For the Long Haul with Tommy Fitzgerald

Join Kosta and his guest: Tommy Fitzgerald, Owner of Fitzgerald Peterbilt and Founder of SemiCasual Truck Show.

Learn more about Tommy Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald Peterbilt, and SemiCasual Truck Show:
https://fitzgeraldpeterbilt.com/
https://semicasualtruckshow.com/

Follow SemiCasual Truck Show on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@SEMICasualShow

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find out more about Kosta Yepifantsev:
https://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

Tommy Fitzgerald: 0:01

There are quite a few misconceptions about the trucking industry. But one thing I would say is the industry is aging. And I think as an industry, we need to find more ways to attract youth to our industry. And I know that's something that a lot of industries struggle with. But you know, trucking specifically is not one of those. I just turned 18. And there's this fantastic looking trucking company that I want to go drive trucks for, you know, typically all the truckers that I know of are generational. You know, my dad was a trucker. My uncle was a trucker. My grandfather was a trucker. And it's not very glamorous to you know, somebody who's 18, 19 years old, but Well, hey, I want to go drive a big rig.

Morgan Franklin: 0:41

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success,challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:59

Hey, y'all, it's Kosta. Today, I'm here with my guest, Tommy Fitzgerald, owner of Fitzgerald Peterbilt, and founder of semi casual Truck Show. This episode is different from our usual content. So I want to set the scene for our listeners. Tommy, would you give us some background on semi casual how you started working with rigs? And what trucks mean to you?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 1:21

Yeah, sure. So semi casual is a customization arm of Fitzgerald Peterbilt. I'm a co owner and Fitzgerald Peterbilt. I've always really enjoyed customizing big rigs. So I decided a couple of years ago, me and my friend Brian Burke, we decided to start a customization brand. And that's what semi casual is and the way I got into the business, I guess I was born into it. Okay, so my father started a company back in 1989. And I was born in 87. So before I was even able to comprehend what was going on, I was already in it.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 1:54

And what did he start doing back in? 1989? Like, how did he get started? Yeah, so

Tommy Fitzgerald: 1:59

my dad was building rigs, okay, you know, a long time ago. So you know, my father and my mother kind of ran away from home, so to speak, whenever they were 16 years old. Oh, wow. They decided that they were going to change their lives for the better, you know, some negative things going on at home. And so they decided they were going to change their lives for the better. They ran away from home together. They lived in a abandoned school bus in the woods when they were 16 years old, here in Tennessee. Now that actually happened in Kentucky. Okay. Yeah, my dad, my dad tells me about it. It was about 1960s some limits raised. I get to hear the story a lot. But

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:32

so I mean, he's he's building trucks just in the very beginning. Yeah. And obviously, most people that listen to this episode are probably going to know what Fitzgerald is in terms of its business and its footprint, you guys have been wildly successful. What happened next,

Tommy Fitzgerald: 2:47

so you know, my dad, his goal was to basically provide the means for us to provide for ourselves. My father has six children, there are three boys, three girls, every single one of us are involved in one of the family businesses. My dad was a serial entrepreneur, he loved starting new companies. And so over time, he made it to where every single one of us basically had a way to provide for ourselves and our own families going forward in the future. So you know, I'm with Fitzgerald, Peterbilt. My older brother Robert, he has a company called Fitzgerald collision repair. My sisters are very actively involved in some hardware stores that we took on called the country Farm and Home. My younger brother, Blake. He's wildly successful in this performance business that he has called Fitzgerald performance where he likes doing basically it's diesel drag racing, and you know, things of that nature and just customization of pickup trucks is really taken on, you know, a similar role that me and Brian do in the Big Rig role that he does it with pickup trucks.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 3:45

Why do they call them rigs?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 3:47

