Towmaster

Towmaster Celebrates 40 Years

More than 3,000 Towmaster trailers are fabricated and sold each year. The company’s manufacturing facility is located in Litchfield, Minn.

By Giles Lambertson

Palm grew up on a Minnesota farm, surrounded, as farm children are, by machines.

“That was where I began to love machinery,” he said. He went to college for a year and then spent four years in the U.S. Navy where he refined his understanding of machine hydraulics. When he became a civilian again, Palm looked around, “decided I was tired of being broke and ought to get a job,” and began his entrepreneurial career.

A market opportunity opened up when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mandated that field machinery, such as crawler equipment, operating on Corps projects had to have rollover framework to protect the machine operator.

“That was the only time the government was on my side” he said with a grin in his voice.

To build the rollover protection devices, he created Palm Industries. He moved in January 1970 into an 80ft.-by-200-ft. building west of Minneapolis and began to churn out thousands of the rollover frames. The small manufacturing building became the first phase of the eventual Towmaster manufacturing facility that today covers acres. Palm Industries began to manufacture trailers at the plant when the skid steer loader came into vogue and transport of the compact machines created a demand for haulers to match.

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Harlan Palm is the man behind the success of Towmaster Trailers. He didn’t single-handedly turn the Litchfield, Minn., manufacturing company into a major player in the United States trailer industry, but you can’t talk about Towmaster without talking about Palm.

Palm saw the market niche and created a product to fill it. He groomed the market, winning over customers and overseeing the expansion of manufacturing to meet growing customer demand. He even came up with the name “Towmaster,” which marketing manager Shane Zeppelin considers all by itself a “very valuable” property.

“Let me get my hearing aid in…” the 86-year-old Palm said after answering the phone in March at his Scottsdale, Ariz., winter home. That allusion to his age belies the vigor of the conversation that follows. He is not managing the company any more but he “doesn’t skip a beat,” as his daughter Janelle Johnson puts it, as he recalls for his caller the history of a company that this year is celebrating its first 40 years as a manufacturer. *** 2

Towmaster’s management team — Randy Callandar, truck equipment service; Lori Nelson, HR manager; Jen Miller, traffic coordinator; Chris Pokornowski, sales manager; Tim Erickson, truck equipment general manager; Mike Ross, engineering manager; Jamie Lemke, plant manager; and Shane Zeppelin, marketing manager. Not pictured is Mark Svejkovsky, controller.

But Palm got restless, as entrepreneurs do. He sold Palm Industries and returned to the farm near Grove City. There, under yet another business umbrella, Palm Sales Company, he began to sell grain bins for a manufacturer. He also saw a need for a high-quality flatbed trailer for hauling skidloaders and developed the Towmaster brand trailer and sold the first one in 1978.

Yet just building trailers again wasn’t enough for the industrious businessman. Palm simultaneously picked up on market demand for attachments for the increasingly popular skid steer loader. His fabrication company began to design and build the add-on tools that make skid steers so versatile and to sell them to the original skid steer manufacturer, Bobcat Company. Palm’s first tool for Bobcat was a grader blade, then a vibratory roller, then a planer.

Attachment sales soon mirrored the surging popularity of the skid steers themselves.

Brad Schott, inventory control, and Ryan Kral, service and warBusiness was so good that, in 1994, Palm split Palm Sales into separate ranty manager. companies — Towmaster Trailers and Palm Attachments. The attachments company stayed on the farm and churned out Bobcat-branded attachments for five years until Palm finally sold the company outright to Bobcat.

“We did a land office business with Bobcat, sold thousands of the attachments,” he said with satisfaction.

In the meantime, the original Palm Industries cab operation in Litchfield was taken over by another company and moved to South Dakota. Because the vacant manufacturing plant was still owned by Palm, he moved his trailer production into it and the Towmaster era in Litchfield began. Not to take away anything from Palm’s string of successful start-ups, but Towmaster eventually became the crown jewel of his various enterprises.

