Auto Care ON AIR
"Auto Care ON AIR" is a candid podcast dedicated to exploring the most relevant topics within the auto care industry. Each episode features insightful discussions with leading experts and prominent industry figures. Our content is thoughtfully divided into four distinct shows to cover four different categories of topics, ensuring collective professional growth and a comprehensive understanding of the auto care industry.
The Driver's Seat: Navigating Business and the Journey of Leadership
To understand organizations, you need to understand their operators. Join Behzad Rassuli, as he sits down for in-depth, one-on-one conversations with leaders that are shaping the future. This show is a "must listen" for how top executives navigate growth, success, and setbacks that come with the terrain of business.
Carpool Conversations: Collaborative Reflections on the Road to Success
Hosted by Jacki Lutz, this series invites a vibrant and strategic mix of guests to debate and discuss the power skills that define success today. Each episode is an entertaining, multi-voice view of a professional development topic and a platform for our members to learn about our industry's most promising professionals.
Indicators: Discussing Data that Drives Business
This show explores data relevant to the automotive aftermarket. Join Mike Chung as he engages with thought leaders in identifying data that will help you monitor and forecast industry performance. Whether global economic data, industry indicators, or new data sources, listen in as we push the envelope in identifying and shaping the metrics that matter.
Traction Control: Reacting with Precision to the Road Ahead
Every single day, events happen, technologies are introduced, and the base assumptions to our best laid plans can change. Join Stacey Miller for a show focused on recent news from the global to the local level and what it may mean for auto care industry businesses. Get hot takes on current events, stay in the know with timely discussions and hear from guests on the frontlines of these developments.
Auto Care ON AIR
HDAW Special: Open Mic Sessions (Part 1)
Part 1 of 2, Traction Control host, Stacey Miller, interviews heavy duty industry experts at Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week about the latest trends and hot topics in the industry!
1:41 Bryan Funke, HDA Truck Pride
19:07 Doug Dole, Cummins Drive Train and Breaking Systems
34:34 Jamie Irvine, Parts for Trucks
53:55 Cara Mitchell, BBB Industries
To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.
To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast
Welcome to Auto Care On Air, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Stacey Miller, vice President of Communications at the Auto Care Association, and this is Traction Control, where we chat about recent news from the global to the local level and what it may mean to the industry, featuring guests on the front lines. Let's roll. Welcome back to another episode of Traction Control. Really excited to bring you this special heavy duty edition of Traction Control where we're talking with industry leaders at HDAW. That's Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week and the reason this is so exciting is because the commercial vehicle segment of the aftermarket is such an important part to our economy, to the vitality of all the goods and services that travel on America's highways and byways. And basically and shout out to Tina Hubbard, if you bought it, a truck brought it. So really critical part of the industry and really excited to talk to them about what are the most important issues that are happening here, what are the challenges, what are the opportunities and how are businesses really responding so that we can all work together to thrive. Please enjoy.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to another episode of Traction Control. We're here at HDAW and I'm so excited to have Brian Funke here with me. He's the COO at HDA Truck Pride and I almost wanted to call him Brian Funke. That's an arrested development joke for anybody out there who listens, and if you don't get it, I need you to watch that show immediately. But welcome Brian.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:And thanks for letting us have a little fun with your name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, always.
Speaker 1:You're one of the coolest COOs I've ever met, so personable, really enjoyable to work with. What are you looking forward to the most this week here at HDAW?
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate the compliments, because that's a lie, but I appreciate it. So you know I'm looking forward to, honestly, it's just the people you know. That's what makes this industry great. It's probably the same answer everybody else gives you know type of thing. But you know I was telling you just before we started. You know I ran into someone I haven't seen in 20 years and we were great friends growing up as engineers and all that type of thing. And to see him after 20 years and meet his son that was 22 was awesome, right. So it's really all about that part of it. And then really talking through kind of some of the things that we're doing to try to change distribution a little bit, you know those are the really the big ones that I look forward to every year for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what some of those things are that you do in a change distribution, because obviously HDA is a big name. You have a pretty big title. I kind of glossed over the fact that you're COO, but you're so much more. You've got CFO, you've got marketing. Tell us a little bit more about, like what you do and then what you guys are doing for the industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, yeah, so I you know, chief operating officer. You know we always like to joke that my job is to make to do what Tina says and make her look good while doing so so that's my job really Loving.
Speaker 2:Tina. But what that means every day is I lead our technology, finance, marketing, legal and HR teams, and we're a pretty small organization we're 35, so some of those things don't take a lot. Hr is pretty easy every single day, but really all my focus is really around marketing, technology and finance. Okay, from a financial perspective, we process hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of transactions every day. Wow, right, it's a mind-boggling number, right? So I don't do anything with that because I can't do that. I just count the numbers afterwards and make sure it's good. And then, from a technology perspective, it's really about how we're trying to bring new technologies to help our members and shareholders grow their business and operate better and more effectively. That's really what we do. And then, from a marketing perspective, education rolls up in our marketing. So we are super focused on education and creating curriculums and places for our members, shareholders, suppliers, industry folks to come learn about our industry, understand our day-to-day, understand products all those type of things.
Speaker 1:What's like the top thing that you wish people knew about our industry that they don't. Yet since you're involved in the education spectrum, I'm sure there's quite a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, there's a lot. I grew up in the heavy-duty side as an engineer, right, went to the light vehicle aftermarket for years, right, and I came back to heavy-duty and I think the biggest thing that even exists between light vehicle and heavy-duty is that there is just as much opportunity for personal growth and development and career growth and development in heavy duty as there is in light vehicle or any other industry, right? Um, you know, I think a lot of people are put off by the aftermarket sometimes. Right, we talk about this a lot as an industry, right? Um, if you want to wear a suit every day, well then, wear a suit every day. You don't have to have grease under your nails. If you want grease under your nails, we can do that too. Like, whatever you want to do, we can do in this industry and I think that's kind of a hidden gem across our industry right, you can do whatever you want right?
Speaker 2:If you would have told me 10 years ago, 15 years ago, that we'd be sitting here in a podcast for the heavy duty aftermarket, I would have said that's bull, there's no way that's happening. And what are we doing, right? Yeah so you would have never thought you were doing this right an industry constantly under evolution.
Speaker 1:I mean evidence, the fact that you just mentioned that you were speaking to someone from 20 years ago outside of the podcast booth and all of a sudden they've resurfaced like this industry really has like a chokehold on all of us right like once you're here, you can't ever leave, and I think that's a good thing. People are really happy to to stay and be a part of it.
Speaker 2:So it really is a family.
Speaker 1:It is a family lots of growth and development. You mentioned technology and that's really exciting because I'm also here learning a lot about the technology that's happening in the commercial vehicle sector. What are some of the technologies that are exciting you the most that are happening in the next couple of years?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I think so. I think there's. I think there's a lot of different angles for technology. Right, if you talk about the vehicle technology, right, super exciting things going on there that it's going to go slow. Right, evs are not going to be here immediately. Right, there's going to be electrification and it's already ongoing. Right, different drive trains and things like that, but it's going to take a long time.