So big rigs? You know, I really don't know where that come from. I can tell you where tractor trailers come from. Okay, so tractor trailers, you know, a tractor is basically just a mechanical component to move heavy machinery is, you know, the definition of tractor. Right. And so when people hear tractor, they naturally think farm tractor, but the technical definition of tractor is just large engine, or large mechanical device that can move other machinery,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 4:12

customization and personalization play a huge role in the culture and lifestyle of most truckers, what do these customizations normally look like? And how have you built a career and platform around these modifications?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 4:28

You know, the platform was pretty easy because it is wildly popular in my industry and others, a lot of guys who do what I do, there's a lot of guys who do it just as good if I wouldn't say if maybe not even better than when we do it. But you know, when we started the YouTube channel, it started a lot slower than what we had anticipated. And then over time, we just hit this one wild stride where it grew and grew and grew. And that was about 12 months into it. So I would actually want to say that the modifications themselves, sell the, you know, the platform in which you know, which we have on YouTube, right? So the modifications are pretty wild sometimes, you know, we have one customer who redid his entire interior. And the interior of a big rig is huge. I mean, when you compare it to like that of a car have like a bed in there and yeah, there's beds, there's cabinets and you know, whenever you want to wrap all this stuff in leather, that's a lot of leathers. Yeah, you know, one job we did took 40 hides of leather to do. And the guy wanted Italian Leather. So it was $1,000. To hide, to do to do the inside of this rig. And he said it took 40 of these. So, you know, whenever you're doing builds that are that wild and that customize, you know, obviously it draws a lot of attention online and people want to see more of that. Do they do the exterior too? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, we do quite a bit to the exterior. So

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:46

here's my question. Alright. These trucks are going across the country multiple times. a month. Yeah. Okay, multiple times a week, a week, maybe. Right, exactly. So okay, so you are spending tons of money. And the reason I'm asking this question is because you understand the mind of somebody that drives truck? Yeah, because you've been doing it all your life. So why would I spend $200,000 or $100,000 on redoing the exterior of a truck, and please forgive the ignorance but like chrome pipes and flames and maybe like spikes on the wheels, if you're going to be driving with a bunch of crazy people back and forth. On the interstates, you know, multiple times a week,

Tommy Fitzgerald: 6:30

you know, a lot of it is going to come down to passion. Okay. So, you know, the truck we built for that specific gentleman, he has 50 trucks, and he drives that specific truck himself. So that was, you know, for one, that's his pride. That's his passion. He's been in trucking for years and years and years. And he's, you know, honestly, one of the best people I've ever met. I mean, he's he's incredibly genuine guy. He's very, very passionate about what he does. The second part of that is marketing. You know, a lot of these guys will spend the money and try to get the name out there as far as this was a, you know, so and so transportation truck. And whenever there's that flagship truck that is known out there, there are very few competitions that get a lot of recognition in our industry. So you take like a Mid America Truck Show. That's the hardest truck show in the United States to win at. Okay, right? So that's our version of like a SEMA. Right? And so when you go there, and you put a truck in that competition, and you win, it's instant recognition, industry wide. Everybody knows your name now, because you want Mid America.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:31

And if you're a truck builder, that helps business right. If you're a truck builder,

Tommy Fitzgerald: 7:35

that helps me because it gets my name out there as far as I built this truck, which by the way, that specific truck got second place in the combo class, which is super hard to do. It wasn't a win. And the guy who did win we 100% expected it to because it was just a wild and crazy build. And we thought, Well, if there's one truck out there, it's going to beat us it's going to be this one because, you know, we'd seen it a couple times and got a sneak peek and we were just like, man, if we lose, it's gonna be to that truck. But anyway, more than helping us as a builder. It helps the person who came there that says so and so transportation on the door that helps them in the instance of you know, getting new loads. This particular instance this guy hauls fuel. And so if you know, if he reaches out to someone in shell corporation, they're gonna say, oh, yeah, you know, I saw your truck you know, even shell has a super rigs competition. And so you know, there's, there's a lot of industry networking you can do when you get into building a show truck, and it helps recruiting drivers obtaining new loads and building your business.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:33