“Jewel” is an apt metaphor, because from the beginning Palm decided to build top-of-the-line trailers, more Jerry Valiant, truck equipment sales; Tim Erickson, truck equipment general manager; and Tom Gertgen, truck equipment sales. expensive than some, but better quality, too.

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“I knew when I got into the trailer venture that I needed to build higher-end stuff,” he said. “So many manufacturers were building the cheaper stuff. I knew people would pay a premium to get the quality.”

As proof, he cites Towmaster’s affiliation with premium heavy equipment dealers, such as Caterpillar.

“Cat only sells good stuff, not the cheapest, but it is going to be good.” That is precisely the niche Palm sought. As a small manufacturer, he had come to understand that he had to think in terms of niches.

“You can’t take on the big companies with products that are too complex and cost too much to produce.

You’ve got to build something that you can put your arm around.” *** One year ago, Monroe Truck Equipment Inc. put its arm around Towmaster. The Monroe, Wis., manufacturer of specialized truck equipment, acquired the Litchfield company to expand its market presence.

Towmaster had become employee-owned and, ten years ago, began to produce truck bodies for the municipal market. Monroe saw in those products some useful additions to its popular truck body line- Harlan and Jerri Palm founded Palm Industries in 1970, which would eventually lead to up.

Towmaster Trailers.

“He’s always looking for the next big thing. When he thinks he’s found it, he chases it. He gets an idea and runs with it.

He’s a salesman at heart and always will be.”

Chris Pokornowski

Trailer sales — Chris Pokornowski, trailer sales manager; and Anna Johnson, Adam Prieve and Jeremy Larson, all in-house sales. Not pictured is Ryan Nelson, in-house sales.

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Wide Variety of Truck Equipment

Not only does Towmaster Truck Equipment build its own dump bodies and upfit them to various chassis brands, but it is also distributors of many other types of equipment for municipal and other markets.

Loading crew/drivers â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Jeff Kranz, Brandon Wiehr and Eric Johnson. Not pictured are Dave Malmquist, Karl Lundin and Ron Peterson.

Towmaster Truck Equipment is most known for building plow trucks, but its truck equipment side is vastly bigger than that.

Not only does Towmaster Truck Equipment build its own dump bodies and upfit them to various chassis brands, but it is also distributors of many other types of equipment for municipal and other markets.

This includes KMI asphalt equipment, Falls media spreaders, Valley Blades cutting edges, PullTarps tarp products, BOSS Plows and parts, On-Spot automatic chains, Valley Blades cutting edges and many others.

Its close relationship with allied partners gives Towmaster the ability to respond quickly and make sure its customers are taken care of in a timely manner, and more important, accurately.

Fred Hackbarth and Chris Crayford, both maintenance team members. Not pictured are Mike Nemec and Beth Wanha.

Graphic designer Jerry W. Cook runs Towmasterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decal and banner printing operation.

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Dale Imholte and John Kemper, both of the IT department.

“Towmaster’s truck equipment division is well-established and gives us a larger footprint in the Midwest,” Monroe President Dave Quade said in announcing the takeover.

Towmaster had gotten into trucks almost by accident. A truck body manufacturer in the area had been sold and its production center shut down. Palm’s daughter, Janelle Johnson, who became chief financial officer of Towmaster, knew a former employee of that truck body company and approached him about becoming a sales manager for Towmaster trailers. He parried by asking her if Towmaster would be interesting in getting into truck bodies.

Ninety days later, the Towmaster Truck Division was up and running. It produces specialized bodies for municipal snow-plowing fleets, field units for contractors and mechanics, various flatbeds, and commercial pickup bodies.

The division’s general manager, Tim Erickson, was one of the people Johnson brought over in 2008 from the former company.

“We built our first dump body in October after starting up in July of that year,” Erickson recalled. “Our focus at that point was the municipal market, then we branched into the one-ton area. Since then we’ve gone into mechanical service, trucks with cranes, asphalt trucks with hot boxes — virtually anything that would go with the work truck industry, we do. And we are branching into the commercial area by focusing on light- and medium-duty trucks.”