Speaker 2:Right, those are exciting, but they're long-term excitement, right, it's not like, oh, I'm going to staff up or I'm going to invest a lot of resources to go after this because it's just not going to exist for a while. Right, but there's other technologies that are out there that'll make people's lives easier. Good example where I start to get excited is okay, how do we make the supply chain more efficient? Taking and I hate saying it because everybody says AI in their presentations when we talk technology but just putting a really quick AI layer on diagnostic data that is coming out of your ODB and understanding what's going on with the vehicle, where it's at, how it's operating, all those type of things, and being able to predict and have those parts ready to go before you even start, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Predictive maintenance. That's huge.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Right, there's another company working on technology to do your driver inspection reports right.
Speaker 2:So you have the DVIR reports that you have to do every day. Most people handwrite them, right, and you're like what are you going with technology or handwriting, right? And it's a driver usually walking around the car checking boxes. We don't really know what's going on, right? There's a company out there that's working on voice, too, right. So you just open up your phone, you start talking to it and you just walk around the vehicle talking and it creates the report for you, it puts it electronically and it can submit it for you. It puts it electronically and it can submit it for you. Beautiful, just cool things like that. It's just fun stuff. It's a really good application of AI. It's not intrusive, it's not overwhelming, it's just something to do. It's just easy to get done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not replacing your job. It's helping you work smarter, not harder, was something that we talked about on our last open mic.
Speaker 2:Exactly so that stuff's really really fun. Where we're at as an industry, quite honestly, is more around, and we're focused right now in HDA. Truck Pride is really all around data, product data and product images to help our guys create new sales channels. Right yeah, we always talk e-commerce. You can do it for everything, including your cataloging, your marketing, everything and you can create new sales channels that you never thought of possible. So that's really where we're focused on the technologies front is really helping them out with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean HDA Truck Pride has been one of the leaders. You guys partnered with Fleet Pride and Vipar to really take a stand for the standards and say, hey, we're adopting these. We want to make sure the entire industry has great catalog data in order to get the right part to the right place at the right time. Let's increase that supply chain efficiency, as you mentioned. That's a big focus, especially because we don't know what our supply chain is going to look like in the next couple of years and we've had a couple black swan events that affected us, but luckily we're a recession resilient industry and thankfully, uh, if a port is closed, wherever stuff is coming in, the trucks are delivering it across the country.
Speaker 2:We'll figure it out we'll figure it out.
Speaker 1:That is that is the case for sure. If there's one like takeaway or one thing you would share with folks listening about, um, like your advice or like your wishes for the heavy duty industry, when it came to like cataloging and supply chain efficiency, what, what would you tell them or how would you drag them kicking and screaming onto?
Speaker 2:this bandwagon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it's very similar to where, where light vocal was years ago, right, um, I think there's there is so much to be had in standardization for one, but just communicating effectively across the board, right, I think we, we we're still very siloed in this industry, um, and so where, when we do have the data and we do have the knowledge, we're not great about sharing it, right, and how do we share that with people and organizations across the board, knowing it's really not a competitive advantage, it's just helping all of us, right, and light vehicle kind of got there with the standards and the and the, the receivers and things like that would help that kind of progress, but they also kept their, their, what they felt was a competitive advantage to themselves, which was okay, um, and I think we, we really need to get to that spot, right, we really have to get to that spot, um, because it just helps everybody, Um, and that's across the board, whether that's product data, shipping data, whatever it may be, let's just start sharing more.
Speaker 2:Be you know, stop being so close to the vest on everything. Don't give away the farm, but give away the things that will matter for everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and we're so lucky to be here at HDAW because I know there's a lot of different technology vendors and solution providers on the show floor. I'm really looking forward to seeing, like, what are they bringing out to help us kind of like proliferate the standards and this better data that we're talking about? That's going to make this this mecca for every part of the supply chain, quite frankly, honestly so and I think the honestly, I don't.
Speaker 2:I I tend to view it with a different perspective. I don't think the sharing actually asking people to share to help the supply chain and product side of it. They're always going to feel a little bit protective of that right, but I think it's more of a knowledge transfer right. That's where the play is right. That's what we need to be doing, right? The people we're hiring and the people we'll continue to hire look to the internet first for their information, right? And the guy that they're replacing at the counter or in the bay or wherever it is is not going to post that on the internet and they're not going to really talk to you about it either. So how do we pull information and knowledge out through data standardization?
Speaker 2:right really that's to me. That's a lot of knowledge transfer. That'll help absolutely.
Speaker 1:I. I love that. That's a really like knowledge transfer. This isn't giving away the farm. This isn't sharing IP. This isn't anything proprietary. Horizon Tide lifts all boats. If we all do this, we're all going to make more sales, Absolutely All right. So I want to shift gears a little bit because obviously we just had an inauguration of a new president and policies are changing, and one of those policies that you've heard us talk about ad nauseum on auto care, on air and across all of our other channels, is right to repair. And I think what few recognize is that heavy duty has a really big role in right to repair. And again, HGA Truck Pride has been a leader in championing that effort on Capitol Hill. So tell us a little bit about what you guys have been doing in partnership with Auto Care and kind of like what we could look forward to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, you know. I think first is, if you're not participating, participate, go talk to people, go figure it out. And if you don't know what to do, just call the folks at Auto Care or CVSN and they'll tell you where to go. Right? But you know, it's just such an important, you know topic for all of us, and not just for auto parts, it's for everything. We should have choice. Every consumer, whether you are a business consumer or individual consumer, should have a choice of what you do with your vehicle or phone or computer or whatever that is. There's no reason that commercial vehicles should be restricted, um, from a legislation that allows for free choice. Right, right, that's the. That's what excites me about it. Right, that it's just a fundamental American right. Okay, um, and we've always done it safely. There's a lot of proponents out there on the other side of the fence that want to protect it, because we won't fix vehicles safely if we have that information or we'll abuse it. Well, we're going to fix the vehicle safely, and if we don't have the data, we may not fix it safely. So give it to us, right, right, so that's really fun, right, that's a really big topic. It can impact the industry impacts lives. It impacts everybody in the country, quite honestly, right, because if you don't, you know if you bought it, a truck brought it right and if they're broken down, they're not bringing it right, so your Amazon packages aren't getting there right. So it's a broad topic. It's a huge topic.
Speaker 2:We try to be involved as we possibly can. You know we'll be. Where are we going? We're going somewhere in two weeks. I think it is, you know, mid-february in DC, and then we're going. We always do the Hill Summit meetings. We're trying to organize summit meetings while we have our annual meeting in April as well. It's Easter week, so it might be a little difficult to do those things, but you know we try to be engaged as much as we possibly can at HDA, truck Pride and, quite honestly, in concert with Fleet Pride and Viapar and those guys as well, we all feel very strongly about this and we try to work as well as we can together to do that. And then you know the other. The last part that we really focus on is getting our suppliers involved as well. Right, they have more constituents, they have more employees, they have more people in these districts. We get them involved as much as we possibly can as well.
Speaker 1:That's. That's going to be the recurring theme here for 2025 and beyond in this Congress. The more voices the better. And, um, you know, we from Auto Care Association's perspective you always hear us talk about light vehicles and if you can't get to work or your family can't take the kids to school. But we started talking to legislators on Capitol Hill and really trying to translate this issue For those who didn't have a light vehicle. Maybe they don't drive, maybe they only take the metro, they rely on Uber. What if the Uber fleets can't get repaired? Your Amazon packages?