How much does a regular truck like so for example, you own Fitzgerald, Peterbilt, you sell Peterbilt type trucks, brand trucks, like how much does a regular Peterbilt truck cost?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 8:44

You know, what's really cool about Peterbilt is there's no such thing as a regular Peterbilt. Oh, okay. Yeah, so Peterbilt is the most customizable ordering truck on the planet. So whenever you go to order a Peterbilt, you get what's called a specification sheet. There are about 280 line items on the specification sheet. And out of those 280 line items, there's about 16 or 18 options per line item. Wow. Yeah. And so Peterbilt likes to claim it, there are 2.5 million ways to order a Peterbilt which makes it very stressful as a dealer because you don't want to get it wrong. And I've got it wrong a lot. I've had to learn a lot of hard lessons the hard way, but that being said, I would say your average aerodynamic truck probably run somebody about$200,000 Okay, you know, 200 to 210 somewhere in that neighborhood and then your you know, your out of the box 389 with no customization done to it is going to run you between 265 and 285.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 9:38

How much does it cost if they buy one of your trucks that's been customized with all the bells and whistles? So

Tommy Fitzgerald: 9:43

I've done$30,000 builds on top of the price of the truck that I've done $300,000 on top of the price at the truck, so Wow, it's like a $500,000 truck. Yeah, so it's basically whatever you want, and that's what semi casual, you know, that's that's what we specialize in is what do you want? You know, you dream it, we build it.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:03

I love it. What do you think is the biggest misconception about truckers? And how can we better understand the people who literally keep our country running?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 10:13

You know, there are quite a few misconceptions about the trucking industry. But one thing I would say is, you know, me and you had talked about this before the industry is aging. And I think as an industry, we need to find more ways to attract youth to our industry. And I know that's something that a lot of industries struggle with. But you know, trucking specifically is not one of those, you know, whenever I get out of high school, I just turned 18. And there's this fantastic looking trucking company that I want to go drive trucks for, you know, typically all the truckers that I know of are generational. You know, my dad was a trucker. My uncle was a trucker. My grandfather was a trucker. And there's a lot of generational experience in the trucking industry. But it's not very glamorous to you know, somebody who's 1819 years old that well, hey, I want to go drop Big Rig.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:01

Is it just because in this could be a common misconception? But is it just because you're like sitting in a truck all day and driving? And that seems rather boring? Or?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 11:09

You know, I don't, I really don't know what it is, I don't think it's the pay there, because they're making great money. There is some fantastic money driving trucks, it might just be I don't want to sit and hold a steering wheel. Whatever it is, we got to find a way to attract some more youth because a driver shortage is is our probably number one issue that our industry faces. Yeah,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 11:28

you and a lot of other industries. But I will say like, what about self driving trucks? I mean, they are all over the TV, 60 minutes, I mean, literally turn the TV on, or you Googled trucking, and there's something about you know, self driving electric trucks.

Tommy Fitzgerald: 11:44

Yeah, so there's a there's five different levels of automation. And then whenever you get to level five, that's full autonomy. From what I understand where you know, we're close to scratching level three. And then level four is driver disengage, where you still have to have a driver in the truck. I think they're experimenting with some, some level for autonomy out there. But we're still several years away from that, you know, actually getting the truck to the actual grocery store. So you think any kind of product from manufacturing to getting it to the shelf, there's several steps in between, you know, there's the transportation company that gets it from manufacturing to distribution, and then from distribution to basically the store shelf. I think within the distribution, network. Autonomy is all quite possible. But I think when it comes down to the actual truck, getting it from the distribution, and then the intricacies of running it through city lights, it's

Kosta Yepifantsev: 12:37

that last little bit, that's the last one he keeps talking about that last

Tommy Fitzgerald: 12:41

mile delivery is going to be something that I don't know that they'll ever figure out. So I don't think that autonomy is the full answer for our industry as far as driving goes. But I think distribution center, I think center to center, I think that's a fantastic idea, because you know, something was manufactured in Pennsylvania, and it's gonna go to its nearest distribution center in Pennsylvania, right. And these products need to get to Los Angeles. Sure, there'll be a distribution center close to Los Angeles. So I think from the distribution center in Pennsylvania that's close to an interstate to the distribution center and California that's close to an interstate I think there's a lot of autonomy and a lot of capability that can happen between them too. I don't know that that last final mile of delivery can ever be autonomous because there's too many factors at play

