Supporting the Trucking Industry for Over 100 Years

Episode Transcript
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Jamie Irvine (00:00):
Because in the book you talk about our partners

(00:01):
to the south, the United States, and the relationship that
Canada and the United States hashistorically had.
You describe, and I quote it'sa delicate tightrope of tariffs,
incentives and regulations thatmust be carefully navigated.
Now you wrote that, like five,six years ago.
That is more relevant todaythan it ever has been.

Corey Miller (00:24):
That is more relevant today than it ever has
been.
There's no such thing as beingperfect, but I think we want to
strive for perfection every dayin making our customers' lives
easier, and I think that that'struly a winning formula.

You're listening to the Parts for Trucks podcast.
My name is Jamie Irvin.
I'm the National Sales Directorat Parts4Trucks and your host.
In future episodes of theParts4Trucks podcast, you will
walk away with tools, strategiesand knowledge to make your job
easier, cut costs and elevateyour already stellar performance
in the Canadian truckingindustry.

(01:00):
In this episode, we wanted tointroduce you to the people and
the company behind the Parts forTrucks podcast.

Megan Bouchard (01:15):
Welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast, where
we explore the latest trends,technologies and strategies in
the heavy-duty trucking industry.
Each episode you'll hear fromindustry experts to help keep
your trucks on the road and yourbusiness thriving.
Now let's get into gear.
Here's your host, jamie Urban.

First, let me give you a brief overview of the
history of Parts for Trucks,started in 1919 under the name
Scotia Garage, later ScotiaEquipment, by Harold Spencer and
Harry Richard.
When they started this companyin Nova Scotia, there were only
a thousand commercial vehiclesat that time.
Later, phil Raymond and hisfamily acquired the company in

(01:57):
1975 and rebranded to Parts forTrucks in 1987.
Later, the company was acquiredby the Miller family in 2017,
where they went on to purchaseFleet Break in 2022, making
Parts for Trucks acoast-to-coast company.
So those are the highlights,but there's a lot of details in

(02:19):
a hundred-year history that weneed to talk about, and I'm
really excited to share with youthree interviews in this
episode One where we're going togo and dive into the history,
because if you don't understandthe history of the Canadian
trucking industry, then it'shard to kind of place how Parts
for Trucks got started all theway back in 1919 and how it

(02:40):
became the company that it istoday.
We're also going to have achance to talk to one of the
stewards of the Parts for Truckscompany, who participated in
owning and operating thiscompany for decades.
Have you ever heard theexpression we all stand on the
shoulders of giants.
Well, andy Raymond is certainlyone of those giants of our

(03:01):
history that we are all reallyprivileged to be standing on his
shoulders and trying to takethis company to the next level,
and we wouldn't be able to dothat without our current
leadership.
So we're going to get a chanceto talk to Corey Miller, ceo of
Parts for Trucks, and really getsome insight into where this
company is going and how theMiller family is setting Parts

(03:23):
for Trucks up for the next 100years.
So let's get started by divinginto the history of the trucking
industry.
I'd like to introduce JoelMiller, the author of 100 Years
of Trucking in Atlantic Canada,a book that was commissioned by
Parts for Trucks.
Joel, welcome to the Parts forTrucks podcast.
So glad to have you here.

(03:43):
It's nice to be here.
So let's start off theconversation.
We're really talking about thetrucking industry over the last
hundred years and since youauthored this book, I thought
you'd be a great individual totalk to.
But what was the motivationbehind creating the book A
Hundred Years of Trucking inAtlanta, canada?

Joel Miller (04:03):
Well, I know at the time that it had been the 100th
year anniversary for Parts forTrucks and they approached me
and said we're thinking of someunique ideas of ways to
celebrate kind of trucking inAtlanta, canada, and we had a
little bit of discussion andthis is kind of what we came up
with.
And, of course, working withPart, working with parts for

(04:24):
trucks, they had access to a lotof uh great people in the
industry so we were able to goout talk to a lot of the the
industry leaders, so people frommichelin, people from armor,
people from irving, uh, some ofthe smaller uh places around
around the provinces, as well asa lot of drivers.
It was a great opportunity andI had just been leaving my

(04:49):
organization where I had a lotof experience working with
truckers, so I thought it was agood fit.

When you first tackled the project, what was
the general feeling that you had?
Was it just one of pureexcitement?
Was there a bit of overwhelm?
It's a big job to document ahundred years of trucking in
Atlantic Canada.

Well, and that's it .
There's just, I mean we'retalking about all of the
Atlantic provinces and likewhere do you, where do you kind
of cut things off?
Where do you, where do youdecide?
Finally, I've got enough.
I've got enough content.
You know, I probably could havemade it kept going if I wanted,
but I'm really happy with howthe final product came out.

Yeah, I've had a chance to look through the book
and read through it myself and Ithought it was very well done.
Now in the book I want to reada quote To track the growth of
the trucking industry inAtlantic Canada is to track our
growth as a nation.
As a result of the First WorldWar, canada was able to finally
step out from under the shadowof Great Britain and take its

(05:51):
place amongst the nations of theworld.
That's quite the quote andreally puts into perspective the
place that the truckingindustry kind of sits in our
history.
Can you explain how theestablishment of the Canada
Highway Act in 1919 and thedevelopment of roads was really

(06:11):
important as a precursor to theestablishment of the trucking
industry?