Truck body installation — Dan Hank, Erick Kotila, Evan Blackwell, Terry Nelson and Brad Cyrus. Not pictured are Reese Peterson, Henry Hallstrom and Landon Schiro.

Towmaster’s first truck built and only truck sold in 2008. The next year, Towmaster built and sold more than 60 units and today, the company builds more than 250 units per year.

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Truck hydraulics and electrical installation — Andy Barka, Mike Carl, Mike Lee, Jake Leuze, Lance Essendrup, Joe Valiant and Tony Ree. Not pictured are Mike Latzke and Kevin Mohr.

“People are always looking for the edge and we have it.”

Patenting Innovation

The Auto-Latch Ramp Hold-up system uses a spring and cam handle to lock onto a bar that is welded to a ramp.

Towmaster was granted two patents that are still used today exclusively on its trailers.

One of them is the “Auto-Latch” Ramp Hold-up System. This system uses a spring and cam handle to lock onto a bar that is welded to a ramp. As you pivot the ramp up, the bar pushes on the cam handle until it goes into a slot, where the spring pulls the handle down thereby locking the ramp into place.

Tim Erickson

The Automatic Underride Protection system is used on Towmaster’s deck-over tilt bed trailers.

The other patent is an “Automatic Underride Protection” system.

This one is used on Towmaster’s deck-over tilt bed trailers. Here, Towmaster designed the approach section of the deck with hinges and uses a pushrod system to push the section out while the deck tilts. When the deck is flat, this section hangs down. This prevents a vehicle from going under the deck should there be a collision from behind.

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Trailer decking/final assembly crew — Maggie Nelson, John Baseman, David Thiesen, Cody Suess, Dustin Suchy, Brian Olsen, Cameron Hazzard, Kyle Rueckert, James McCann, Kevin Stern and Ryan Schwartz. Not pictured are Cody Klabunde, Corey Boyer and Paul Sackett.

Towmaster’s paint and wash team. Cody Suess, Mike Kaderabek, Kevin Lindstrand, Troy Isensee, Dale Wartman, Gina Martin, Angel Martinez, Wayne Reich, Nick Bombeck and Chris Jacobsen.

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Towmaster truck bodies are mostly traditional designs with refined features, such as incorporated shields to protect wiring and hoses and bushings on pivot points. “There are only so many things you can do to a dump bed, but making wear points heavier is one of them,” Erickson said. The truck division partners with vendors to offer customers related equipment such as snow plows and salt spreaders.

Towmaster bodies have a registered trademark — the Edge — “People are always looking for the edge and we have it,” quipped Erickson. An Edge steel elliptical dump body is the most popular product and is offered in several sizes. The unit’s curved body is intrinsically stronger than a box shape and allows non-intrusive attachment of brine tanks that snow-removal customers use to pre-wet saltsand solutions before spreading them on icy roadways.

Some customers prefer the elliptical body in stainless steel for greater corrosion resistance, but the carbon steel dumper has a psi rating that makes it less prone to damage from riprap and boulders. In rural areas, municipalities and county governments are teaming elliptical and box dump trucks with the “PUP” dump trailers Towmaster also produces.

First shift fabrication crew — Kevin Hoff, Kent Doehling, Jeff Mapes, Larry Solem, Al Ruter, Kurt Holbeny, Kenneth Moore, Don Lingl, Chuck Molitor and Todd Saue. Not pictured are Scott Kragenbring, Jeff Johnson, Robert Braness and John McKenzie.

“They are not a high-volume product for us, but it allows rural local governments to have that extra capacity for graveling roads or stockpiling.”

Edge bodies are created on two production lines that run simultaneously, with 30 units being built at any given time. The size and complexity of the product deter-

mines speed of assembly, of course, with components of a heavier truck body being assembled over the course of 45 days including being readied for service. Smaller units can be turned out in two to five days.