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:24

unless you build like one of those heavy helicopters and you make it autonomous as well that actually list the truck up and then carries it over to the store and drops

Tommy Fitzgerald: 13:31

Yeah, we could do some we could we'll just go ahead and invent like the world's heaviest drone. Yeah,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:38

I mean, you could use the boring company you know I'm sure it'll probably create like a little tunnel Yeah, exactly underneath and it'll just go down there and just do to dupe and then come right back go that's why they could do it. Elon Musk man. Let's talk about truck shows. I know we touched on it a little bit but I really want to get into the to the details of it specifically the semi casual Truck Show. So one what is a truck show? And two what can visitors expect from the semi casual Truck Show?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 14:04

So a truck show is very similar to basically you know, like a show and shine car show. Okay, there are these car meets where a lot of guys have come together and they bring this wide variety of cars, you know, you get Chevy's and dodges and Fords. You know, truck shows are very similar. You know, whenever you go to a truck show you don't just see Peterbilt and Kenworth, although they're more prominent. There are people who rebuild Kenworth and people who rebuild old international cab overs and so on and so forth. And you know, that make them really, really nice. The semi casual truck show is no different. It's a collection of basically super nice rigs that guys are super passionate about. And then on top of that, there was a lot of trucks that were what's called a working class show rig that you know, it didn't have a million dollars worth of accessories and pain and all this stuff put on it. It was just guys who take some pride in their truck and they're putting in Chrome on it when they can where they can afford it and they just they'll guys who are super appreciative of being in The industry and they just love what they do. What's really cool about the semi casual truck show is it's a celebration of industry lovers. And we all have a lot of fun. And what's really cool is we do this dinner on Friday night. Anybody who is either a vendor that is displaying at our show or a driver who entered a truck, you get a plus one ticket, and we do this appreciation dinner in Casino Night. And we give everybody the opportunity to mingle. I mean, you just had one, right? Yeah, no, it was literally last week. So yeah, in Crossville. Right. Yeah. And that's usually what do you have the truck shows? Or do you have them all over? No, no, we typically only do that one in Crossville. Okay, I have talked about having several more of them and doing a circuit, but we're just not to the point where we want to take that on yet. Because the process of taking the one on in Crossville. It took us probably six, eight months to get it going. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's it was it was huge. It it's not going to be as stressful next year. We literally just took possession of this facility. So the Crossville facility, I bought it off my father in January. And so we wanted to do some upgrades and updates to make the facility look good. So the truck show next year will not be near as stressful. But this year where everything came down to the last minute and it was down to the wire and

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:10

it was Kayo how many trucks were there?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 16:12

We had 150 truck show last year 152 The most we've ever parked last year we had 10 vendors and we parked about 85 trucks this year we had 28 vendors and parked 152 trucks.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:24

Now the truck show that you were describing like the Holy Grail the Super Bowl of truck shows how many trucks go through their

Tommy Fitzgerald: 16:30

well it's limited they can only park so many trucks but I think they parked about 200 Last year maybe 210 I didn't get an exact count but that they get a corner of the parking lot at the Mid American Truck Show and it's it's technically called the P KY show and shine I think is what they call it

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:46

is your goal with semi casual to be a competitor of the main American Truck shows that your end goal never okay.