Walk us through a little bit of a history lesson
there and basically the way thatworked is the federal
government was going to give us40% of all the monies required
in order to produce roads.
So you can see in places likeOntario that really exploded the
amount of roads that they couldproduce.
In Atlantic Canada it was alittle bit more difficult

(06:38):
because 40%, while a huge amountof the cost of building a road,
especially at the time, is muchharder when we're in such a
disparate kind of rugged land,especially when you get to Cape
Breton, newfoundland, pei At thetime PEI didn't have a quarry

(07:00):
so they actually had to ferryall of the crushed stone from
the mainland for them to evenstart building the roads.
This was kind of the firststeps for Canada to making its
kind of impact across those newarteries and those new roadways
that were going to become whatwe enjoy today.

It's interesting as you're reading the book you
talk about.
Prior to the invention of theautomobile and subsequently the
commercial truck, there wereinteresting ways that goods was
moved in the Atlantic provinces.
So let's go back to the 1700s.
What was the dominant way ofmoving goods in the 1700s?

you go far enough back.

We're moving everything via canoe that was
the commercial truck and trailerof the 1700s that's, that's how
everything's getting moved.

it's, uh bivouacs and and canoes, you know you
move past that.
Then of course we're moving towhat's called, uh, cordroy roads
where, once you have awell-trodden cart path, they
start laying down logs at theplaces where they know that
they're getting hung up.
And of course they're calledcorduroy because that's what it

(08:17):
looks like and you can imaginewhat a road made from logs
probably felt Not the best thingyou've probably ever driven on.

Right.
So I mean, first of all,there's a tremendous amount of
physical effort to to movecanoes by water and then you hit
.
You hit uh like, let's say, theice flow changes something in
the river or there's a jam andyou have to unload everything
and portage it around, carryeverything, including the canoe,
around this obstruction.
So is that why those corridorroads were created?

(08:48):
To try to get around thingslike that or to make it easier
to move on and off the water?
Or was it really truly thefirst just establishment of
roads for carts?

Once our towns and villages started getting more
established, it became necessaryfor those kinds of roads to be
developed.
And I mean, you work with whatyou have and the thing that we
have is lots of wood.

For those listening who don't know much
about the history of, let's say,the province of New Brunswick,
this was a ship building capitalfor a large time period because
of the lumber that we had.
So, yeah, lumber was readilyavailable.
All right, let's go a littleahead in time.
We hit the 1800s.
What big invention anddevelopment happened that really
changed the way goods weremoved in Atlantic Canada and

(09:35):
really the rest of the continent.

In the 1800s.
Well, that's when we startedgetting our first kind of
standard roads.
You'd see the horse and buggyon most of our roads at that
point in time.
I mean you look at what today.
I mean some listeners wouldknow what I mean when I say the
St Margaret's Bay Road.
I believe in the book I've gotpictures of St Margaret's Bay

(09:58):
Road in the 1800s I think,probably up until 1850.
They've still got bison beingused to haul lumber straight up
and down those roads.
But yeah, that's what we'd see.
And of course that's also whenyou'd see a lot of roads from
kind of central Canada and ourarea here through New Brunswick

(10:20):
and Nova Scotia, where roadswould have to be developed to go
to the border.
I mean the consideration now isthat well, that's great We've
got all these passageways tofacilitate trade, but at the
time a lot of those roads wereactually being built to
facilitate defense in the caseof American incursion on our

(10:41):
borders.
I just find that veryinteresting how those roads
first were made because of ourvery adversarial relationship at
the beginning.

Right, Well, and then there was also the
introduction of the railwayright, and I thought it was
interesting in the book how youtalked about how trains were
able to now move large amountsof goods to a certain point, but
we still needed to be able toget them to the towns and
villages that weren'tnecessarily located on a rail
line.
So then we saw the realcooperation between the, and I

(11:24):
think you did a good job ofexplaining how that Road Act
started to help fund thedevelopment of what we would now
consider our highways here inCanada.
My grandfather actually builtroads in New Brunswick in the
40s and 50s.
That was one of his jobs, so Iguess he benefited from the
Highway Act because they wouldhave still been funding it at

(11:44):
that point.
Let's talk about some of thetough times that came about, but
how that impacted the truckingindustry.
So during the Great Depressionin the 1930s and the subsequent
new war economy that really cameforward after that time, how
did that actually cause thetrucking industry to expand?

So when you look at the Great Depression in
Atlantic Canada I believe thestatistic was 60% of people were
out of work and that wascompared to 32% across the rest
of Canada.
So you can see how we werepretty heavily impacted.
We were major exporters and ifnobody's buying, then our
economy collapses.
What the Canadian governmentdid the local economies it's

(12:37):
going to keep people working andit's going to provide tangible
benefits for the country movingforward, and so a lot of those
first highways were as a resultof just these work programs,

(12:59):
essentially where they would goout and see all this
unemployment and say we need toget our people out and being
productive.
Right, and, as you can see, itended up being a tremendous boon
to the nation.
That being said, you didn't seethe kind of massive recovery in
the economies until, of course,the Second World.

War bone of society right.
Everything we need to survivemedicine, food, energy, clothing
, all those things, all thethings that we rely on that

(13:42):
really make our way of lifepossible today is all
interconnected and because ofthe trucking industry.
But when you go back into ourhistory and you can really see
how the trucking industry wassuch an integral part of the
development of what we now getto benefit from 40, 50, 60, 70,
80, 100 years later, Well andthat was one of the things that
I found really interesting was,during my research, finding

(14:04):
there's over 500,000 truckingjobs directly related to
trucking in Canada.

There's consumer and food goods.
90% of every consumer and foodgood in Canada at some point is
traveling on a truck.
When you see that kind of stuff, you realize just how important
the industry is to the rest ofCanada.

I think, a lot of people who aren't in the
industry.
It's kind of invisible to them,right, for them, the only
interaction they have with thetrucking industry is maybe
passing a truck on the highwayor getting stuck behind a truck
on a snowy day and cursing thattransport truck for splashing
them with snow and rain.