Speaker 1:that's a very touchy one, because I don't know anyone who doesn't get Amazon packages weekly at?
Speaker 1:this point in time, right, and if you bought it, a truck brought it. Props to you guys. This campaign is so powerful because you guys made an infographic that broke down. Okay, here are the goods and services that are delivered on these trucks. Here's what happens if those trucks have downtime, they don't have uptime. If something happens with those fleets, they can't get repaired. What about the groceries in the grocery store? What about the medical supplies to hospitals? What about water tanks, gas for your vehicles?
Speaker 1:right, like that's a full-on crisis if these trucks aren't on the roads, and speaking to legislators about that and sharing the impact of right to repair, if we didn't have it in those terms, was very impactful for them in that regard. So we really have to lean more into this heavy duty messaging and I'm hoping that some of our new listeners here from HDIW are going to be able to join that fight. It doesn't matter which association you talk to, but talk to your association, get involved, talk to your legislator. It's just about telling your story. Who are you? How does it impact you? I mean, you know, in summary, what were your conversations with legislators about and how not hard yeah, exactly, you know it's very intimidating, right.
Speaker 2:How not hard was it? Yeah, exactly, you know it's very intimidating, right, as just a person to walk in and you feel like you're like in this, you know these halls, these valid halls, that you're like, oh my God, it's really. It's not intimidating Once you get in the room. They're just normal people. They probably live in the town over from you. Yeah Right.
Speaker 1:They just happen to be in DC when you talk to them about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not a big deal, right, so, and most of it is that, right, you're talking more personal on how you, how you grew up, and things like that. You have these stories that you share because you're from the same area, um. And then, when it comes to the right to repair, it's very simple, it's really the summary of what you just said. Right, all right, we beat the. You know if, if you bought it, a truck brought it, we beat that all day long because that's the easiest message to get across, right, and we talk about Amazon a lot and those type of things, because it hits home very easily. And then we make sure that the bill number is up front in their face and they understand what we're trying to do, right, and then, lastly, we always ask for their consideration and for them to tell us where they're at, whether it's good or bad, and so we know leaving that door, where, um, where they're at right, we don't get an answer all the time, but we do it right, we got to ask, right, I got to ask for the sale, right, um, and you know it's just, it's a. They're great.
Speaker 2:Meetings are very fun, very empowering, um, and they are. You know, you feel like you're going to make an impact, right, and I think now is more important than it was last year because of the new administration. There's all new people. We have to educate and get this in front of them and understand it. We made great headway last year and we just ran out of time, right, um? So now the time starts again and let's go get it.
Speaker 1:Let's go get it. We're in the fourth quarter, the first quarter right, so sorry the football thing is really getting to me. Last night was the Ohio state and the Notre Dame game, and it's all anyone's been talking about a good victory for you or I fell asleep.
Speaker 2:Oh, you didn't like either. You're not either. Team doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1:No, I just watched it because I thought it was really interesting I don't know it was like the game of the century?
Speaker 1:apparently so, but legislators find that interesting, right? Like they may not have even gone to those and you know brian's telling you you can talk to him about this stuff. He's not joking, right like these are normal human beings. You walk in, you talk with them about their family. They have lots of information about their family online, their alma mater, what sports do they like. Just strike up a conversation like you would at a bar. Get to know them as a human being, and then you get to the conversation about the issues that matter to you, and they're always willing to listen.
Speaker 1:That's their job so absolutely it's an amazing part of the process and we can't thank you for being enough for being a part of it.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate it so great Well, brian.
Speaker 1:thank you again for being on Traction Control. This has been really fun.
Speaker 2:All right, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Cheers All right, have a good day.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Traction Control. I'm Stacey Miller, hdaw. Doug is my friend. He is the General Manager of Global Product Strategy at Cummins DriveTrain and Braking Systems.
Speaker 3:Welcome, Doug. Well, thank you.
Speaker 1:We're so excited to have you here. Lots of excitement going on at the show floor at HDAW and we're here sharing some of the most important takeaways that are happening. What are some of the trends that you're seeing here and what can the heavy-duty industry look forward to in 2025 and beyond, and what are some important challenges that we need to be addressing or other opportunities to make sure that we're working with our supply chain partners here to help the entire industry evolve? Thanks, Doug. Doug, tell me a little bit about your role at Cummins, because this is a very long title and it sounds to me like you handle a lot.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm responsible for product strategy on a global basis. So I've got the product managers. I've got product managers in the US, europe, latin America and Australia that report into me and really it's trying to leverage our global scale and in our global product portfolio so we can grow globally with the aftermarket, so that I also have the aftermarket engineering team that reports to me and then product program management and and the business analytics and market intelligence. So using all of that to be able to understand markets, know what, know the products that we think we can take into different markets and then leveraging that across all of our different regions is is what I've been focused on.
Speaker 3:Wow, and how long have you been in the industry? Oh, that's not a fair question because I'm an old guy. I've been, uh, I'll actually have 40 years in the industry, uh, in in July of this year. So I've been with Meritor, my, my link, the service with Meritor is 40 years and I've I've actually I left the left the company for five years and came back and they actually reinstated my, my hire date. So that's why I have 40 years.
Speaker 1:No, that's incredible. I love everyone that I talk to here. We know that this industry is very sticky right Like you're here and you're here for life, even if you leave. We just kind of get our claws back into you and bring you back. So I love hearing stories about that, because you really get to ingrain yourself into everything it is that we do. You're clearly really invested in our future, the future of this company. You spent 40 years with them, kind of driving the future of the aftermarket, so congratulations to you.
Speaker 3:Even when I left, I didn't leave the industry, so I went to work for a guy who I worked for for about 25 of those years, and at a different company. So it is, it's a I will tell you this the, the heavy duty aftermarket is one of the best businesses to be in. Just the relationships that you have and the people that you see here and what you've developed over the years. It's what brought me back to Meritor, to be honest with you, because I was working for a company that we were focused on as we were a manufacturer for OE products, and coming back into the aftermarket was like coming home for me. So it's good.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing and I feel like everyone I talk to also, you feel like you contribute to something that's really bigger right. Like these trucks, this thing on the back of the wall, in the back of this video, is so important to the livelihood of America. Not very many people realize it, but you contribute to that every single day. Everybody here at this show is a big part of the delivery of those goods and services.
Speaker 3:Oh, for sure, so yeah.
Speaker 1:How has your day been? So far it's been good. Did you get to the show floor yet, or?
Speaker 3:No, I got to our booth. I haven't been on the show floor yet. I've been tied up with our. We had our media event at noon today, so that went really well. Obviously, the kickoff meeting was good, and I was here for HDAD yesterday, so that was good too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how was the dialogue? I saw some really interesting topics but we weren't able to attend. It was good. Yeah, they really did a nice job. You know, they taught you talking about technology. They they talked a little bit about some of the technologies that are out there and what's going to affect the aftermarket, so it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Anything like you would share from that that. You thought that was interesting or different than what you thought.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, one of the things we talk about is the telematics and what's going on in telematics. And you know, we've kind of come from a telematics industry that was basically used to locate a truck and tell you where your vehicles were. And today, the data that we're pushing through those and the things that you can get off of telematics with component censoring and those kinds of things, it's pretty amazing. And then HDAD one of the guys who presented there was talking about what's the art of the possible there? And the art of the possible he was talking about if we can all get in the same ecosystem and we're all providing data and suppliers and fleets and dealers and distributors and all the folks that are out in the market.
