I'm really freaking excited, I bought another forklift company this week..........Growth by aquistion, baby. Actually the assets of company. Spoke to the guy for the first time on Saturday via phone, met in person Sunday for 3 hours, wrote my initial deposit check Tuesday morning. Now to keep the accounts!!! He wants out because, as he said, "I'm tired of pushing employees uphill, wiping their butt and brushing their teeth for them". Within 30 minutes of me writing the check, one of my techs calls me and my van burned to the ground at a customer site. The guy I bought the company from was very happy it wasn't him dealing with this...LOL. This is in orange county, so every freaking hazmat, city, plus county organization was involved. I couldn't clean up the mess, an environmental company must. The fire department didn't foam it, they used water and didn't block the drains so some oil, etc. got into the drainage system. So they want to steam clean the asphalt and waterjet the drainage pipes. Then down aways they have to clean some collection box of oil and possibly remove vegetation. Telling me $25-30k is what it will cost me, and I had to give a deposit on my credit card. Talked him down to 7500, he wanted a 15k deposit. Still don't have a straight answer from my insurance if I'm covered, but he thinks so? At least no one was hurt and I'm still happy to be in the forklift business.
Good stuff Rob. Not the truck, but to the future of your empire. But just saying if you had a Chrysler Town and Country, that wouldn't have happen.
Congrats on the new acquisition! If you need someone to rep your empire in Provence, I'm your guy! And, good luck with the van mess
Wow, glad I live in WI. We scrape as much off the pavement as we can, if it's in the gravel already the plastic shit peels up like dead sun burned skin and that's that. Seen places 10 years later where I've picked up cars and the road is still etched up from the heat. Better off letting the bitch burn, throw all the copper wires and tire beads in the cab and truck it right to the scrap yard.
Lol, I can be the only forklift guy in the world with those vans....maybe I'm missing an opportunity to differentiate myself.
Damn Rob. Only good thing is you’re pretty even keeled so I’m sure it’ll work out. Congrats on the expansion. Talked the boy into taking it over yet when you’re ready to hit the ejection button?
Hope you are looking toward the future and adjusting accordingly ... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...rt-finally-give-hydrogen-power-a-reason-to-be
Sure sounds like the forklift business has it's ups and downs. When you come to a fork in the road like that, you need to side shift a little, recharge your batteries and drive on. I'd push back a little on the enviro cleanup as it sounds like a fire dept problem of not using the proper tools for the job to contain the runoff. Then again I have no knowledge and experience in that realm and have no idea how f-ed uo cali is on issues like that. Congrats on the acquisition. And good luck from here forward.
Good on you Rob, your constant positivity is always something I enjoy reading here. Do me one favor and don't try to hem up the local FD on this... setting up dyke systems and worrying about runoff before putting water on shit at a fully involved van fire is, well.. shit said by people who don't do this sort of thing for a living.
Congrats on the expansion, Rob. I love reading about small business success. And hopefully insurance will cover your loss and expense. That’s why we have it.