(14:46):
But the reality is thateverything that we come to rely
on comes on a truck.
I thought it was interesting,because when were you doing the
research?
What year was it like?
2018, leading up to 2019?

The majority of it in 2018, I believe it printed in
2019.

Okay.
So this is really interestingbecause in the book you talk
about our partners to the South,the United States, and the
relationship that Canada and theUnited States has historically
had.
You describe, and I quote it'sa delicate tightrope of tariffs,
incentives and regulations thatmust be carefully navigated.
You wrote that like five, sixyears ago.

(15:25):
That is more relevant todaythan it ever has been.
So how important has trade withthe US been to the Canadian
economy historically and how hasthe trucking industry really
benefited from that?

The implementation of NAFTA, which was preceded by
the auto parts agreement, andbefore that there was the
Canada-US agreement and thenNAFTA.
I believe it was that ourexports increased from 25% to

(15:58):
50% of our GDP just within a fewshort years of signing that
agreement.
I mean, that was 1994, Ibelieve that we signed that
agreement and you can see justhow much of an effect it's had
on our and how much moreintertwined our economies have
become as a result of NAFTA and,of course, with the new USMCA

(16:23):
at the time of writing the bookwas still being negotiated you
can see that that relationshipis obviously going to continue
in some form or another, tariffsor not.

Yeah, in any long-term relationship there's
always ups and downs and it'slasted for this long.
It's not going to end.
It's just probably going tochange and will adapt and then
things will ebb and flow andmove.
So for those that are having alot of anxiety about this, just
take a step back, look at thelarger picture.

(16:56):
That's one thing that lookingat things from a hundred year
time perspective really helpsyou to see.
Right.
It's a long wave cycle.

Well, again, it's those roads that are now
bringing us their goods wereoriginally built to protect us
from their soldiers, right?
So when you consider it likethat, it's like, hey, things
have gotten a lot better.

Their goods were originally built to protect us
from their soldiers.
So when you consider it likethat, it's like, hey, things
have gotten a lot better, a lotbetter, that's right, that's
right.
So you dedicated a chapter totrucks through the ages.
What did you learn when puttingthis together?
That really stuck out asinteresting.

So and I absolutely encourage you to look this up.
But if you're familiar, haveyou heard of the Scott truck,
the Scott truck from DeBert,where it was manufactured from
1972, from 1980.
It's an interesting thing tothink about, when we're talking

(17:52):
about all these trade wars goingon right now, that we actually
used to manufacture our owntrucks here in Nova Scotia, so
those Scott trucks used to begetting built here.
I mean, there was a time duringthe Great Depression as well.
This was another fact that Ifound super interesting that
even though automobiles werealready kind of introduced into

(18:13):
a lot of the provinces, you sawpeople actually go backwards and
start taking uh harnesses andattaching their horses to their
cars so that they could justdrag their cars around when it
was too, too expensive to affordafford gas those poor horses,
yeah uh, they're like reallythat's what we're doing now.

(18:37):
Those were the Bennett buggies,which was, I think, a bit of a
dig at the at the prime ministerat the time.
Right, there's so much that youcan learn by kind of digging
into our history and some ofwhat what Atlantic Canadians had
have been able to accomplishduring those times of upheaval.

Yeah, and talking about trucks being manufactured
in Canada on the West Coast withall of that old growth, timber,
massive trees, they actuallyhad to build extra large trucks
and trailers to handle thoseloads.
So there was a Pacific and aHayes truck.
They were huge.
So I've got a picture, and I'llI'll share it now on the screen
of my wife.

(19:19):
When we were first married wewent on a sales trip together
and we and we found one of thesetrucks and she's standing
beside it and she's like littlefive foot three and the front
wheel is like six feet indiameter, so the front wheel is
taller than her.
And these massive truckscarrying like 130,000 pounds of
timber down the sides of coastalmountains.

(19:41):
I was lucky enough at the earlyparts of my career to actually
see it in person and truly, atthe time, those things were
really engineering marvels.
So you know, canadians, we'vegot this spirit.
We are very innovative peopleand whatever challenges come our
way, I think we're going to beable to find solutions to those

(20:02):
challenges.
So on that note, joel, let'stalk about being Canadian and
supporting the Canadian truckingindustry.
Now that you've done thisproject, you've written this
book, you've had experience withthe industry the time that
you've done this project, you'vewritten this book, you've had
experience with the industry thetime that you've had experience
with the industry.
When I say that being Canadianand supporting the trucking
industry, what does that mean toyou?

(20:22):
One of the big things isrespect those truck drivers.

They're professionals just like any
other professional that youmight see.
It is a difficult job and theydeserve respect for the job that
they're doing.
A fact that I learned that kindof speaks to this is the
TransCanada utilized the mapleleaf as a kind of Canadian icon

(20:53):
before it was ever implementedonto our flag, which I believe
was 1965.
It just shows, you know, roadsare so important to our nation
Roads, highways and our driversAbsolutely.

Well, I really appreciate you taking the time
to talk to us.
We're going to make sure thatpeople who want to actually read
the book we will make itavailable to those digital
companies available, and Joelreally appreciate it.
We'd love to have you back onthe podcast in the future.
Anytime we're talking about thehistory of the trucking
industry, I think you're goingto be our go-to source.
Well, another hundred years,right?

(21:26):
Yeah, well, hopefully.
I don't know what condition youand I would be in in 100 years
but maybe with modern technology.
Right, that's it.
Thanks, joel.
Thanks for being on the Partsfor Trucks podcast.
Really appreciate you havinghere.
It was my pleasure.
It was great to talk to Joelabout the history of the

(21:48):
trucking industry here in Canadaand there's so many fascinating
details.
I really would love to spendmore time with him, so I think
we'll probably have him back onthe show again to talk about
more of the history, because ittruly is fascinating.
Now I want to share with you aninterview I had with Andy
Raymond.
Now Andy, this is a reallyhumble guy.