Tommy Fitzgerald: 16:57

No, and it's not because I'm intimidated. And sighs I really do want semi casual to have 500 rigs parked Crossville, Tennessee, I want that and I'm going to achieve that. What I don't want to happen is men America is a really tough challenge because it's a judged competition. And the reason semi casual is the way we make ours different is the entrance get a scorecard when they enter their truck. And they have to go around and pick their favorite trucks. And we don't judge trucks nice, we stay out of it. We don't want that politics, right. I don't want someone to come to the semi casual truck show and get their feelings hurt because I didn't pick their truck to win, right. And so me and Brian, we don't even have a trophy where we like pick our favorite, which you know, there are shows out there that do that, you know, it's the family owners, they'll go walk around and they'll say this is my favorite truck. And they'll pick a favorite, we don't even do that. It's 100% judged by your peers. If they like you, and they like your rig, then they're going to vote for you. And if they don't like you and don't like your rig, they're not going to vote for you. And it has nothing to do with me and Brian, and we get to keep our hands clean of it, you know, Mid America, you know, they do a fantastic job at parking the trucks and putting on the event and taking care of the drivers. And you know, they provide lunchtime and they do all this stuff. But at the end of the day, everybody still gets upset when they don't get a trophy. It's because the judges were built into the show itself. And so me and Brian are gonna stay miles away from that. It'll make it to where it's not going to be easy to win at semi casual because you know, you're being judged by America's Elite in the truck show world. But it's never going to be as large of a challenge as winning up at America.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:31

Well, and the only reason that I asked you about size is just because you don't do anything halfway. And we're going to talk a little bit about some of the success, the generational success that you've had with Fitzgerald. Going back to you know, the hay day and honestly, the continued success that you've had, but you just don't do anything small time. And so I when I asked you if you're gonna compete with Mid American, you say, No, when I hear you explain it, I think Oh, okay. Well, he's he's essentially building out a better product that people are going to gravitate towards, because it's kind of like what is your mantra, which is it's grit. You want to be judged by your peers. You don't want to be judged by people that have nothing to do with the industry or aren't themselves truck owners. I get that 100%

Tommy Fitzgerald: 19:23

Yeah, we want to make it bigger and we want to grow it and you're right. I have a hard time thinking small but no, yeah, I do want some my casual to be as large as possible. But I always want to maintain it as a celebration of the industry and something that people are happy when they leave and are excited to come back to next year.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 19:39

Yeah, well, let's talk about big your YouTube channel semi casual show has over 12 million views and 100,000 followers. I know almost every business owner would kill to have a platform of that size adjacent to their business. What's your advice to content creators and YouTubers? who want to grow their audience in a meaningful way?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 20:02

Consistency is key. So I was very fortunate in the beginning, whenever we started the YouTube channel, and we had, we had a friend who also has a very successful YouTube, he's got 600,000 followers, and Noah millions and millions of views every month. I mean, he gets the same amount of views on one month that I have total. And, you know, when I was talking to him, he said, Tommy, for one, you have to follow trends. You know, if there's something trendy going on out there, make sure you pick up on it. And, you know, for one good instance as the unboxing trend, you know, there was for a long time that YouTube videos was about unboxing. So me and Brian did a video unboxing a brand new Peterbilt, which basically, you know, we wrap all the, you know, the sticky tape off the side of the doors, and you know, the way it ships in from Peterbilt corporate and they come in piggybacked on decked it off the back of another truck and took all the little sticky tape, the protective films and stuff like that off of it. And, you know, we unboxed a new Peterbilt,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:57

did it go viral?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 20:58

It did pretty good. You know, for at the time, I think we had 10 or 20,000 followers, and that thing got 10 or 20,000 hits right out of the gate. And so that's, that's a good video for us, guys. And so the advice from him was follow trends and stay consistent. He says, you know, YouTube is all about content creators, and they like to provide to those who are providing content. And so you'll fall into the popular algorithms more easily if you have a consistent time and date when you post content. So if you're posting once a week, stick with that or more, but don't ever fall off of that, right? If you're posting three times a week stick with that or more. Don't ever come back off of it. How often do you guys post we typically try to post a video three times a week. Wow. Yeah,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 21:43

that's a lot. That doesn't mean we post a video once a week. And I mean, I tried to cram it all into one or two days in it is an entire day. Yeah, like 10 hours, 12 hours. So that's amazing. It's a lot more time intense than later. Do you find the time you run dealerships? I mean,

