We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Fred Floyd. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Fred below.

Fred, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about family businesses.

I am very fortunate to be in a family business. Although there are many ups and downs, mainly relationally, there is something very rewarding in knowing that I am carrying on a legacy. I am the 3rd generation in our auto repair business that my grandpa started in 1975. Through my entire life this business has been there, and its almost as if it a member of the family itself.

There are so many lessons that I have learned over the years, and many more to come as we continue to grow. But I think one of the most important lessons is to have an open and honest dialogue between everyone involved. A lack of communication can lead to hurt and frustration that doesn’t end when you go home at the end of the day. Those things carry over to the dinner table, holidays, vacations, church, and anywhere else that you spend time with your family. So it is very important to have the hard conversations in order to save the familial relationship, and make that more important than the working relationship.

I am grateful that I have been trusted to carry on the legacy of my family and I hope one day to pass it on to one of my kids.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Bob’s Truck Care is a full service auto repair shop in Pasadena, TX. We special in fleet maintenance and primarily serve the oil and gas industry that is prevalent in our area. We are capable of handling any need that our customers may come across related to their vehicle. We pride ourselves on being a one-stop-shop for all of their automotive needs. Our company was started in 1975 by my grandpa, Bob Sample, was eventually passed down to my parents, and now I have stepped in to help take us into the future.

We also own Mobile Auto Pros, which is a mobile service that provides repairs, calibrations, and support for everything related to automotive technology. Our typical customer is a body shop that needs help making electrical repairs, programming computers, or calibrations related to automatic braking or lane watch systems. We started in the Pasadena area in 2018 and have since grown to cover about 2/3rds of the Houston area.

I came back to the family business in 2015 after working for almost 8 years at a refinery in our area. I came back because I felt that it was time to make a change personally, and to help my family as the business was growing.

One thing that I’m very proud of is that in 2018 we felt that we needed to be more involved in our community. I feel that it is important to make a difference in the city that we have lived in and worked in for my entire life. At that time we started getting involved in our local Chamber of Commerce and in a program run by the City of Pasadena called the Neighborhood Network. In that time we have been able to assist in multiple community outreach initiatives, and have hopefully made a difference in the lives of our neighbors.

We strive to be a safe, healthy workplace where people want to work, and at the same time to be a good partner with our city in order to make a difference in our community.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

There is a lot of distrust around the auto repair industry because of bad practices throughout the years, and we work hard to break down those stereotypes. Our highest value as a company is Integrity, and I believe that has helped us stand-out in our line of work. We are a company that stands behind our work, and we strive to provide the best customer service around. We do what we say we’re going to do, we do it with excellence, and we do it in a timely manner.

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

In 2015 we moved from our original location, which we still own today, to a bigger location on one of the main highways in our area. We tripled our capacity by making that move, which we knew would set us up to grow, because we had outgrown our original location. However we were leasing the property and the payment was a lot for us at the time. Add with it the additional costs of getting the space prepped to work in, we were pretty strapped for cash. At that time we had to take a small loan to cover payroll for a little while, and there were even a few times that we, as the owners, had to skip paychecks so that our employees could be paid. But through hard work, dedication, and making wise financial decisions, we started to see things turn around in late 2018 going into 2019. Because of the financial decisions we made starting in 2015 we actually faired well during 2020, saw growth in 2020 over 2019, and have seen exponential growth over the last 2 years.

The biggest lesson I have learned through all of that is that growing a business is not an instant gratification venture. Success comes with making wise decisions, small course corrections, and persevering. You have to be focused on long-term growth and not short-term gain.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bobstruckcare.com, www.mobileautopros.us
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bobstruckcare, https://www.facebook.com/mobileautopros