(22:09):
I think that the impact thatthe Raymond family had on Parts
for Trucks is so huge.
I think they were excellentstewards of this business for
decades and it was really greatto talk to Andy about some of
the interesting things, theinnovations that they brought to
the company, the history ofwhere the company started and

(22:32):
how it transitioned and setitself up to be the company that
it is today.
I think you're going to reallyenjoy our conversation with Andy
Raymond.
Andy, welcome to the Parts forTrucks podcast, great Thank you
Jim.
I'd like you to take us back intime.
What was happening in the worldin the years leading up to the

(22:52):
original founders of what wouldone day become parts for trucks?
So Harold Spencer and HarryRichard, they started Scotia
Equipment in 1919.
What was the world like backthen?

Andy Raymond (23:03):
Well, they actually started a company
called Scotia Garage well beforemy time but my understanding of
it, that automotive use,whether it's trucks or cars, was
a minor part of the economy orthe way people did things.
The big event was the FirstWorld War, which brought a
recognition of a bigger world toa lot of people and

(23:25):
particularly to people who livedin rural areas might not have
seen a car, and that was most ofCanada.
So in traveling maybe goingoverseas to serve or traveling
to Halifax to serve in thesupport work for the war effort
people would have seen vehiclesand as the war progressed I know
that that became more and morea part of what they did.

(23:47):
So my thinking is in 1919, thata number of people not just
Richard and Spencer thoughtabout how would they employ the
new technology in a changingworld.

It's hard for many of us to understand.
My daughter is almost 21.
I remember when we sat her downand showed her a phone book.
She looked at it.
She goes why would people everuse this?
Why wouldn't they just useGoogle?
And she looked at it.
She goes why would people everuse this?
Why wouldn't they just useGoogle?
Like for young people, theycan't even imagine a time before
the internet, never mind a timebefore vehicles were so

(24:21):
prolific, and I can imagine, Ibelieve, that when this company
was started, there was what lessthan a thousand vehicles, even
in Nova Scotia.
That's what I read in the bookby Joel Miller.
Right, yeah, yeah, even in NovaScotia.
That's what I read in the bookby Joel Miller.
Yeah, yeah.
So you could imagine I'm tryingto put myself in the minds of
these two men who are startingthis company.
They must have been forwardthinking to some degree, though,

(24:43):
to be able to look at thiscurrent situation, the trend,
and see where is this going togo, and obviously they were a
bit ahead of the curve.

If you look at the history, early history of the
company, a more telling exampleof who they were was not that
they took a chance.
Lots of people take chances ondifferent businesses.
It was 10 years after theystarted the Great Depression.
The Worldwide Depression cameon for 10 years.
The business survived that.

(25:12):
That probably tells you moreabout them than their idea of
founding a company.

The statistics around business success and
failure are pretty clear.
I think most people have heardthat a lot of businesses fail in
the first five years.
But what a lot of people don'tknow is that actually a large
amount of businesses either sellor close at the 10-year mark,
where the founders are justhired right, they just are kind
of worn out.
So you could imagine just atthat time in an entrepreneur's

(25:40):
life where things are kind ofreally at that level at 10 years
and then you have this globaldepression in 1929.
Yeah, I tend to agree with you.
I think that speaks a lot totheir character.
So let's fast forward in timenow.
How did the Raymond family cometo own the company that would
become Parts for Trucks?

Well, my parents are both from Nova Scotia but
early in their marriage theymoved to Montreal in the 1950s
and my dad was working there andmy dad was working there again
had this friendship with uh jimmorrison, the, the son-in-law of
the of the owner of scotiaequipment.
That led to an offer from mrspencer senior for my father to

(26:24):
come and join the parts andtrucks the scotia equipment team
and our family moved to novascotia, to Nova Scotia, in 1963.
My father joined the companysenior role with the company.
He worked with a team of MrSpencer's senior head was less
active in the business, stillstill owned the principal amount

(26:44):
of business.
But Harold Spencer Jr, his sonand Jim Morrison, my father
directed the company made a bigmove to move from downtown
Halifax to a new industrial parkin Dartmouth, the bridge, and
that was a bold move.
People said, what are you doing?
You're leaving downtown, butdowntown was changing and they

(27:04):
saw that we went to a muchbigger facility, we're able to
stock more lines and that wasthe start of growth.
And that was the start ofgrowth.
And then from there my fathertook over full ownership of the
company in 1975.
Paul and I joined a few yearslater, and we took over

(27:24):
ownership of the company when mydad retired in 1996.

When you and your brother Paul joined the company.
What capacity did you join thecompany?
What did your father have youdo?
How did you learn the business?

I started drove a delivery truck, worked in the
parts department.
A couple of years prior to myjoining the company.
My father had made a bold moveof buying a computer.
That wasn't done back in theday.
They spent a lot of money on itand there was no package
software, so it was kind ofcustom software.

(27:59):
The machine was as big as arefrigerator.
It had 20 megabytes of harddrive storage and not much
memory 256K.
That was kind of interestingand I was on board as we were
getting used to that.
But there were flaws in thesoftware and this is before
modem.
So I'm on the phone trying totalk to somebody, just gave up

(28:20):
and figured out how to programmyself and I rewrote all the
code and that carried us for agood while.
In addition to that I waslooking after the accounting
management of the company and mybrother, paul Paul, is a
mechanical engineer.
He was working for a largecompany in Montreal, came back
to Nova Scotia around the time Ijoined and Paul became the

(28:45):
service manager.
He had some great peoplesupporting him.
He learned a lot in thatindustry and on that side of the
industry and then he also gotspecialized in selling truck
mounted equipment which again,he was contacted with engineers,
so we all grew ourresponsibilities.
There was plenty of work for meand paul and for other key
people.
It was never just paul andmyself, it was a a team right

(29:08):
throughout the whole company,but in terms of leadership, we
had other leaders than just pauland me.
We were very successful and wehad fun.
Our families had fun with eachother and it was a great place
to work.

