat. God, that's going back. You know, we were selling snatch blocks for ridiculous amounts of money and some, you know, chains and all kinds of rain gear and I think I got some. I think I got some rain gear out of it, I believe.
Speaker 3:But we did that on the dinner cruise, you know. So it's nice to do that. You know everybody's going to sit and it's nice to do that. Everybody's going to sit and they have a few stations. Melissa Perlow, our tow show chairperson, actually takes care of all the arrangements there. But they had sliders, they had pulled pork. I mean the host hotel, the Holiday Inn in Lake George, does a great job for us. So we're very thankful that they actually have held the pricing to the same for the last five years. So we book out the whole hotel and outdoor pool. Hopefully the weather is going to be it should be mid-70s that weekend. Sometimes it scoots up to 80. 70s mid-70s that weekend. Sometimes it scoots up to 80.
Speaker 3:We have an outdoor pool to chill out. That's the area where we'll have. Let me stop there a second. We're at Friday night with the auction, the silent auction. We continued that at the Esther Trailer. Then Saturday, we're open. That's our big day, that's, you know, a lot of day trippers will come up and stop in, uh, or we hope to have the road, uh, for for day parking, but there's, uh, there'll be parking available. And so Saturday will be the show, all the vendors, demonstrations. We'll go on all day long and then at night. Oh, let me add that we'll have a beverage truck there at Aranek Brewery, and we'll have that during the day, and then we'll have a food truck, and the food truck was great, she was fairly new and she is going to be there for breakfast, lunch and now dinner, because after the light show we'll have a light show that starts at where do you think? It starts at 7 o'clock at night and it goes till 10. And that's sponsored by.
Speaker 2:This is on Saturday, saturday, saturday night yeah, that's sponsored by this is on saturday, saturday night.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's sponsored by federal light and my god, we're getting 150 plus people down there to view their trucks. And melissa and I were the judges the first year and I'm just like they're parked in there so tight. So then we got to move some trucks out when we get down to the last couple and everybody got into it and everybody was happy. And I have to say, knock on wood, the pageants have been going very well where everybody they pretty much know whose truck is going to win the beauty pageant, which truck is going to win the light pageant. I mean, we're splitting hairs, but you know, on some of this equipment, uh, but that works out. And raphael neves from ac's towing in the capital region, albany area. He is going to sponsor a band. He also sponsors the two-way walkie-talkie radios that we use from his company and so he's going to provide. A friend of his has a band and so we're going to have a band and music and dancing once the light show is over with, and then we're just going to stay in the park until 10, 11 o'clock at night. So that's the newest thing for that.
Speaker 3:And yeah, when you call the Holiday Inn or the Tiki Resort. Sure you mention Estra, e-s-t-r-a, um. And. And then we have blocks of rooms set aside because the uh, the Belmont States, typically in Long Island is going to be held that same weekend, saturday at Saratoga. Saratoga is about a half an hour south of Lake George, so that will uh, there's a lot of people coming up for that. That's a huge race. Hotels are a premium. Uh, just uh.
Speaker 3:One of my directors from uh uh regional vice president down in Binghamton just called and said hey, they're almost double the price. I said we'll check with the Holiday Inn because they're not. So we are extremely fortunate. We booked this and booked Lake George. And I have to, you know, quick shout out to the Village of Lake George, the town village committee and the town committee. They help us out quite a bit with what we need to do. We've been going there for so long. It's a good working friendship with the folks up there. So we bring a lot of money. They know that we bring a lot of money to the area and they're always looking to bring more. We had over 1,000 people from 16 states and Canada last year. We think we're going to get closer to 1,500 this year. But book those hotel rooms and mention Astra's name and you will get our current discounted pricing for a limited time. So I don't know whether it's the end of April or maybe the first weekend of May, but you've got to call and get those rooms reserved now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's a real nice show. I've gone many different times over the years, One last year and I really enjoyed it. Looking forward to being back this year. We're going to do the auction up bigger and better this year. We already got a bunch of people working it. I got the Renwalski crews modifying and helping create a little girl's pink pedal car. That's a tow truck, oh wow, and also that's a tow truck, oh wow, and also that's a reproduction of an antique tow truck.