Tommy Fitzgerald: 22:02

you'll notice a lot of our videos are shot at nighttime. Yeah, after business hours are over and the cell phone calms down a little bit. Me and Brian can go jump in the shop and knock out a video and it takes you know, takes about two hours of the night. And sometimes we'll feel real Sparky and say we're gonna knock out four or five videos in one night and stay up till two in the morning and go to work the next day. Yeah, that's what you gotta do.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 22:25

I love it. I love it. So on a personal note, I want to talk about Fitzgerald USA and Fitzgerald glider kids? How did growing up in the industry shape your perspective on trucking and business? And what do you see for the next 30 years of these companies?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 22:39

Well, for one, Fisher bladder kits doesn't exist anymore, right? That company has long gone, you know, as like I said, you know, my dad decided to retire, there's three boys, three girls, he wanted all of us to be able to have the means to take care of ourselves going forward. And he was quite successful. And that, you know, we all have our own companies now. And we've all kind of moved on from that chapter of our lives. And, you know, we all still work very closely together as brothers and sisters, you know, dad kind of takes the stance of, you know, whatever I tell him about a problem within, within my business. He's like, that sounds like your problem. Or his famous saying is, Hey, Tommy, you should treat that, like it's your own problem, because it is. But no, I mean, you know, me and my brothers, we work very closely together. And also me and my sisters need to,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:17

you know, your dad, and we don't have to get into it, we can go as far as you want to go. But your dad has had a lot of success. Yes, yeah, tremendous. And I think people don't quite realize the level of success that he's had, I would venture to say that he was on his way to becoming the largest company, not just trucking company, but company in general, within the state of Tennessee. And within the entire southeast. There were some things that happened, you know, some things that were outside of your control that happened. And it was a very stressful and a very difficult time, not just for you, but for your family. And for everyone else that had the ancillary businesses that they have now. Yeah, not to get too much into the weeds. But what is it like now, when you look back on that period, and you see that your dad accomplished his original mission? And you guys are all successful in growing your businesses? If you could put it into context for our listeners? Or describe it in one word, what is it about your dad that makes him so special?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 24:21

It's really hard to beat someone who won't give up really is and my dad has probably the strongest work ethic I think I've ever seen or heard of. Yeah, that translated into my older brother, Robert, and even my younger brother Blake and into you. That's, you know, that's That's all from competitiveness. Because you know, me and my brothers were very competitive with each other. And so anytime I'm ever getting tired, I kind of look at them and I'm just thinking, you know, oh, man, would they quit right now? No, they wouldn't. So now it's time to grit and go because you know, I can't have my brother's getting one up on me here. But no, I mean, yeah, my father has this tremendous amount. Losing work ethic. And you know, that's something that nobody's ever going to be able to take away from him. You know, a lot of people have tried taking away from his accomplishments, but more than anything, you know, I've seen him go through a lot of ups, and I've seen him go through a lot of downs. And people tend to only recognize the upside of things. And they don't see the blood, sweat and tears that went on to it. And the background, and I think, him showing me and Robert, the gritty sides of the business and being there through his mood swings, and seeing the happy parts of the business, but also seeing the stressful parts of the business when he was younger, it taught me a lot to learn from the best. I did, honestly, you know, there are people who say that, but there are people who feel that, and I feel as if having the guidance of my older brother and my father, I truly, truly feel like I got to learn from some of the absolute best in the industry, bar none

Kosta Yepifantsev: 25:51

the best leaders, they credit, everyone that train them with their success. I mean, obviously, you have a personality, that's going to lead to success. But when you credit the people that gave you the knowledge and the opportunities, just like me, I credit pretty much everything that I have right now to the fact that my father in law taught me this industry. And in that my dad gave me grit, you know, he essentially kicked me out at a Fed 15 and said, You're gonna go play hockey, and I said, I don't want to play hockey. And he said, I don't care.