Speaker 3:It's conceivable that you could have a guy driving down the road and he gets a sign or a signal that says his engine's getting hot. You have a filter sensor or something that tells you that and you know, based on history and you know, using some AI models, you can maybe say that well, that's, it's getting hot fast. So we think there's going to be a catastrophic failure and so we need to get somebody and it could. You could take it all the way to the fact that you could say there's an open bay at this guy with this part already there and pull in and be able to do work on that truck. Now we're we're miles away from that today, but it is something that, if you think about the art of the possible and the technology that's going on today, it's it's conceivable that we could do something like that.
Speaker 1:Because isn't? Are we also? We're doing predictive maintenance in that regard with the telematics currently, so that's part of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have in our Airdis brake. We have brake sensors that'll tell you pad wear and those kind of things. So it'll tell you how much pad wear you have and it could tell you that we would need you to go in at a certain time to get that brake changed so it may be able to extend the life of that brake job. It's not prevalent in the market. We've got that out on trucks today. You also have temperature sensors that will tell you the temperature of that brake and if that brake is heating up. You've got four brakes on your truck and you're monitoring all of these brakes and one's getting hotter and quicker than the other. You may have brake drag or something that's causing an issue there that you could then do a preventative maintenance on that too, before that brake fails and you destroy a rotor or you destroy a drum. You could take that in and get it fixed before you had something catastrophic happen.
Speaker 3:Which is a lot more expensive right, it is yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned like we could do this if we get the data, like what is missing currently, in order to enable our industry, in order to take advantage of this.
Speaker 3:I think it's there today. It's getting the OEMs and the fleets to buy into it and I think what the fleets struggle with is they are looking for what we would call a single pane of glass. So you know, meritor's got a sensor, bendix has got a sensor, everybody else is out there and they're all working on this technology and the fleets are getting this data and they're struggling to understand what do I do with it and how do I get it in front of somebody who knows how to act on that and they can do what they need to with. So they're looking for folks who can consolidate that data and pull data off of any sensor and present that in a way to a fleet, so somebody sitting there can say okay, I know what I need to do with this data. I just don't think we're quite there yet. There are some folks that may profess that they have that technology and can do that for fleets, but it's, it's, it's. I would say it's close, but it's just not there yet. We need a data decipherer. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Someone to help us decipher the data. I mean, we've been, we've had a couple of open mics so far at HDAW and data has been something that everybody's been talking about right, whether it's catalog, data, engineering, data like data, seems to be a really big part of what's important for the heavy duty industry in order to make these solutions possible, to get the right part to the right place at the right time, to increase supply chain efficiency. So any thoughts on data that's going on in heavy duty?
Speaker 3:I think everybody's looking for it. Like you said, we have all of our customers that want all of our. We're doing a lot around 3D modeling and being able to do 360 views of our product, and you know we have a lot of customers that want all of that rich data for their systems as well, and it's trying to figure out how you get that out there and protect your data too, because there's a lot of work that goes into getting all those things. But I think in the end, we want to get as much out to our customers as we can and support those who are supporting us so they can identify the part and make sure they use a Meritor or a Euclid part in the repair. So, yeah, so it's a lot. There's a lot out there. You hear a lot about ACEs and PIs and kind of the automotive industry, and we really don't have all of that lined out in a great way, but we do provide our data to places like OptiCat and some other folks that consolidate that data and get it to our customers. Yeah, great.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about supply chain going into 2025? That also seems to be like a trend that everybody's talking about. We don't know what's going to happen with supply chain. We've had a couple of bumps in the road, a couple of potholes. Maybe will you.
Speaker 3:I would say that anybody who's been a global supplier for the last few years has had some level of supply disruption. I mean, today it is the Red Sea, the Suez Canal. We have to redirect some of our Asia-Pacific shipments around the Africa continent. That's adding anywhere between three and four weeks to our lead time. So you know, we've done some things to plan for that. We've added inventory, we've we've doubled up orders, We've done we've we've air freighted some things and, to be honest, to make sure we didn't run our customers out of product. But that that has caused problems and and you know, I don't know what the next thing is going to be that that in itself, if you think about that, that caused one problem. But then you need to have additional ships to be able to get all of that stuff and handle that in transit around the Africa continent. So they're pulling ships from places like South America and other places and they're using some of the bigger ships there. Now we're having problems getting things out of South America because of shipping capacity and we, you know, we'll have 50 containers that are booked to be on a ship and they'll pick up five of them. So until we get that supply chain sorted out.
Speaker 3:I think that those continue to be issues you know we're doing things with, like I said, with air freighting and adding lead times and those kinds of things to help offset that.
Speaker 3:But there's something I don't know what the next one's going to be. We, you know, we've got tariffs that are hitting us and that may, with the new administration come in may, impact that as well. And then you get into 2027, there's, there's, we believe there's going to be some type of a pre-buy because of the emissions change that's going to happen in 2027. And you know, six months ago I would have told you that I would believe that that would happen in the middle of 2025 and end of 2026. And HDAD and other folks that we've talked to even here, are saying that fleets aren't talking. You know there's a lot of fleets that aren't talking about doing a pre-buy now and I think that there are still some. There is going to be some level of pre-buy, but I think that may get pushed out a little bit, just based on current information we're getting from folks like McKay and other industries.
Speaker 1:The supply chain part of the conversation is really interesting because you mentioned we don't know what the next one is going to be but it seems like the consensus is that there will always be a next one and planning ahead is important, right, like there is no normal supply chain, anything could happen, and being prepared seems to be what's really important for suppliers and distributors today Really goes along with the theme of the keynote this morning. Were you?
Speaker 3:there I was yeah.
Speaker 1:She was talking about. You know planning and practicing. And you know knowing what to do in, you know in adversity, and making sure that you had a plan and you had practiced. The plan to me seems to be really sound advice, especially in a time where we don't know what may happen with supply chain, what's going on in the world tariffs, new policies, regulations it's really a toss up.
Speaker 3:It is, and you've got to be agile. You have to be able to act quick and be able to make decisions in a pretty quick manner. When you look and think about tariffs. It's difficult to try to resource everything when you have to do all the testing and all the things to qualify a product. But when you have layered capacity, that helps out a bunch, and we've been focused on layered capacity models for some time as a company so we can move some things around, and we've done that. We'll move supply from one country to another country because we do have some levels of layered capacity and that's helped us a lot too.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I mean. That's why you guys are one of the best right.
Speaker 1:Back to by Cummins, so we talked a little bit about some of the trends that you heard in the dialogue, some of the opportunities data. The final question I wanted to ask you is trends are just that right, they're fads. Is there anything that you heard was a trend or maybe someone thought was a fad in the industry, that turned out not to be so and was something that really had a lasting impact? Right, like everybody gets scared about buzzwords like AI or driverless vehicles and then turns out they end up being this thing that's here to stay, that we have to adapt and learn and be agile. Is there anything like that that you can think of?