Speaker 2:It's a reproduction pedal car. We're converting over and we're also maybe trying to work out the details to have a maybe one dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Astro's tow show. Now this is the 40th anniversary of the toe show, is that correct?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, that's how, if you ever get a hold of Chuck Schmidt's ear. Long Island Toe Association had a toe show 40 years ago. They invited the upstate New York crew crew to come down and they split the proceeds. That was pretty much the start of astro. So astro started at a tow show in long island and we'd moved the tow show various years. Um, I wasn't on the board, but it was in buffalo. Uh, they try to have something in Albany at one point.
Speaker 3:But we go to Lake George and this is the best thing for the listeners out there. It's a walking community. So you can, you know, 10 minute walk go to any restaurant. Actually, a 10 minute walk you can get to the lake. That's how close we are at Charleswood Park can get to the lake. That's how close we are. At Charles Wood Park, right next to the Fort William Henry, there's historic things to do. There's Prospect Mountain for a hike, there's just a ton of things to do in the Adirondacks of New York. So it's always been a great place to go to. But yeah, I bet you it's 35.
Speaker 2:The temperature is real mild that time of year up there, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Yes, it's not too too hot. You know, sometimes you'll get a good hot sunny day. You got to make sure you bring the sunscreen and a hat, but we sell extra hats and they're the best for the sun, other than Wes's hat. You know, let's draw a hat, um, uh. But you know, the boots come with tents and uh so. Uh, there, there is coverage, there, there's working bathrooms in the park, you know, um so, and then you'll have the food and you'll have a tent to sit down in the shade and have whatever. A lot of guys Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I just wanted to find out this last year, with a lot of serious players walking through that show.
Speaker 3:Oh, we had people come up from Brooklyn with their own people to polish the trucks. We had people come up with their families. I mean, this is a family-friendly environment. For years we would have a lot of motorcycles, but Livonia Motorcycle Rally is the same weekend as the second week now, so everybody's up in New Hampshire so we typically have the entire village of Lake George to ourselves. So what there might be is a craft fair at a small park down by the lake. People don't take any of our parking there. It's far enough away. But it's nice that if you need a break from the tow show or your family wants to do something different, they can go shopping in the village. There's arcade games in buildings along the lake to do that for the kids. A lot of activities, of course. There's the wet and wild parks and, of course, a great escape where we had the tow show a couple of times down below. That's always, you know, another amusement park that's available for the family. So, yeah, there's just so many activities to do.
Speaker 3:I never see any of those as busy as I am at the tow show. I I think I logged about 27 000 steps on a saturday, so I was. I was pretty beat that particular saturday. A couple couple hundred were probably back and forth to view the bars there after everything's said and done. But don't have to do that this time because everybody, everybody can in the park, so that's nice. The food truck's going to have a dinner menu. It's going to be different than the lunch menu, so she had some items, but whatever. She had hot dogs, hamburgers, I think we're going to go into a chicken dish and possibly some pulled pork. So she's going to work on all that stuff and fix that menu up. Of course there's always the egg, ham and cheese, a hard roll or wraps or whatever they had for the morning. All that stuff was good too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very good. We ate off the food truck several times while we were there. It doesn't make it so nice if there's so much stuff so close by, if you want to sit down at a restaurant or something.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, a few like a 10-minute drive. There's the Law Cabin, which everybody a Law Jam restaurant, that's always a good fan favorite of that George's Restaurant around past the Marina, past the Million Dollar Beach, that's a big one too. I never got. I never go out to those restaurants. I always stay in close, actually, before the food truck. You know I'll have breakfast or lunch. I used to have it right at the hotel because the hotel food we eat there Thursday night, we have a board meeting thursday night and try to get our act together for the weekend and all the planning and, uh, that food is is very good. So there's, that's why this hotel is just such a gem for us.
Speaker 2:It works all the way around so let's get our listeners clued in again. The show starts on Friday. What's the date?
Speaker 3:June 7th. Friday, june 7th, and then Saturday 1 o'clock, yeah, and June 9th on Sunday. Sunday we meet, it's a half a day, 9 to 12 we give out the awards what's the Saturday hours, rob?
Speaker 2:let's do it all to them.
Speaker 3:I think we start at nine. Yeah, it's nine to five and then Friday, but then Saturday evening right we're going to stay there, we're going to go back there at 7, the light shows at 8 and we're going to have a band that'll go right till 10 o'clock, maybe later and then Sunday.
Speaker 2:What's the program?
Speaker 3:Sunday are awards, scholarship presentation, um and uh. Yeah, I don't. I. I haven't seen all the demonstrations. What we've got going on Cause Saturday is you know, we got Bill Hafner up there at uh um Tulloway LLC, who takes care of uh the demonstrations and works with all the trainers, like yourself and Brian they do a great job of being fair to everybody and giving everybody a shot to do what they want.