Tommy Fitzgerald: 26:30

Yeah, go in. Right. Yeah. And that's those life experiences Exactly. Right, are a reflection of our challenges in life. And so I find people who have, you know, little to no humility, they've just they've not had enough challenge in life. And the people who have had a lot of challenges are typically the ones you know, like you said, They're quick to credit those around them for, you know, what they've become. What's next? Man? I know, it's a loaded question. It really is. And I've got a huge project. And I'm so excited to work with my older brother again, you know, me and me and Robert, were very present together in previous companies. And I always enjoyed working with him, because we're so much alike, yet. We're such complete opposite of each other. You know, everybody who knows me and Robert think that we're just alike. But when me and Robert are together, we know that there were nothing alike. So I'm the one who likes to talk and promote. And Robert is a little bit quiet. And he's got a very, an incredible mind for engineering. And he loves building things and manufacturing things. And there's a project on the horizon that my brother is going to build a product, and he's put me in charge of sales and marketing it. And I'm so excited for it. And I can't wait to I want to take you for a tour of it once the factory is up and going. But we've got a 250,000 square foot facility that's going to be almost 100% automated. It's in Tompkinsville, Kentucky. Oh, yeah. Okay. And so we're going to be hiring on there. And I get to follow Roberts leadership again, which was, you know, was always fun working with my brother and yeah, 100% automated? Well, I say 100% automated, there's a lot of automation. I think if you put the actual percentage to it, it came down to like 72% automation, Roberts gonna build 10,000 units of what he's building with basically 150 employees. That's incredible. That's the future that yeah, it's right. It's neat. And it's a really cool vision that he come up with. And whenever he comes to me and said, Hey, Tom, do you want to be part of this? I was just, I was so excited. I was like, yes, yes, Robert, I want to work with you again. It'd be awesome. My uncle Ricky was one of the reasons why me and Robert are as close as we are nice. My father Tommy senior, he gets a lot of credit for everything, you know, that he's he's done in the past. Everything, a lot of that of what he's accomplished, but there was a Ricky Fitzgerald, who's very quiet. And he's always been right there next to Tommy Seigneur, like no matter what thick and thin, good times bad times, his brother was always right there with him. And that's, that's something that, you know, my father always told me and my brother whenever we were growing up, you know, he said things, like, whenever you're older, I hope you guys have each other the same way me and Ricky had each other. And I think it's very important to bring up that point is, yeah, that did have to build something from the ground up. But he did have a brother that was right there next to him the whole time, too.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 29:12

But there are six of you. Now, there are six of us. And that means that if you all work together, not only will you get to the pinnacle of success, but you will probably eclipse that and you guys all have the good fortune of being along for the ride. So you are you know, when I look when I asked you a question of what's next your future is I mean, it's unlimited.

Tommy Fitzgerald: 29:34

Yeah, no, and that's me and my brother have this cool philosophy of your best days aren't behind you. A lot of people look back and you're like, Oh man, high school was the best days of my life. I hate that philosophy. I just high school was terrible. For some of us, it definitely was yeah, you know, but but there are so many of those people in the world. You know what I'm saying? Right? Oh, my teen years my late teens or my my early 20s Were the best years of my life or you know, Now that I've now that I'm 30 years old, the best years of my life are behind me, you know, I really resent that mindset, just because it's hard to move forward when you're looking back. And so me and Robert, we're constantly looking at, you know, what can be the next thing, obviously, keeping immense and intense focus on what we're doing now. But you always have to be looking forward to. Next thing is, like you said, when you have the mentality of the best part of your life is tomorrow, or the days in front of you, then you are always looking forward and excited to those days, you know, it would be easy for us to say, oh, you know, that business we had in the past, you know, that's the best it's ever gonna get. Now,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 30:36

that's the best is yet to come.

Tommy Fitzgerald: 30:38

The best is yet to come.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 30:39

I mean, I would like to have my body at 20 years old.