Speaker 3:Well, I think there are several things you think about. Just the transition. We're a big brake company, so in the aftermarket that's a big business for us and the transition from drum brake to air disc brake it's happening and it's not a trend. It continues to go on new trucks and it's a technology that they're going to continue to use it. That's not to say drum brakes are going to be gone because drum brakes are going to be out there for a long time, and to say drum brakes are going to be gone because drum brakes are going to be out there for a long time and for the aftermarket it's going to be good business for a long time.
Speaker 3:But those kind of trends I think that AI, I think there is a lot to that and companies are going to learn how to leverage that for customer service and you know specifications and being able to tell a guy what party needs for a truck and those kind of things, and you know technology is as using your phone to identify a part and those kinds of all those technologies are out there and I think those will continue to help the market and help our customers and we need to be part of that. We need to be helping to provide that for our customers, so we have some stickiness with them as well. Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Doug, any other takeaways you want to share with our audience?
Speaker 3:No, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I don't think I have any at this point.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much for taking the time. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I really appreciate you guys asking me to do this. Cheers, thanks. Welcome back to Traction Control. I'm your host, stacey Miller. We are here live at HDAW, and in the cab with me in the truck cab, I have Jamie Irvine. He's the National Sales Director for Parts for Trucks and formerly the host of the Heavy Duty Parts Report, which many of you may know. Welcome, jamie.
Speaker 5:Thank you. It's great to be here. I'm used to being in the host seat and I get to be the one interviewed today. It's great.
Speaker 1:I know this is very weird and I hope that I do a good job and that I make you proud. And I hope that I do a good job and that I make you proud. So feel free to correct me because I am. I'm here to learn, I'm here to be educated, but also here to share some of the amazing things that's going on in the heavy duty industry, um, why we're such an important segment of the aftermarket and just really help with the education and the visibility of the show in the segment.
Speaker 5:So those are things I'm passionate about, so I'm looking for a dark conversation.
Speaker 1:Heck, yeah, so um. So you just made a really major career transition.
Speaker 5:Can you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, so I was the host of the Heavy Duty Parts Report. We did 350 episodes over five and a half years. Really, we're ahead of the curve with podcasting in this industry and one of the trendsetters, which was a great privilege, and the support from the industry was absolutely amazing. And from that stemmed a consulting business. So I ran the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation and me and my team worked with manufacturers and distributors and service providers up and down the industry and it was a great experience. I enjoyed every minute of it.
Speaker 5:In many ways, the supporters some of them who are close to me they know that it made my dreams come true, to be honest, and so that was fantastic. But you know, sometimes you have to change and sometimes there's opportunities that come, and they're never without some sacrifice. And so in order to make this change and join parts for trucks and really engage on the next chapter of not just my career but my mission and being innovative, it was necessary for us to bring the heavy duty parts report to a close, which was a sad day. True story, it's been edited out, but when I closed the last episode, I had a tear in my eye.
Speaker 1:Oh no. That makes me really well you always have a home here at Auto Care. On.
Speaker 3:Air. Thank you. Come hang out with us anytime.
Speaker 1:I just don't like seeing you without a mic, so this feels really natural.
Speaker 5:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So we're here at HDAW Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week. There's a lot of buzz going around the show. Your job primarily was really tracking all of the trends that were happening in the industry. What do you see as some of the most exciting trends that are coming up here for 2025?
Speaker 5:Well, for a long time we've been talking about technology and for a long time we've been talking about demographics. And I remember in the early 2020s talking about how, between 25 and 2030, the demographic change in the industry was going to accelerate. And you know it's 25. Now we're five years into that 10 year cycle and you know, seeing it is, it's sad. On the one hand, I many of my mentors that taught me the business they've they've retired and they've moved on, and but it's exciting because there is the opportunity for us to bring new people into the industry. It's also exciting to see some of the ones that I grew up with in the industry now taking senior leadership roles, as I just have as national sales director for parts for trucks. And it's our time. It's our time to bring our experience and and our viewpoints and our perspectives to the industry and to try to move things forward.
Speaker 5:In a very challenging time geopolitically and a very challenging time economically. We've got some real uphill battles. It reminds me of some of the battles that my mentors had to go through in the early 80s and other times where there's a lot of uncertainty and that's what we're faced with, but there's a lot of really great young, new leaders in the industry that are stepping up, which I'm very excited to be part of that and to watch others take on similar roles and start to impact the industry in a positive way. I spoke about technology as well and the way that we have an opportunity to embrace technology technology that maybe for a while people were a little scared of, like AI and things like that, but already it's proven to be a very powerful tool in our hands and, used appropriately, I think it can be absolutely essential in keeping this industry, which is this industry is so critical for society.
Speaker 5:Our mission at the Heavy Duty Parts Report, in our consulting business, the Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation, we always talked about how the trucking industry is the backbone of society and without it, if we fail, then not only does our way of life come to an end, but people's lives hang in the balance. So what we do really matters, and the decisions that we make from now forward and the utilization of technology to ensure that this industry stays strong, that we overcome demographic inversion, which is a big subject, that we keep the trucks and trailers rolling, so medicine gets to people, so food and energy and clothing and the essentials of life, but also our way of life, which is a beautiful way of life here in this part of the world, and we definitely are very blessed in many ways. We have our problems and we have things we need to work on, but I just feel like everyone in the industry really plays an important role in something that's much larger than just keeping transport trucks on the highway, but the impact of having that equipment working efficiently.
Speaker 1:That's really really well said, jamie. I would not have phrased it any better. I'm not surprised at all, you know you. You mentioned the demographics and the changing of the guard, which doesn't happen all at once, even though it seems to be implied that way.
Speaker 1:I hate that term. Everybody's like the changing of the guard is happening. Well, it's happening over 10 and 20 years. Right, the mentors are retiring. The young leaders are stepping into these leadership roles. It's really fascinating to see. I mean, even from the time when I started in the industry, which was only seven years ago, I've seen so much change in the leadership. What is something that you think that we could be doing better as an industry and the heavy duty industry to help with that workforce development? Because the things you were saying, right, we're a beautiful industry, we're part of this bigger picture that keeps people on the road and keeps the goods and services flowing. Right, like that's such an amazing story, and I think the younger generation doesn't always get that, but they are the generation that seems to resonate with needing a purpose in their career, right, like they're not settling for just slogging papers. They want to be a part of something, right? So should we be doing more with that?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think, an area that's been a missed opportunity. For example, in my case I kind of accidentally found the industry and I found my home, but it wasn't intentional, it wasn't, you know, for 30 or 40 years, I would say. Parents sitting around the table visiting with their family didn't proudly say Johnny is joining the trucking industry or Susie is joining the trucking industry. They were focused on lawyers, doctors and other vocations and then obviously too, um, around the the tech bubble in 2000, early two thousands Um there were. I remember in the late nineties, as I was wrapping up my education, there was this just stampede towards the technology sector and I remember thinking, if everyone I know and everyone they know is going into technology, there's got to be some industries where there will be wide open opportunity. And, like I said, I'm very fortunate that I found the industry, but it was kind of by accident. So I think we need to do a better job of communicating to parents who have no previous connection to the industry, because if you really look at historically who's in the industry, you'll hear stories that follow a very similar pattern. Maybe my grandfather or my father worked on cars that were from the 60s. They were working in automotive. Then they got married and they had children. They needed to make more money, so then they transitioned to heavy duty because that's where they could make a better living. That is a historically natural progression into the industry, into the industry, and therefore once they got in the industry whether it was a driver or a parts person or someone at a manufacturing level then they pass that on to their children and grandchildren. And there was at least an awareness even if not every child wanted to join the industry. There was an awareness of how, the potential. But in a lot of families they're blind to this industry. They really don't see it. They don't think about where everything that they have comes from, and all they kind of think about is those annoying trucks on the road that splash me when I try to pass them when it's raining or snowing. They don't think about just how this industry, how important it is. And so to your point, I think if we can do a better job of communicating to families that have no previous connection to our industry and get mom and dad to proudly say Johnny and Susie are joining this industry and here's why and here's a pathway for them to have an exceptional livelihood and work in an industry that is important, that their work is valuable. If we can do that, that's one one area where I think we could improve on.