Speaker 3:That's one of the excellent things about your show, yeah yeah, some places got to use this manufacturer truck and we don't. Really it doesn't matter. You need a hook. You need a hook and a cable and a truck. We don't care what color it is, we don't care what style it is. You should be able to work with every single truck.
Speaker 2:What I'm saying is your whole crew is there's no favoritism play between brands and brands of training, etc.
Speaker 3:It's always been super fair committee and uh, little mike bauer. Mike bauer is doing that now for us and covering because I'm just so busy doing everything else. But uh, yeah, that's. That's. The fun part is staying on the cutting edge and making sure people know like your app I mean I'm you're gonna have something to display your app there and how it works right there. Do you have a screen set up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, we're going to use a big screen TV and run it. You know like we're running it all off the computer, okay, good good Okay. Yeah, well, you know free trials is a big thing too, you know, people put it right on their phone and try it. So yeah, we're all over that, Okay.
Speaker 3:Great, great trials is a big thing too.
Speaker 2:People put it right on their phone and try it.
Speaker 3:We're all over that, okay, great.
Speaker 1:Hey Wes. I got a question, bob. What if somebody wants to? Can you take any more exhibitors? We have a lot of listeners that own companies. Do you have any exhibit space still left over? Well, actually, yes, if you have any exhibit space left over.
Speaker 3:Well, actually, yes, If you go to the Estra website good thought, DJ, we forgot about the website EstraNYorg Hit the Toe Show link. It'll bring you to the Estra Toe Show page or you can Google Estra Tow Show and there is an outline of the park. It's not guaranteed. That's the way it was kind of set up for the last couple of years.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So there is a vendor space that you could look at, but you have to call Melissa Perlow in Long Island and her number is listed there. I don't have it right in front of me, um, but she will work with whatever vendor wants to go where, to the best of her ability. It's nothing's guaranteed, but we're just. You know, some people like to be in this certain area. That have been there before. Some Some people have never been there before.
Speaker 3:Really, there isn't a bad spot because you have a track. You can see that on the website. There's a track around, so everybody's walking around the track and we'll put trucks and a beauty pageant on one end. So you know it's a beauty pageant or truck sales. So they're parking their trucks and they also sell that particular brand or style or truck or whatever equipment they want. But then most of the other vendors insurance vendors and stuff. We make sure that we're very conscious of not putting competitors next to each other so people can walk between each of the different booths. The booths come in different sizes there's 10x10, 10x20, 10x30. We have the tents for those. We provide tables and chairs. So estranyorg would be the best place to go to.
Speaker 2:They can feel free.
Speaker 3:If they need a phone number right now, I can give them my phone number, which is here at Gorman's Garage with the 845-452-4925. Call me direct. I will get you to the right person and get you the right information. I have a vendor packet. I can email them out. The vendor packet is available and sponsorship is available on the website and you can simply fill out those forms and email them back and Kelly Holt, our executive secretary, will take care of getting the advertising together. We have a tow show booklet. So even just to come to the tow show, just to come up to the Esther trailer and grab a booklet of all our members and associate members and all the phone numbers, I keep one of those books. I tell everybody keep one of those books and all your tow trucks in case you break down somewhere in new york state. You got somebody to call exactly somebody you know.
Speaker 3:Yes yes, so you can go on the website. You can join as a driver member. You can join as a company. If you can join as a company, if you own the company, you have to be a company member. If you're a driver that works for a company, whether they're a member or not, you can be a driver member for yourself and get the mailing of the hook, which is out in the mail right now. So we'll have extra copies of that, copies of that. With all this litigation that we've been going through, all that recouped, all new members, all the associate members listed, anybody that wants to advertise will be listed there. So a lot of advertisement available to to vendors throughout, and we know that's how. That's what. What makes our toe show as valuable as it is is that the vendors all sold stuff. I mean you, you went back. You didn't go back with a whole lot of stuff, did you ask with Brian? I mean your, your tables were, were busy the whole, the whole time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we have golf carts. I mean, I think we've loaded up a couple of golf carts worth of stuff for people to bring back to their vehicles so they can go home. Uh, that's, that's the greatest thing. And you always have tow show specials, which we appreciate okay you know, this is, this is what I used to do.