I don't know how successful you can be if you
aren't having at least a littlebit of fun right?
I think those two are hand inhand.
So talk to me about thedecision to rebrand the company
Parts for Trucks.
What was the thought processbehind it?
When did that happen?

Well, after my father bought the company he
started an expansion.
We went to New Brunswick andthen to Newfoundland and we were
using the name Scotia Equipment.
There was a legacy, certainly,to that name, but equipment was
thought more to mean somethingoff-road and not that we don't
sell parts for off-road, but notnecessarily trucks.
And we had obviously grownoutside of Nova Scotia so we

(29:58):
were searching around for a name.
At the time we opened a newstore in Truro and that was in
1985.
And that was our fourth storeand we decided to make that a
different type of store.
So in the past most commercialsales were done with a customer
coming in, going to the counterand asking for a part or asking

(30:18):
for help, and the person servingthat customer would disappear
into the warehouse and come backwith something or say, no, we
don't have it.
And the store in Truro.
We designed the store so thecounter wasn't a barrier to the
parts, so the customer could seethe parts, touch the parts,

(30:38):
pick one up if he knew what hewanted.
And that was a different design.
It required different shelving,obviously more low rise and
better lighting and more signage, but that was very successful.
We called that store a Partsfor Trucks store, so it was a
trade style first.
It was so successful we startedremodeling our other stores and

(31:00):
as we did, we changed thelayout.
We called it a Parts for Trucksstore and then, 1987, april 6th
, we renamed the whole companyParts for Trucks Incorporated.

So you were able to be part of a legacy business
and play a significant role inshaping that company over a long
period of time.
What would you say was theingredients that led to success
during the time that the Raymondfamily had the opportunity to

(31:32):
own and operate this business?

Fundamentally it was the people.
We took care to seek outexceptional people to join the
company and then gave them thetools whether it's information
technology, training to servethe customer as well, as the
customer deserves to be treatedand our customers deserve to be
treated really well.
So we were, of that commonmindset, very successful in

(31:59):
getting our staff on board andit was always a team approach.
Having said that, there werechallenges and certainly there
were so many changes in ourindustry.
So, in terms of technology,when I first joined the company,
we were still mailing purchaseorders to some suppliers and

(32:20):
then this Telex came along thatyou could type it in, but it had
no memory.
And then someone was sellingTelexes where you had some
memory, had it on a tape thatyou made.
That lowered the cost, and thenit was a fax machine, which was
wonderful.
Now it's all changed.
We wanted to be ahead of thosechanges.
So I think we're veryprogressive in terms of the

(32:40):
technology we use.
We're progressive be ahead ofthose changes.
So I think we're veryprogressive in terms of the
technology we use.
We're progressive in terms ofchanging in the way we do things
and training our staff.
So I think that was a key tobeing successful with having our
whole company on board, withstaying ahead of the changing
environment.

Knowing what you know now, if you were doing it
all over again, if you were likein your 20s and you were just
coming into the industry, whatadvice would you have for people
?
And knowing everything you knownow, what would you do?

There's no large regrets.
I think we really had ourtiming right and, in the macro
sense, and that comes from inthe micro level, constantly
monitoring, constantly willingto admit we've got to change
this slightly.

So be adaptable and be flexible.
Great advice, great advice.
What does being a Canadian andsupporting the Canadian trucking
industry mean to you?

Well, we have a number of associations across
North America, certainly withour suppliers and trade
associations.
There are differences in ourindustry from what's south of
the border and our company hasbeen quite successful in getting
recognition of thosedifferences.
And certainly to the extent oursuppliers recognize the

(34:01):
differences and modify theirselling procedures, their
training procedure, for one, ofhaving a French language
training I think we've been achampion of that that benefits
our whole industry.

Well, and you think of the integral role that
the trucking industry plays inour society, right, I always say
the trucking industry is thebackbone of society.
You know, without it, people'slives and our way of life really
do hang in the balance.
So for me, I know when I lookat that, I think it's a real
privilege to be able tocontribute to this great

(34:34):
industry that supports all ofour neighbors and friends.
In 2017, you passed the torchto the Miller brothers, the
Miller family.
What was it about the Millersthat gave you confidence that
you were handing the torch tosomeone that the company would
be in good hands?

Well, we've known the Millers for some time.
I knew Cory and Brett's dad,brian, absolutely wonderful man,
and you see that in Corey andBrett the timing was good for us
.
They were from our industry butdidn't compete with us, so they
had the entire business, hadthe same customers, kind of the
same geographical footprint.

(35:14):
It was a great match for us,who had knowledge specific to
our role in the industry andthey had the general knowledge
of the customers.
They're hardworking, smart guysand they also they care about
the things we care about.
They cared about theiremployees, cared about doing
things ethically supporting thecustomer.

(35:34):
So there was a real, a reallygood match, a real good media of
minds.
It was good timing for us to doit.