Speaker 5:Um, in addition to that, we have a unique opportunity right now because there's a speaking of the shift, uh, the wall street journal labeled Generation Z or Zed, the tool belt generation, and so, for the first time in 30 years, young men and women are flocking to the trades like never before. We're seeing enrollment in universities significantly down. We're seeing enrollment in the trade significantly up. The problem is that we're losing out to other trades. So we are in a in a competition for young talent that will extend into gen a or alpha.
Speaker 5:Uh, you know, are they going to go into HVAC, are they going to go into electrical, or are they going to be a diesel technician or a heavy duty parts technician or a driver? Right, are they going to join our industry? So that's the battleground is is heating up in that area and I don't think historically, over the last, let's say, three decades, our industry we've tried, we've done what we could, but, um, you know, now is the time for us to step up our efforts, and it's really encouraging to come to HDAW and see all the work that the associations are doing to promote at the legislative level, to fight for a right for repair, repair, to promote at the educational level to bring awareness of this industry. So I'm seeing a change in that and that really started, I think, to accelerate just after COVID.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And thinking about our trade, thinking about repair and service, it's got a reputation right and we've been trying to fight that reputation for years.
Speaker 1:And we're here at the show talking about really interesting technology, right Like I just opened the latest fleet equipment and we're talking about driverless trucks and the trucks that are going into California to deliver goods and services that are driverless amidst the wildfires. This is really interesting stuff and I can't help but wonder could we be leaning into technology and AI and all these things more in order to attract people to this industry, because everybody wants to be involved in something technological it seems something innovative, something forward thinking.
Speaker 1:Right, maybe one of these folks wants to be the next elon musk. They want to be innovative and I just think there's there's room, there's so much room to grow here, but we're not sharing all of these amazing things. It's not just turning a wrench on a truck and getting grease under your fingernails, right like there's programming, there's technology, there's ai, there's products, there's services, there's this whole world that I'm not sure that they know about.
Speaker 5:So yeah, I think you're right. I think I think that we have the opportunity to appeal to this young generation, to to bring them into our industry by demonstrating the changes in the industry, the technology. But, just like, as you mentioned, the dem, the, the changing quote, unquote changing of the guard doesn't happen all at once. The deployment of technology doesn't happen all at once.
Speaker 5:So I think, there's a misunderstanding in the trucking industry right now not in the industry, but people who view the industry thinking like, well, I shouldn't become a driver because they're all going to be autonomous in five years and I'd be out of a job, or I shouldn't be a technician because you know I'm going to be out of a job by robots, or or I shouldn't get into parts because that's just going to all be e-commerce and everybody's going to order it online like an Amazon experience. And the reality is that the deployment of that technology is going to come in stages and it is really I think it's short-sighted to think that. But we have to educate people to show them that no, you could join the industry right now in any one of those vocations and you could work to retirement and still be okay, and that's not well known outside of the industry. So there's another area of education I think we can do to show people. And also to your point, I mean, being a diesel technician is one of the most technical jobs out there.
Speaker 5:Now. You have to have diagnostic tooling, you have to have deep understanding of systems and what's going to come is truly exciting. And who would have thought, even five years ago, that people could have entire careers in media focused on this industry alone, right, so there's so many opportunities and I think we're just getting started. I'm actually not a dystopian future kind of mindset. My mindset is actually what can interesting people do with powerful technology to make this industry and our world and our society a better place? I think that, by and large, is the pathway we're going to take as a society, and it's exciting to think of how we could deploy innovative technology in this industry in new ways and what can we accomplish. Where's the upper limit of human potential? I don't think we understand that at all.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Oh, I love that you said that I have so many friends. Before I came to automotive, I was in the software industry not related Silicon Valley software and it was an interesting time because everybody wanted to be in technology. They wanted to be innovative and for them that meant working for Google, working for Facebook, working for Amazon, working for any one of those, like you know, big three, big five companies and they were like this is the pinnacle of the career. And I had a lot of friends. They left and they went to work for those companies Really great for their resume. A lot of them got laid off.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of them, and you know, one of the other things that I'd love to help communicate here is how recession resilient our industry is, and we talk about people coming into the industry and they never leave, because it's that good Well I want you to think about my career.
Speaker 5:The dot-com bubble, the 2007-8 crash in Canada. There was also a, a lumber issue that really cratered the the economy in around 05. So then 2007-8, right, the housing crisis. Uh, then we had a great bull run, the greatest bull run in history. But then we hit um. The commodity price collapse in canada for me, was was pretty impactful in 2016. Then we had covid COVID in 2019, 2020.
Speaker 5:I've been through what five, six downturns and I've never missed a day of work because of that. I've been so fortunate and anybody who worked in our industry. Yes, it's absolutely recession-proof because, guess what, after the collapse of the finances and the dust settles after a couple of months, everybody realizes they still need to eat, so the trucks still have to roll. We still have all of these fundamental things in society to keep us running. And yeah, you just sold your arm. You talk about how everybody went to those software companies With AI, I think one of the risks right now is if we see the same playbook with the social media companies, where it becomes regulated and there's only two or three players.
Speaker 5:I think that's very dangerous. I think that AI technology needs to be widely deployed. It needs to be deployed down and up, not just a one-way street. If we can accomplish that at a regulatory level which we'll see what future administrations in the United States do but if we can achieve that over the next, let's say, five to 10 years, I think that really sets us up for a beautiful potential future, as opposed to one that may be not as good as it could be, let's just put it that way. So this is where I think, as an industry, I've also seen the real consolidation of the industry and advocating. So, whether we're talking right for repair or we're talking future legislation around the deployment of other technology, this mobilization of the industry is going to be, you know, I think it's going to be one of the most important things we can do to ensure that our industry is healthy, which, as we spoke about earlier, means that our society is healthy.
Speaker 1:I could not agree more. Really well said, jamie. So, speaking about trends, we've talked a lot about trends here and one of the things we've been talking about with some of the open mic guests here are, you know, trends can sometimes be considered fads or people get really scared of things and consider them fads, such as AI, such as driverless vehicles and stuff like that. Are there any things that you think were coined fads but ended up really having some staying power and really surprised the heavy?
Speaker 5:duty industry.