Tommy Fitzgerald: 30:43

That would be nice. I would love to, I'd love to have my mindset now. And my physicality of exactly right. That would be good.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 30:51

I agree. Before we wrap up, I want to encourage everyone to go watch a few videos on your YouTube because it's truly nothing like I've ever seen before, out of all the projects and customizations that you've done. What's your favorite?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 31:04

Whoo, so you're getting me in that Mid America category now. That's gonna make me pick a favorite. We did this truck and it's it's been our flagship, you know, truck we did, there's actually two of them. That's kind of considered flagship, you know, semi casual trucks. Big Daddy being the first one. But that was a cobuild. We did with with the Davis brothers. And you got to give credit where credit was due because those guys, you know, did a lot of paint works and stuff for us. You know, they did a lot of customization when we weren't ready to be in that world yet. And our next flagship truck was a truck called Project legendary. And that one is probably one of my favorites. So if you're going to pin me to it, I would say legendary is it's a good look and build and look like, oh, it's, it's beautiful. The reason it's called legendary is because Peterbilt came out with this line of paint called legendary paints. And instead of having a metal flake, it's got glass beads in it. And so when the sun hits it just right, I mean, the paint and dances and so everything on the truck that is not Chrome was painted with legendary paint, I mean, the chassis, the axles, inside the frame, all of it, every single thing, if it didn't have Chrome on it, it was painted with legendary pain, it's legendary black, Legendary Silver, and legendary red,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 32:13

and they're taking this thing across the country, he drives it every day. Amazing. could love it, see, truckers man, it's a different breed, it's a different breed. So we always like to end the show on a high note, who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

Tommy Fitzgerald: 32:29

So I've been putting a lot of thought into this question, it's gonna take me some time. Because I hate to narrow it down to one person, obviously, my brother is, you know, a huge instrument and my motivation and keeps me driven every day. And just knowing his work ethic keeps my work ethic active. I've got a new business partner guy named Joe Depew, who come on with me at Fitzgerald Peterbilt. And, you know, he's incredibly knowledgeable on the business side of things, you know, I was focused on sales and marketing in the past. And, you know, I needed someone to teach me that other side of the business. And Joe has been very instrumental to that. And so, you know, whenever I'm working with him, I feel more productive in different parts of the business, and I feel like I can grow and develop around him. And then there's obviously my father, you know, hugely instrumental in, you know, how I turned out today, and you know, who I became. And so every time I get around him and talk to him within the business, although, you know, I do say, jokingly, that he tells me, my problems are my problems. But the reality is, is he would be there and willing to help me with anything that I could possibly throw at him. And, you know, if I did come across a large business issue, that I wanted to bounce something off of somebody, you know, Dad would be my first choice, and then I'd be an absolute traitor, if I didn't bring up my wife, you know, after being with her for 1618 years now. I don't know me and Jessica got together and we were 16 years old, and I'm coming on 36. Now, wow, 20 years, there's just something about her that, you know, whatever, I'm around her, I feel this calm. And, you know, I feel like that's rare for a 20 year relationship. And she keeps me centered. And she's basically the only person in my life you know, because you know, when you're the boss, there's very few people that will call you on your, you know, on your nonsense. When you're being a bit of a jerk. She will, she'll call me on it and you know, congratulations to her. It's pretty awesome to have that in my life. You know, someone that'll say, Hey, Tommy, you need to calm down. Just because right? So yeah, there's there are many, many people in my life that make me better. And that's how I would answer that.

Morgan Franklin: 34:31

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com. We're better together. We'd like to remind our listeners that the views and opinions expressed during this episode are those of the individual speakers and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of this show its producers or any related entities or advertisers. While our discussions may touch on various topics of interest, please note that the content is intended to inspire thought provoking dialogue and should not be used for a substitute for professional advice.Specifically, nothing heard on this podcast should be construed as financial, legal, medical or any other kind of professional advice. We encourage our listeners to consult with a professional in these areas for guidance tailored to their specific circumstances.