The primary market for Towmaster truck bodies is Minnesota and adjoining upper Midwestern states. Erickson said the com-

pany is blessed with a backlog of orders from the region but that selling the products in other regions is a future goal. “We’re consciously doing slow growth right now, but eventually we’ll be building bodies for other markets.” ***

Second shift fabrication crew — Jonathan Becker, Nick Hanson, Robert Alm, Bryan Moham, Tony Gehrke, Allen Graunke, Jacob Hacker and Avery Schrupp.

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Engineering — Nick Raehsler, Ronald Rome, Rick Barron, Joe Fenner, James Woods, Mike Ross, Ron Holm and Mike Banken.

who started with the company 23 years ago by working a production line as part-time summer help. “A lot of companies will use two-piece frames, for example, but we recognized that if you want it to stay strong, you should form the main frame from one length of steel.”

The trailers are mostly produced on four assembly lines, with 45 trailers in various stages of completion at any given time. An average small trailer requires 24 labor hours of work — three production shifts — with larger trailers like deck-overs taking five to six shifts. More than 3,000 Towmaster trailers are fabricated and sold each year.

Every legacy company has stories about its products and Towmaster is no different. Pokornowski tells the story related to him a half dozen years ago about a Towmaster trailer that was being pulled behind a dump truck when the truck was hit by a train. He didn’t mention the consequences of the collision for the truck and its driver, “but they are still using that trailer today.”

The trailers are sold in all 50 states, with the Midwest comprising the largest market … but barely. “Ten years ago, the Midwest was by far the biggest,” the sales manager said, “but now East and West coast markets are very similar to this region in sales.”

Towmaster has around 1,200 equipment dealership outlets scattered across the country.

When Monroe Truck Equipment took over, the new owners said little would change except that Monroe wanted to see increased trailer production.

“We want to keep up with demand,” Pokornowsi said.

“Production has gone up in the last year and we are looking to increase the night shift. If we fill up that shift, we have plenty of space on our company site to build another production line.”

Towmaster began as a trailer-making company and still is predominantly involved in such manufacturing. Seventy-five percent of its business today is trailers — partly because they also are marketed in Mexico and Canada, according to Zeppelin, marketing manager. The company’s top-seller turns out to be its original product, skid steer-hauling trailers.

“That’s our bread-and-butter product,” said Chris Pokornowski, sales manager for the division. “We started out with the skid steer trailer and kept it as our backbone.”

The signature skid steer trailer — or drop-deck trailer, as it is termed — comes in at least 20 variations. It squats low between four wheels on rubber torsion-mounted twin axles and has a raised edge so it can haul small loads of aggregate or debris. The next most popular Towmaster trailer is a 20-ton deck-over model.

Larger deck-overs are available with three axles.

Other models include tilt trailers, hydraulic dump trailers, rigid gooseneck trailers, and so on — 56 base models that expand into far more individual styles through customer options. They all feature one-piece American-made steel main frames, fenders formed of a single piece of steel rather than several welded ones — welds are more susceptible to rust — and oak decks for best traction in cold and wet working conditions.

“Those are things we noticed very early on,” said Pokornowski,

Outside sales group — Arin Laugtug, western sales manager; Bob Pace, midwest sales manager; Russ Woelke, Great Lakes/southeast sales manager; and Alan Craft, northeast sales manager.

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Shop/Welding crew: Jeromy Zaeska, Evan Vincent, Richard Jackson, Peter Swanson, Jake Anderson, Mitch Hierlmaier, Jerimah Bensel, Jayce Piehl, Brian McDowell, Brandon Luckman, Brett Hedtke, Chris Woodford, Tony Hanson, Matt Peterson, Jason Dickerson, John Holtberg, Conner Scott, Chris Morehouse, Joseph Aldernick, Armondo Gonzalez, Charlie Passa, Ken Quinn, Scott Behm, Ricardo Solis, Emily Farrow, Randy Peterson, Mike Lantto, Tony Kollar, Doug Brown, Tyler Larson, Mike Schultz, Brandon Hogrefe, Brent Aldernick, Christian Guarding, David Marshall, Cole Zaeska, Ben Rossow, Jim Colberg, Tim Miller, Layne Karg, Jerry Nass, Codee Muckenhirn, Jordan Each, Miguel Lopez and Scott Ramey. Service/Repair crew: John Kammermeier. Not pictured: Sheree Schlinger, production assistant

Towmaster takes great pride in its welding craftsmanship.