Speaker 5:Well, I don't know about staying power. I'm going to take it from another perspective. So I remember, like, let's say, around 2019, 2020, I was putting a heavy focus on digital, digital technology in the industry and you know there was a big fear that e-commerce was going to come in and take everybody's jobs. It was going to eliminate salespeople. It was going to eliminate parts people. That has proved to not be true. It was going to eliminate parts people. That has proved to not be true.
Speaker 5:It has been really proven that e-commerce can be a tool in the hands of parts distributors you can have B2B from the supplier to the distributor and you can have B2C from the distributor to the fleets and the end users and that it can be a tool that is used effectively and it can actually really help the business to be more successful, while, at the same time, what it does is it can free up the experienced people on the counter out in the field to be able to share their deep expertise with the customers and really help them to refocus instead of just focusing on getting through the day and buying what you need to buy but really putting together business cases to lower total cost of operation to make their businesses more successful, and I know we're running short on time, but when I was in OSR, one of the most impactful calls I ever got was from one of my customer's wives and we had taken care of a problem.
Speaker 5:We used our expertise to solve a technical problem and she said, because of what you did this week, I can feed my kids this weekend.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 5:And she said because of what you did this week, I can feed my kids this weekend. Wow, and that's when I realized how important what we do is. And so I think that what we're going to see is we're going to see companies continue to embrace technology, and they're going to. They're seeing the value of it, they're embracing it and they're going to leverage it. And we're going to leverage that to the benefit of not only the people who work for us, but also our customers. And, as we talk about, that extends out to society. That's where I get my optimism from. So when I'm having a bad, rough day, I think of those kinds of things and I pulled myself up and say go on another day.
Speaker 1:Wow, Jamie, thank you so much for that perspective. I absolutely love and appreciate that and I know that our audience is going to resonate with that. What I heard from you was technology, e-commerce, whatever it is. It enables, it doesn't eliminate.
Speaker 1:So, maybe a quick takeaway. Thank you so much, jamie, for being here. Welcome back to another episode of Traction Control. I'm Stacey Miller and I'm here with Kara Mitchell. I'm so excited. Kara is a director of brand and product marketing strategy at BBB, which I hear is a new role, so welcome, kara. Thank you Happy to be here.
Speaker 4:Tell me more about your new role. So my new role? I'm overseeing global brand architecture, making sure that our brand, our proprietary brands, align with our corporate brand, as well as just making sure our products really have the voice underneath these different brand channels. We have about 15 or so brands across the board globally, so we sustainably manufacture and provide new alternators, starters, brake calipers, turbochargers, steering products, hydraulic heavy duty hydraulic products for the industrial and commercial vehicle aftermarkets, as well as solar and energy storage systems. So we have a lot of brands in our portfolio to manage, that's a lot, yeah.
Speaker 1:What are your roles and your duties here at HDAW? What are you learning? What are you taking back?
Speaker 4:So here at HDAW, my role is really to make sure our booth looks good that falls into our branding product marketing strategy but also to make sure our products are properly communicated about. So here on the heavy duty side at HAW we're showcasing our air disc brake calipers, turbochargers, hydraulics and alternators and starters. So my role here is really to support my team. I'm sitting in on a few one-on-one meetings talking to customers, making sure that, from a marketing standpoint, we're providing everything that our channel partners need to be successful and help get those parts on the show.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I mean, BBB manages a lot of brands and I can't imagine that that's an easy task being a global brand manager for all those brands, keeping them aligned, making sure that they fulfill their brand value proposition.
Speaker 4:Like that's a really big role, absolutely, and this year we've been really working on our brand architecture and making sure we had that cemented down, so we have a hybrid brand architecture. Just a lot to manage with so many different brands.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned solar was one of the things that you guys are doing, and that makes me think about the other S word, which is sustainability, and sustainability is a pretty big word in the aftermarket right now, whether you're light, medium, heavy duty sustainability. I don't want to call it a trend, because I think trend is the wrong word, because we've been sustainable for a long time, haven't we?
Speaker 4:We have. We've been sustainable for over 35 years. Our foundation is in sustainability, so we started off as a remanufacturer of alternators and starters and have spread the power of sustainability to these other product categories. So we were alternators and starters for a long period. Actually, hydraulics is our newest acquisition, so it's allowing us to spread those key learnings to other areas in other industries, and our hydraulic business is really heavy in the industrial market, so they have a lot of oil and natural gas mining, power generation, so we're in different areas as well, but we also do power takeoffs and hydraulic motors and pumps for 18 wheelers and commercial vehicles as well.
Speaker 1:Wow, and they're obviously so important to like the vitality of the American economy as well. Wow, and they're obviously so important to like the vitality of the American economy. So let's talk a little bit more about sustainability in heavy duty. Why is it so important to be involved in any of this at this point in time?
Speaker 4:You know it's not just the buzz word. It's really impactful because raw materials are not endless. You know we make an assumption that we can go back and get this. I don't know if you've seen those air disc brake calipers, but they're huge.
Speaker 4:They weigh 60 pounds. It's steel, you know. So a lot of raw material is going to making a new product With the air disc brake calipers that we sustainably manufacture. We're not using raw materials for the castings, we're using the OE unit. They come back. We sustainably manufacture them, remanufacture them. We sustainably manufacture them, we remanufacture them. So we disassemble, we clean, we test and we use new components where needed to make sure that we can give that part a second life. Wow, so it's not just about, you know, using the word sustainability. I know it's a buzzword right now, but we're actually offsetting the use of raw material and offsetting carbon emissions.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 4:So sustainability for us is extremely important, because we want to be able to give those products a second life and make sure they avoid going to a landfill and just sitting there and collecting dust and not being useful. So we're reutilizing them and in doing that what we're also doing is lessening the strain on the supply chain. You know you wait for the raw material to be extracted and put into this casting to mold to create a new part. The time that that takes too is an extensive process, and you have to wait for it to get to the shelves. By the process of sustainable manufacturing we're doing, we're eliminating a lot of that time spent in development and producing a quality product, and oftentimes we will fix OE design flaws on the back end.
Speaker 2:So when that?
Speaker 4:product goes back out, those design flaws are eliminated and the quality often meets or exceeds OE specifications. That's the best part about the aftermarket.
Speaker 1:I swear it's meaningful work. But people don't know that when we remanufacture the parts, we're fixing the flaws Like we're not right, Like that's part of the perception of the aftermarket is oh, it's cheaper parts, it's this, is that it's like actually no, we have a lot of really quality engineering, and that's part of the misconception that the quality is not as good.
Speaker 4:Or we're just putting the parts back together, painting it and putting it back out to look new, but the entire part is broken down and we call it reverse engineering. So we look at every component and see, ok, how can we improve or extend the life of this? So it gets a second, it gets a third life. It's not just the one time use and done once it fails.
Speaker 1:So much innovation that's happening, I mean, and there's lots of technology that's being showcased here on the show floor. I don't know if you've gotten a chance to walk it yet, but was there? Is there any new technology that's going on in heavy duty? That kind of gets you excited for what's coming up.