Well, thank you very much for taking time to
talk to us and share the historyof the company Some fascinating
stories.
Really appreciate it.
And thank you for being one ofthe first guests on the Parts
for Trucks podcast Great Thankyou, jim.
Well, up until now, thisepisode has been quite the
history lesson.
But now we're going to talkabout the present day and the

(36:02):
future, and so I'd like tointroduce you to Corey Miller,
ceo of Parts for Trucks.
In this conversation, we aretalking a lot about what is the
driving force behind Parts forTrucks, what are we doing here,
why are we in business and whatis being done to set this
company up to support theCanadian trucking industry for

(36:25):
another 100 years.
Enjoy my conversation withCorey Miller.
Corey, welcome to the Parts forTrucks podcast.
Glad to have you here.
It's great to be here, jamie,thanks for having me on.
Well, it's an opportunity forus to allow future customers,
existing customers people aregoing to watch this in the
future.
This gives us a realopportunity to get to know you,

(36:47):
kind of the way that you think,how you approach the industry
and what makes Parts for Trucksspecial.
So I'm really excited about ourconversation.
Let's get into it.
Yeah, me too.
You acquired Parts for Trucks.
This is a legacy company inAtlantic Canada.
What about this company madeyou want to acquire it?

Parts for Trucks was a really well-known legacy
brand in Atlantic Canada when Iwas growing up in the business.
So I started in the tirebusiness.
It was a company that my dadran since the seventies and I
grew up, you know, down thestreet from a parts for trucks.
We were a customer of parts fortrucks.

(37:26):
I had so much respect for thebrand and the team and you know
everything they did in theindustry.
You know there's a greatbreadth, as you know, in the
products and the services.
It was really that legacy andthat when we bought it in 2017,
it was almost 100 years old.
It was actually 98 years old.
When someone gets a chance toget involved in an organization

(37:50):
that has that kind of historyand such a strong brand standing
, it's almost a no-brainer.

In some respects, it's a bit of an honor to be
able to continue on the legacyof a company that has been
around for nearly a century.
I'm sure when you first tookthe business over, though, there
was some hurdles that wereunique to acquiring a legacy
business this wasn't a startupby Eddie Meads, so what kind of
hurdles did you first face as anew leader in this legacy

(38:21):
company?

On, the personal side, it was just a huge
learning curve.
As you're aware, we carry somany products in our industry
and the heavy duty industry ingeneral and do so many services
that, coming from an industrylike tires, there were just a
lot of um, a lot of things tolearn when it came to the
product offerings.

(38:43):
And you know I still am workingon that today.
Right, we offer so many thingsthat it's impossible to be, uh,
an expert in all of them.
We're really fortunate that wehave experts in in a lot of
areas in our organization.
You know I certainly lean on onthose folks a lot, uh, as far
as uh knowing the products butthat would be the first one is

(39:04):
that.
You know that was a personalchallenge to overcome.

One of my parts mentors when I got into the
business.
So I've been in the businesscoming up 27 years and uh, he
said to me.
He said how do you get 20 yearsexperience in the heavy duty
parts business?
I'm like I don't know how hegoes.
Come see me in 20 years.
And it's true, right, and Ithink it's one of the things
that heavy duty people reallylove about this business, though
, is that you know, 20, 25, 30years in, we're still learning

(39:31):
new things every day.
It still is challenging us, sothat really resonates with me,
uh, why you would feel that waycoming into the business and
everything.
So you mentioned there was anitem that came up as you took
over the business.
What was that?
Tell us more about that.

Speaking more corporately, Parts for Trucks
had a long legacy and a lot ofreally strong people at the
helms of different businesses,right?
So my brother, Brett, and Ipurchased the company from Paul
and Andy Raymond, who had beenin the business a long time and
were veterans of the industry.

(40:07):
They had with them a reallystrong team, right?
People like Kevin Swan and DougBanfield and Robert Sittle, who
have all since retired, and youknow they made up a large
portion of the management team.
So you know, one of thechallenges initially, upon

(40:29):
getting into the business, wasto identify some of the best
talent in the organization andreally give them an opportunity
to boost their skills and stepinto those shoes of the
experienced leaders that youknow we knew would be leaving
within a matter of years when wefirst bought the business.

(40:51):
So we were really fortunatethat, you know, we identified,
you know, just awesome, awesomepeople like Jason Frazier and
Mark Bowser, who form today thebackbone of the company, along
with Luke McKenzie.
And without identifying thattalent and being able to work

(41:16):
with them to have them come inbehind the experienced talent
that we knew would be retiring,I don't think the company would
be existing today without thosefolks stepping up.
So it really was a teamapproach to keeping the business
strong and really making itstronger with that new young
talent.

Listen, I didn't know you, corey, before coming
to work for Parts for Trucks,and I will tell you that
absolutely a big part of mydecision to join the company was
both what we've been talkingabout the legacy of the company
as well as the management teamthat you'd put in place.
It's exciting to be part ofthat leadership group Now.
We have a bunch of people whoare passionate about the

(42:00):
industry.
They are knowledgeable, they'vegrown up in the industry, so
they really bring a lot ofexperience and for me, it's
really an honor to be able tojoin those people and to work
alongside them every day.
I know myself it's expanding myknowledge and pushing me, and I
hope I can add something to theteam as well.

(42:20):
So, no, well done on that and,like I said, it was a big part
of my desire to join the company.
You've managed through somepretty tough times, like things
like a once in a hundred yearpandemic that you know.
The last time a pandemichappened parts for trucks was
one year old.

Yeah.

So then you managed through uh times like
COVID think about, after COVID,right, we had all the supply
chain collapse, then we hadhyper inflation, now we have
geopolitical instability.
I mean, these have not beenwhat I would call normal times
in the trucking industry andyou've had to lead this company
throughout all of that.
What lessons in leadership didyou learn going through all of

(43:03):
this?