New air-brake axles are staged for use on one of Towmasterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest trailers.

Towmaster trailers are built down five production lines for efficiency.

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Janelle Johnson, Harlan Palm’s daughter and the former ideas,” his daughter said. “And he was willing to take the chance Towmaster CFO, is finalizing paperwork on the company’s transi- to pursue those ideas. That’s where most people don’t succeed. tion to new ownership. When she is finished, the family will entire- But he loses some interest in day-to-day management. That’s not his ly bow out of Towmaster after seeing it grow into a $50 million-a- cup of tea.”

Pokornowski has a similar impression of the company founder. year company. (Towmaster, by the way, boasts something no competing trailer firm has — its own smart-device app. The Towmaster “He’s always looking for the next big thing. When he thinks he’s app, created by Zeppelin, has complete product information and found it, he chases it. He gets an idea and runs with it. He’s a salesman at heart and always will be.” links to Facebook pages and YouTube videos).

Zeppelin has been around the company and Johnson was there as the company rode out Palm since 1989. He characterizes Palm as “enertough times, which every enduring company getic and a visionary. He’s very forward-looking. experiences. The big blow fell when the recesHe loves technology. He is very open and praises sion hit in 2008. The company had just inauguhis employees. Every time he would come back rated its truck body division when the bottom from Arizona, he would walk through the shop dropped out of the economy. and take the time to talk to all the employees.”

“It took us a good two and a half years to realIf Palm stops by this spring, he will find an ly get through it,” she said. “We had to learn to operation still functioning at a high — and rob Peter to pay Paul. We had to have a lot of friendly — level, according to Erickson. “It is a faith and to be willing to take the pressure of all great place to work. It’s fun to go to work every of that. It was a very trying time for everyone.” day, with people that are good to work with. Our Johnson had joined her father in the company customers are more than customers; they are in 1993 and was involved in a variety of roles our friends. That’s pretty cool. We have a wonbefore taking over as finance officer. While she derful team here, still very family-oriented even never worked on the assembly line, she did take though it is not family-owned any longer.” a welding class in high school, so all the metalJanelle Johnson The family manufacturing legacy will live on work was not foreign to her.

“Basically, it was a family thing,” she said. “My mother was a in another way. A Harlan and Jeraldean Palm Scholarship fund very, very big part of it. She played a large role, doing a lot of the offers four $2,500 awards to students enrolled in a two- or fourearly accounting and keeping everything on track and everyone in year college program pursuing a degree leading to work in the line.” The latter is a possible allusion to her father, a more natural manufacturing field, including machining, drafting, welding and metal fabrication. brainstormer than nuts-and-bolts guy, according to Johnson.

(This story also can be found on Construction Equipment Guide’s website “He grew up in a small town, put a motor on his bike when he was 10 years old and grew into an entrepreneur. He was good with at www.constructionequipmentguide.com.) CEG

Terry Valentien, Penny Kronback, Ryan Kral, Joe Frass and Brian Reierson.

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Going Mobile

When the iPad arrived in 2010, Towmaster was an early adopter of this new technology.

Each person on their sales force was issued an iPad. This allowed them the portability to show the products without having to haul laptops and cords into dealerships. It soon became apparent that mobile was the future for information consumption.

Towmaster was the first, and to the company’s knowledge, the only trailer manufacturer to create a mobile app. The app features PDF brochures of each of its trailers, a photo gallery for each of the company’s trailer models, direct links to its website, social media and YouTube pages, and for dealers, access to retail price books. With the app, you can view the brochures, print them out, or e-mail them right from within the app.

The app allows Towmaster to showcase its product line on mobile phones and tablets without the need to be connected to the Internet, and it doesn’t take up a lot of valuable memory.

It is available for both iOS and Android devices.

Check it out for yourself at towmaster.com/towmaster-app.

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