Speaker 4:You know, really, the turbocharger business. The turbochargers are constantly expanding and improving in the money we put into the engineering and quality for those turbochargers. So you know we used to say it's not rocket science about a lot of our products, but turbochargers are actually rocket science Really. You know we have aviation engineers. So it's the same technology that goes into the turbocharger that's used in the airplane. We have a hot gas test stand, one of the few in North America with this testing equipment and it allows us to simulate on-engine conditions in a building in our lab down in Joppa, missouri. So you know the technology there, what's required.
Speaker 4:Our engineering team is deep. You know we have engineers from all the OEs with I think they brag about their combined experiences 300 years and I'm like whoa, the whole team. I'm like I don't know if that's a marketing soundbite I'm going to put anywhere because nobody will believe it, but they've been in the industry you know 20, 30 years most of our engineers. So just seeing that level of skill required for this product line, that's really the excitement the turbochargers are taking off and that's something I see here at the show. You know, the last two years I've been here I didn't see this many turbochargers and it's everybody has a turbocharger in here today.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 4:It's growing fast.
Speaker 1:There's a marketing branding ploy there like turbocharge your future or something like that. Right, I love that. That's amazing. So you know, something you said about sustainability kind of caught me and I wanted to go back to it, because reduce, reuse, recycle, circular economy, green, whatever you call it right Like. It's all very good for the environment, it helps your business, it helps the economy. One of the things that we talk about on traction control is what are challenges that are happening, what are the issues that are happening in the industry and how do we respond to those as businesses? And one of the things that continues to come up is tariffs. So very worried about the tariffs that happened in the first Trump administration is real heavy on those break parts and that affects these businesses. But if we're reducing, reusing and recycling some of those components, is that like a strategy to help kind of not really circumvent those tariffs but lessen the blow? Maybe is something that just kind of occurred to me.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, because a lot of the new products are imported in right from China, from these countries that may be facing the tariffs. So if you have domestic production of some of these components and key resources, it does eliminate that supply chain gap, although a lot of components do have to come from. We operate in a global economy, right, so a lot of our components still need to come from that global economy. But we can't lessen the strain on reusing the housing. You know, on the right caliber, reusing the housing on the turbocharger.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 4:I think those things offset those tariffs that we face, but it's still a challenge for our industry that we're going to face, even with many, much of our manufacturing being done in Mexico as well In North America still, we still may face East Arab. So it is a challenging issue that we're all keeping eyes on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a rough one. I mean, here at the association, we're on top of it. We don't know what's going to happen until it actually happens and then, when it happens, we have to figure out what the impact is to the businesses. How do we respond, how do we work with the administration? So you know, keep us informed, let us know that goes for you and that goes for anybody who's listening to the podcast to keep us abreast of the changes so we can work and figure that out.
Speaker 4:Buy more sustainably manufactured parts is the answer right now, until we find another solution.
Speaker 1:That's a really great point, something that didn't occur to me. That seems like a really good marketing and branding kind of kind of thing to go after. Is there something like we're here because we really want to get people more educated on the heavy duty segment of the aftermarket, like it is so vital to our economy. It's vital to the rest of the world? What is one thing that you wish more people knew about this segment?
Speaker 4:How instrumental the heavy duty aftermarket is. I think about I like going to the grocery store and reaching for my products and it's there. Yeah, if the truck turbocharger goes down and they call and they can't get a replacement same day, it's not like you and I are a car, we can call an Uber, we can borrow somebody else's car and catch a ride. That truck. They can't do that. So it's critical that we have parts readily available on shelves with our distributors, that the trucks can get too fast.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 4:I think a lot of people don't realize how heavily involved the trucking industry is in keeping the things we need, keeping our lives comfortable. You know moving, moving comfortably. You go to the store. My daughter loves chicken nuggets, so if I go to the store and those chicken nuggets are not there, I have a complete meltdown waiting for me at home. So I'm always appreciative of on time deliveries. Store and those chicken nuggets are not there. I have a complete meltdown waiting for me at home. So I'm always appreciative of on-time deliveries and I think that's what people need to know. The parts that keep the trucks moving are essential to keeping your life smooth and carefree.
Speaker 1:Things we can't take for granted right, Especially not the chicken nuggets.
Speaker 4:It's an ecosystem right. So your truck is down. There are no. I'm going to call and load this freight onto another truck to make sure I can make my delivery on time.
Speaker 1:It's how fast can you get it?
Speaker 4:up and running right, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You have a lot of passion for this industry. I mean, I have seen you at women in auto care events, at auto care events at Yang events, now at HDAW and you just seem to be really on top of it.
Speaker 4:Tell me again how long you've been in the industry. I think this is my 17th year. So they say once you get in, you stay here forever. You know you never get out. That's incredible.
Speaker 1:That's also a theme we've heard from pretty much all of our guests today, like the variety of experience. But the longevity of everybody here and how happy they are working here really shows what brought you to this industry, Just out of curiosity.
Speaker 4:My high school. I went to school in Omaha, nebraska. They had a career center and the career center offered different classes. They gave you career and technical training.
Speaker 4:They had photography, culinary and my dad was like, hey, you need to take a useful class culinary. And my dad was like, hey, you need to take a useful class like photography is good, but let's figure out something that you can use later in life when I'm not with you. You can fix your own car, can make your own repairs. Yeah, and I took this auto tech class and I loved it. I'm like I love this, I'm good at this. I'd already been following him around making repairs. He did have that, um, and I'm like I'm good, good at this, I like problem solving. I like getting my hands dirty. Sometimes. I don't like you know the busted knuckles, but it's a part of the process and you know, I started there and then I went into O'Reilly Auto Parts one day to buy a light bulb and they said, hey, do you need a?
Speaker 4:You need a job. I said, yeah, I do, and I know about cars. So they offered me a job and I started working at O'Reilly when I was 16 years old. I transferred that job to college. I kept it, I worked at O'Reilly Auto Parts Store in Montgomery, alabama, and then it just, you know, I was just destined to be in this industry. Opportunities kept coming about. I had an internship with ADP Dealer Services so I got a chance to see from the dealer side of things, the OE side. I worked the parts counter.
Speaker 3:You've done it all it was pretty cool.
Speaker 4:It was a cool experience. I got to work at a Volkswagen dealership and then I went into sales for AT&T. I targeted the repair shops in my territory I had Houston and then the role came up at ITW Global Brands with Rain-X Viper Blades, fix-a-flag, gum Out, black Magic and I was the marketing manager there for a few years. I started as a consumer inquiry analyst. So if anybody has ever called the 1-800 number on the back of RainX Viper Blades, that was you. It was me for a couple of years. It was great.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. I'm going to go find my old Viper Blades.
Speaker 4:I'm going to call and see Like who is it Is it.
Speaker 1:Is it that's crazy Like hello.
Speaker 4:Definitely one of my better roles in the industry, because you got to talk here and directly the voice of customers, so that really excited me. So I'm like, how can I expand my role into marketing? And BBB called and they had a great opportunity to give the products a voice, so that's how we got here today.
Speaker 1:Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your journey. I just find that fascinating, like so happy that you're here and you're a passionate part of the industry, like you're spreading the good word, like you're a positive influence and like you're doing good work, and I think you know that. So, we appreciate you and thanks for taking the time to be on the podcast.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care On Air. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode, and don't forget to leave us a rating and review that helps others discover our content. Auto Care On Air is a production of the Auto Care Association, dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives, visit AutoCareorg.
