Conrad company, Intercontinental Truck Body, bringing trucks into 21st century with cellular capabilities

Many northcentral Montana residents might not know it’s there, but Intercontinental Truck Body http://www.itbusa.com/ is on the national trucking and cellular industry maps.

By BETH BRITTON
Tribune Business Editor

Intercontinental Truck Body is located in a rural area a few miles east of Conrad, where since 1979 quality truck bodies have been manufactured and shipped nationwide.

But today, thanks to the investment by its new owners, the company is poised for growth on the edge of the cellular communications industry.

The company’s employees produce not only commodity truck bodies, but also high-tech truck bodies and equipment enclosures designed specifically for cellular customers.

It’s a new niche that the owners say will help ITB diversify and grow.

Three years ago, a trio of Butte natives — Bert Robins, Michael Robins and Ron Ueland — purchased ITB and pointed the company in its new direction.

For the past 18 years, the Robins brothers have owned and operated Seacast Inc., a precision investment casting business with facilities in Seattle and Marysville, Wash. The business employs about 100 and serves industries including aerospace, medical technology, automotive and marine. For the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, the company manufactured thousands of torches that were carried nationwide.

As children in Butte, their father, "Red" Robins, owned Butte Hard Surfacing, a small welding and forging shop.

"As soon as we were old enough to sweep the floor and use a cutting torch, we were up there working," Bert Robins said. "We got a real early introduction to manufacturing with metal."

Decades later, after establishing their Seattle business, the brothers decided they wanted to put that expertise back to work in the Treasure State.

It was another Butte native — their partner and brother-in-law, Ron Ueland — who turned the brothers on to ITB.

Today, Ueland is president of Bozeman-based Western Plant Breeders, a research and development company for cereal grains. But the trucking business is not altogether unfamiliar to Ueland, who spent 25 years with ConAgra — part of that time in the fleet department.

"We were looking around for ways to invest in and diversify in Montana," Ueland said. "It’s exciting to us that we can bring high-tech diversification to Montana, and we wanted to keep the business in Montana."

Returning to Montana — at least in a business sense — was something the Robinses had wanted to do for many years.

"We did it because we wanted to come back to Montana," Bert Robins said of the partners’ business decision. "Even though the majority of our family now lives outside of Montana, we really cherish our roots, and knowing what the economy of the state is like, if there is any way we can help we’d love to."

A regional employer

Today, about 40 people work at ITB, some driving from miles away for the jobs.

Employee Lloyd Pedersen, 73, has worked at ITB for six years after a career in the oil and gas industry. He commutes from 25 miles west of Conrad and said he was happy to find a job where he could use skills he already had.

"It’s nice to put my knowledge in carpentry and electrical to work," Pedersen said. "We’ve come a long way in the type of equipment we install. The procedures stay the same, but the types of units are different.

A talented work force and the dedication of its employees allow ITB to produce quality products — even in an isolated northcentral Montana location, Robins said.

The site on which ITB operates, including a third, large building the company recently acquired, was once headquarters for a missile project that was abandoned in the early 1970s.

Growth at ITB is good news for the whole region, said Elaina Zempel, executive director for the Pondera Coalition for Progress, the economic development arm of the Conrad Chamber of Commerce.

"They are one of the largest private employers in the county, and they provide the kinds of jobs that allow other industries to grow up around them," Zempel said. She said she is pleased that the company is sustaining — even expanding — its employee base.

"It’s good that they’re looking in other places and exploring other areas because once you’ve taken that risk, you’re not adverse to taking more," Zempel said.

The cellular niche

For years, the company specialized in building truck bodies — used as delivery and service vans by businesses including furniture stores and contracting firms.

When Ueland and the Robinses bought the business, they turned their attention to the growing cellular industry. The solid reputation developed since 1979 by the previous owners is what the business has been able to offer its new customers, Robins said.

"The previous owners were great at what they were doing, but we saw the product had the potential to be a lot more than it was."

The company’s entrance into the cellular industry was timed just right, Ueland said, because with the downturn in the economy it would be tough to survive by depending solely on the truck body business.

"One of the frustrations of the truck body business is that the health of the company will ride the wave of the trucking industry, so we started looking for other areas in the marketplace where the product could be used," Robins added.

"Being able to focus on these other business opportunities is really exciting, because when you have one of two industry sectors that are not doing well, the healthier sectors will buoy it up, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with this company."

Montanan a manager

The three partners turned to yet another Montana native to manage the Conrad operation.

Operations Manager Rob Cook, a 37-year-old engineer originally from Choteau, was working as a senior project engineer for Peterbilt in Texas when he met Bert Robins. The men began toying with the idea of returning to Montana to create manufacturing jobs.

"The way to survive is to create a niche and fill it successfully, even from way in the middle of Pondera County," Cook said. "We defeat the transportation issue by engineering smarter. No one builds a better truck."

The market is still there for the commodity truck bodies, Cook said. For now, the commodity vans account for about 75 percent of the trucks produced, but only 40 percent of the dollar volume, he added.

"We are building specialized equipment that is going to give us hands-down the best product in the industry and we’ll be competitive," Robins said.

The latest shipment of cellular trucks left just over a week ago, destined for states including Wisconsin, Maine and Texas. Customers include the largest cellular companies in the nation, Cook said.

Conrad businessman Dick Brown, an owner of Big Sky Equipment Co. and also the brother-in-law to Bert Robins, agreed that ITB’s growth is an exciting development for the community.

"I’ve watched the evolution of that company, and I think it is on its way to becoming a great company; the product will become a great part of the U.S. marketplace," Brown said.

The three partners aren’t limiting production to truck bodies, however.

ITB’s latest product is a lightweight, aluminum enclosure used by the cellular industry in various locations, including on rooftops. The enclosures are rated for both hurricanes and earthquakes, Cook said, and the company is adding new equipment that will allow it to mass-produce the structures.

"We may be disadvantaged in some ways here, but we need to think about how we can win," Cook said. The answer, he said, lies in diversification and the addition of new products.

Even as the company works to solidify and raise its position in the cellular industry, its employees are working to develop the next niche it can fill.

"We’re very excited," Ueland said of ITB’s progress. "It gives us the confidence that since we’re successful in this niche, we’re bullish on finding even more niches."

http://www.itbusa.com/

http://www.greatfallstribune.com/news/stories/20030316/localnews/1188185.html