I really enjoy a challenge.
You know when, when, thingsthat are status quo.
You know it's really it's alittle bit boring and I think
that that that's why a lot of usare in business right, it's the
opportunity to go throughchange and help create change in
in our industry.
That that gets us up in themorning and you know, part of

(43:29):
managing through all of thatdisruption over that period of
time, you know I would get up inthe morning kind of as you did,
probably turn the TV on andjust wonder what's going to
happen today, right, like whatelse is going to go wrong.
That helped us identify some ofthe strong management team that
we have today and we alignedourselves and brought people

(43:52):
into the company that thrive onchange and thrive on challenge
and want to get up every morningand they think how do I make
this business better?
How do I serve customers better?
How do I get through thechallenges I'm going to face
today?
It's just awesome to see theresiliency that came through.

(44:16):
That really shone through in ourteam during that period.
It was an all-hands-on-decksort of thing.
We were really fortunate thatwe didn't have to lay anybody
off.
You know we kept everythinggoing and rallied with a lot of
the industry to ensure that wewere considered an essential

(44:37):
service.
Partially, I came to acceptthat there's just a lot of
things you can't change.
You got to go with the flowsometimes and have a certain
resiliency to take your bruisesand take your bumps and your
punches and just keep going.
And, like I say, I'm reallyproud of our team because, uh,

(45:01):
they all proved as well thatthey could just take a punch and
and keep going and, uh, youknow it was, it was a pretty
cool team building experience.
I wouldn't want to do it again,but it was.
It was a.
It was a.
It was a neat team buildingexperience to go through, right,
uh, cause you really do seesome extraordinary
characteristics of people comeout when they come together
during something like that.

This concept of being heavy duty isn't just
something that you apply to theparts and the equipment that we
service.
It actually can be applied tothe individual people.
You almost know when you'retalking to someone who's heavy
duty.
So think about this.
The definition of heavy dutyfor equipment is a resilient

(45:43):
piece of equipment that canoperate efficiently and
effectively in the most extremecircumstances and environments
that we can put that equipmentin.
And that's a great metaphor forthe heavy duty people that work
in this industry.
Because they are resilient,they can endure difficult times,
they rise to the challenge andthey can operate in these tough

(46:04):
environments and succeed.
And I think when I hear youdescribe what you witnessed
through those years, I thinkthat really exemplified that
quality of being heavy duty.
So, with that in mind, you'vetalked about the leadership, but
we've got like over 600employees at the company and
growing.
What do people need to knowabout the men and women that

(46:28):
work at Parts for Trucks?
Because, remember, our currentcustomers and future customers
are going to go back and watchthis video.
So what do they need to knowabout the people that work at
Parts for Trucks?

The culture at Parts for Trucks takes its time
to ensure that we understand thechallenge that our customers
have.
You know, it's one of problemsolving and, like we chatted
about earlier, resiliency rightand help the industry right
Become a better place.
We also take a lot of pride indeveloping people and we've got

(47:07):
a lot of tools in placeinternally, but also externally,
through our supplier partnersand organizations that we belong
to, like Vypar and CV, know,help us provide tools to our
team so that they cancontinually learn more, like we
were talking about all theproduct categories that we deal

(47:28):
with in in the heavy dutyindustry and and there's always
something new, right, I mean,the industry is always changing.
There's always something, a newproduct coming out in every
product category, likely everyday of the week, and you know,
one of the things that Parts forTrucks has done well is enable
our team to become informed onthose products and ensure that

(47:53):
that kind of thirst forknowledge gets quenched, because
we really do have a great groupof people that want to do right
by the customer, and part ofthat is staying on top of
products, services and what'simportant.

So Corey, who's the most important person in
this company.

In an organization as complex as ours, that's
serving an industry that is ascomplex as the heavy duty
industry, it takes every singleperson to fill their role right
and it includes people on theshop floor mechanics,
apprentices, folks in thewarehouse driving forklifts.

(48:37):
It takes the people at theparts counter.
It takes the people at our callcenter.
It takes our folks on the road,the outside sales, reps,
accounting, hr.
There's so many roles in theorganization and if any one
person doesn't show up to workthat day, it impacts the whole

(48:57):
operation and everybody isintegral it's everybody is
integral to the, to theday-to-day operation of the
business, and it's impossible tosay who the most important
person is, because it's uh,everybody is the most important
person.

Yeah, I agree with that a hundred percent.
So we are a, a group of peoplethat when we all come together
and we all play our specificroles, then, um, you know, that
creates like a composite person.
That's the most important and,Corey, I think you're going to
hear from me a lot.
I mean, the trucking industryis the backbone of society.

(49:29):
When you really think about it,without the trucking industry,
the essentials of life don't getto people.
So, whether we're talking aboutenergy to heat our homes in the
Canadian winter, whether we'retalking about medicine, food,
clothing the very fundamentalsthat preserve people's lives,
but it's also our way of lifeEverything that we enjoy in this

(49:50):
great country is because itcame on a truck, and so when you
think about your job especiallywe're speaking now to the
employees of Parts for Trucksbut when you come and do your
job and you're contributing,you're doing your part to
contribute to supporting thetrucking industry, which
supports Canada, and that'ssomething we can be really,

(50:10):
really proud of, and I'm surethat you feel the same way
moving efficiently if they don'treceive service when they break
down, if they don't receiveregular maintenance, if they
don't have the parts availablewhen they need them lettuce
doesn't get on the shelves andfish doesn't get delivered and

(50:33):
heating oil doesn't getdelivered.

It would be catastrophic to the entire
country and every singleCanadian without people like the
folks at Parts for Trucksplaying a role in ensuring that,
literally, the wheels of theeconomy keep turning.