Speaker 3:Well, what I try to do, and what I've done at past tow shows, is just wait for most of my purchases till I get to the show, get the show special and then go to each vendor and try to buy something from each person. So that's, that's, that's the nice thing about this kind of an environment, and people will appreciate that and they know it. I have one guy go well, why don't you buy that over here for me? Cause I said I like to buy something from everybody. He goes oh yeah, well, he understood that, he agreed to it. So we had a lot of good compliments.
Speaker 3:The last three years I've had great compliments from everybody. Everybody come up. Wow, what a nice show. Really appreciate everything. I mean there's just no animosity at all built up about anything. Everybody worked together. My board now when they show up on thursday night, I mean that's the board meeting. It's a kind of a mandatory board meeting. But you know, so that's. We make sure that friday morning we're all hands on and everybody can get set up and get in place and and so you can kick back and enjoy the show.
Speaker 1:Well, Bob, the press has listeners from all across the United States, Canada, 380 outside the United States that listen to the podcast. But there are a lot of listeners here in the United States that are sitting listening to this podcast saying you know what Lake George at this time is so beautiful, it's worth taking my family on a nice ride and be proud of the industry we're in. So you may get some people from outside the state wanting to come, so that way they need to get reservations early.
Speaker 3:So something I forgot and thanks DJ for reminding me that is. Yes, we did have people from 16 states. Some were vendors from Florida, alabama. You've got big EV trucks now that, or trucks with broken suspensions or putting them on a truck dolly, I don't. Uh, I don't know if that person will be at our particular show yet, but this show in New York state is equidistant from Pennsylvania to Maine. There is no other tow show in the Northeast other than ours. Baltimore is down a bit, so so there's no New Hampshire tow show, unfortunately. There's no, nothing in Massachusetts. So everybody from that state, the whole Northeast and Canada, comes to our show. So there's no New Hampshire Tow Show, unfortunately there's nothing in Massachusetts. So everybody from that state, the whole Northeast and Canada comes to our show. So we've probably had eight people from Canada. Of course our hosteler, devin Banks, will be there. She'll be there in the booth with a few of her people from Chicago. But yeah, that's. And we advertise in the Canadian Toe Times and Toe Times here in the United States. So it goes to all 50 states and there's always something to do in the Adirondacks. So welcome everybody to come up there.
Speaker 3:This is, you know, we should. We were thinking about changing the show to a regional show, but we don't know whether some of the other states might have their own show eventually or not, so didn't want to go through all that. But yeah, this is the Northeast Regional Tow Show and our 40th anniversary. The website estranyorg. Check out the information. It's free. There's no admission. That's something the village of Lake George still can't get over. Everybody else charges admission to everything that they go. We do have a registration so we can keep track of where people are buying their hotel rooms for occupancy tax rebates that we get from Lake George area. It's a lot of money. It's really important, and we'd like everybody to pre-register, have your tickets already pre-printed so you can just come in and you know as soon as you walk through the gates. You just, you know, just take part in the show one way or another, get something to eat, something to drink and relax, do some shopping, do some heavy purchasing. Some people walk away with a lot of big stuff. So there's something for everybody.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree. And just listening to this, this Wes, I want to go well we're going to be there in four seasons maybe hopefully you can come up.
Speaker 2:We're going to be there working a booth all weekend and be there for the Friday Night Auction, of course, which I'm looking forward to. The whole team is. I want to thank you for being here today. Appreciate you being back on the show. Great interview. Any parting words as we get ready to shut this thing down.
Speaker 3:DJ we always welcome. We will set you up in your own little booth and you know if Wes doesn't need help selling all his items, but we'd love to have you guys up. I can't wait. Is April coming up too, as well, Wes?
Speaker 2:Yes, April will be there and the app creator will be there as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, good, good, it's going to be an awesome time it's going to be, so please reach out those listeners. Let me know that you heard this on the podcast and this is why you're there. That would be nice to know. There might be a checkmark in the box when you register. But yeah, it's going to be a great show and looking forward to it. We just fingers crossed for good, decent weather. And it's because this was an outside show. We have just a few inside meetings that we have to do. We do an insurance meeting on Friday for an hour. Everything else is outside. So please come early, stay late and enjoy the trip.
Speaker 2:Thanks for being here, bob. Looking forward to seeing you there. All right, thanks, les Great to talk to Bob.
Speaker 3:Looking forward to seeing you there. All right, Thanks, Les. Great to talk to you. Looking forward to seeing you in April. Dj can't wait.
Speaker 1:I'd like to see you in person. You got it, Bob. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:All right, all right, take care, guys. Thank you.