So we took a moment to speak to our employees
.
I'd like to take a minute tospeak to our customers now, and
I've got a question for you.
Why should customers come toParts for Trucks instead of our
competitors?
What's your answer to thatquestion?
And here's the thing you can'tuse the five things that I call
the barriers of entry into thebusiness right.
So we know we have to haveexperience, we know we have to

(51:11):
have tenure in the industry, weknow we have to have a wide
range of parts and good serviceand we have to have competitive
pricing.
So, if that's all aside, whatare those intangible things that
makes Parts for Trucks aspecial supplier in the industry
?

Yeah, our goal is to be the easiest organization
to deal with.
We've all been in that situationwhen you've tried to buy
something or source something orhave a repair done and it just
seems more complicated than whatit should be.
I think it's important to wakeup every day and think about how

(51:45):
we can make our business easierto deal with and how we can
take away stress from customersand things that get in the way
of us doing business.
It's important that when someoneneeds a part, or when someone
needs service, or when someoneneeds advice on how to maintain
their vehicle, that we make iteasy for them, and that includes

(52:11):
being available in multipleways, right?
I mean, you can pick up thephone, you can walk down the
street or drive down the streetand visit a store.
You can shop 24 hours a day,seven days a week, online if you
want to.
There's no such thing as beingperfect, but I think we want to
strive for perfection every dayin making our customers' lives

(52:36):
easier.
Yes, everybody can get parts,everybody can offer competitive
pricing, everybody can give goodservice, but it's really about
just making the customer's lifeeasier in the process, and I
think that that's truly awinning formula If you can do
something right and do itquickly and make it easy, it's a

(52:59):
recipe for success.

That is a continuous improvement kind of
proposition, right?
It never ends.
It's going to go on and on andon.
So for you, to the customerwho's listening to this right
now, I guess the message thatwe'd like to share with you is
that we are working every day totry to make your life easier,
because we take that veryseriously.
So we welcome that feedback.

(53:26):
We want to hear from you, wewant to know where there's
friction and where you're havingstruggles, so that we can try
to come up with solutions thatdon't just fix the problem today
but become a permanent part ofthe way that we do things, to
make it easy for you as timegoes forward.
What gives you confidence forthe future, for not just our
company but Canada as a whole.

Canada has so many great attributes for us to be
proud of.
Right, we have wonderfulnatural resources that we can
use to our advantage.
We have two amazing coastsreally three amazing coasts if
you, if you count the arctic.
We're just positioned reallywell to succeed as a nation.

(54:12):
The heavy duty industry isalways going to be an integral
part when the country does well.
Our industry does well becausewe are a great nation and, uh,
you know, you look at how, uh,our nation pulls together when
it's really necessary.
It's an, it's an awesome thing.

(54:32):
That's that's what gives me alot of hope and confidence that
our best years are still aheadof us.
I know that we have a winningformula in our country.
Uh, you know, it's, it's.
We're not without ourday-to-day struggles, but over
the long term, we are so wellpositioned to be a strong nation

(54:55):
and in doing that, theheavy-duty trucking industry is
going to be a winning piece ofthat industry is going to be a
winning piece of that.

When you talk about that, what I think about
is I think about some of theamazing accomplishments that
individual Canadians have madeand the contributions they've
made on the world scene.
It makes me think that, at theend of the day, it always comes
back to being about the people.
I grew up in the Maritimes inNew Brunswick.
I've lived for almost 20 yearson the West Coast in Vancouver.
Now I'm in Alberta, so I'vegotten an opportunity to

(55:30):
experience a lot of differenttypes of Canadians.
So for you, as an individualCanadian, what does it mean to
be Canadian to you?

I think Canadians are really caring, know we
really want the best for youknow, not only our own nation,
but you know our families, ourcommunities and the rest of the
world right.
Canadians are famous and havealways been famous for standing

(56:01):
up for what's right.
That makes me incredibly proudCanadian when it comes to
building a business and beingCanadian.
I'm very proud to say thatParts for Trucks is a well
regarded and well-respectedbrand and company all over North
America and we're really wellknown and people watch us to see

(56:27):
what we're doing.
Some cases they copy what we'redoing and that's a great sign.
There's nothing more flatteringthan having people copy you
right.
Like you, I grew up in Atlanta.
Canada.
Being a Maritimer has given mea perspective that you know.
Business can be really tough,you know, and the Maritimes

(56:50):
doesn't have a really boomingeconomy the way the rest of the
country has experienced atdifferent times.
You just learn by growing up inthat environment to do better
and work harder to make morewith less.
You know that's what being aCanadian in business to me means

(57:10):
and, more generally, you knowbeing a Canadian in the world
means.

Well, corey.
Thank you so much for takingtime.
I think this has been a greatconversation.
Corey Miller is our CEO ofParts for Trucks and really
appreciate you taking some timeto talk about this, and we will
continue to do our part to makeParts for Trucks a success and
make it easy for our customersto do business with us.
Thanks, corey, for being on theshow.
Thanks, jamie.
It was a pleasure.

(57:35):
You've been listening to theParts for Trucks podcast.
I'm your host, Jamie Irvine.
In the second episode, wereally did get to learn a lot
about our 100-year history as acompany.
In our next episode, we aregoing to provide you with an
overview of what Parts forTrucks has to offer from a parts
service and equipmentperspective, but we're also
going to talk about the way thatwe are leveraging all of the

(57:59):
resources available to us tohelp you, our customers and the
people listening to this podcast.
So come back for episode three.
I think you're going to learn alot more about this company and
it'll give you the perspectiveof why we exist, what we're
trying to do to fulfill thatmission and how we actually
support our customers.

(58:20):
Thank you for watching andlistening to this episode and
thank you for being heavy duty.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;} Supporting the Trucking Industry for Over 100 Years