Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to René A. Garza. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
René A., thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Day to day the world can seem like a tough place, but there’s also so much kindness in the world and we think talking about that kindness helps spread it and make the world a nicer, kinder place. Can you share a story of a time when someone did something really kind for you?
When I Was 23 Years Old I Was Living And Graduated From UTI Universal Technical Institute In Phoenix Arizona And Married With Two Step Daughters And Was Blessed With Twin Boys, Two Years Later On Mother’s Day, The Worst Day In Anyone’s Life Came Knocking On Our Door When The Ringing Of The Phone ☎️ . While I Was Working, I Was Talking To My Customer About Their Vehicle 🚗 Needing Repair Work, The Television 📺 In The Waiting Room Was On. I Noticed My House 🏡 Was On The Emergency Broadcast. The Helicopter 🚁 Was Recording My House & I Was Trying To Make Sense Of This While Talking About Repairs Needed On A Customer’s Car, And That’s When The Call Came Through On The Cordless Phone On My Hip, The Mesa Police 👮♂️ Department Was Calling To Let Me Know That There Has Been A Accident At My Home With My Twin Boys And They Were Being Medevac To The Children’s Hospital 🏥. This Was Being Told To Me By The Officer 👮♂️ On The Phone ☎️, Trying To Make Sense Of It All, Seeing My House 🏡 On TV 📺 From The Air, Talking To My Customer, My Mind Is Going 100 mph. I Had Just Installed A Tire Swing At Home Days Before, Wondering 🤔 If That’s How They Were Injured 🤕, Not Knowing What Happened Until I Jumped In My GMC 79 Suburban Doing Over 100mph On The Highway Trying To Find The Children Hospital In Phoenix From Mesa, Having A Half Dozen Police Officers Given Me Chase While Passing Everything On The Left Side Of The Shoulder. I Was Guided By A Higher Power, Cause I Didn’t Know Where The Children’s Hospital Was. Once I Arrived I Was Double Parked At The Emergency 🚨 Ambulance 🚑 Entrance And Was Greeted By My Brother In-Law WHO Had Heard The Call Come Through The Radio. He Stopped The Other Officers From Arresting Me, Also Confiscated The 9mm Beretta I Carried In My Suburban. I Arrived At The Hospital Before The Medevac Had Arrived So The Folks Couldn’t Tell Me What Was Going On Yet. They Put Me In A Small Waiting Room Before They Could Give Me Any Answers. I Had Punched Holes In The Wall When I Was Told ONLY ONE OF MY BOYS HAD SURVIVED, I Was Then Told They Had Both Drowned In Our Backyard Swimming Pool. My Wife Was On The Phone With Her Mother During The Accident Wishing Her Happy Mother’s Day While She And My Father In-Law Were Driving To New Mexico To Visit Their Daughter & Son In-Law And Grand Daughter, When Jessica Heard Her Daughter Noelle Screaming From Our Arizona Room, That Was Screened Off Overlooking The Fenced Off Pool Area. She Seen Her Brothers Floating In The Pool. Jessica Rushed In Grabbed Them Both & Trying To Do CPR On Both Of Them. Our Elderly Neighbors Heard The Screaming 😱 And I Believe Are The Ones Who Called 911. I Tell You This, Because After All That Happened Life Was Never The Same Since That Horrific Day. We Were A Young Family Starting Out And Making Payments On A Headstone 🪦 In Safford Arizona. After Work One Friday Night Running Late On My Birthday, I Was Being Pulled Over For Running A Stop 🛑 Sign That Had Just Been Posted Days Before. I Told The Officer 👮♂️ They Were Fixing To Close In Ten Minutes & He Told Me It Was Only Going To Take Five Minutes To Write ✍️ My Ticket 🎫. The Headstone (Marker) Stone Work Owner Was Waiting For Me, I Still Had Several Payments Left To Make.
This Is Where The Kindness Thing That’s Anyone Has Ever Done For Me..Happened,
When I Finally Arrived He Was Waiting To Load The Beautiful Headstone 🪦 In The Back Of My GMC Suburban. I Was Surprised At This???? He Told Me A Man Had Called Him Earlier That Day And Paid The Balance Off For Me As Birthday Gift From My Boss Sam & Lisa Khanisho, That Was The Repair Shop I Came To Work At After The Accident. I’ve Never Forgot What Sam Did For Me. Years Later Sam Owned A Restaurant And Fast Food Restaurant And Our Son Who Had Survived The Accident Was Having Surgery And Sam Provided Meals For My Family And Staff At The Hospital, He’s Always Been A Giving Man. I Love This Person.
Hope This Wasn’t Too Dark For Our Readers???
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m A Third Generation Truck Driver, From Texas Born & Raised, Then Moved To Arizona After High School, Went To UTI Universal Technical Institute In Phoenix, Worked For Rural Metro Fire Dept In Scottsdale Then Empire Machine In Mesa. After The Life Changing Accident I Moved To Alaska After Turning Down A Job Offer That Was Going To Move Me & My Family, But I Wasn’t Going To Be Able To Convince Her & Her Hispanic Family I Was Going To Move Her 4,500 Miles Away. I Ran Away From Everything After The Accident And Moved Myself To Alaska And Was In The Oilfield As A Rig Mechanic For Nabors Drilling, Doyon Drilling, All American Drilling, Peak Oilfield For Ice Roads And As A Heavy Equipment Mechanic 👨🔧. I Lived In Alaska For 29 Years And Have Been In The Equipment Industry For Over 29 Years. I Started In High School At James Madison High, Studied Diesel Mechanics 🧰 With Our Teacher Mr. Pacheco Who I’ve Stayed In Touch With, These Many Years Later. My Father Drove A Truck For Over 38 Years All Over United States 🇺🇸. I’m The One WHO Drove In Canada 🇨🇦, Alaska, Antarctic, New Zealand 🇳🇿, Australia 🇦🇺, Peru 🇵🇪, & United Kingdom 🇬🇧. I Worked For Raytheon Polar Services, Which Is How I Ended Up In McMurdo Station (The Ice) In 2004. I’ve Experienced 127.7 Degrees Fahrenheit And -180 Below Freezing 🥶 With 100 Mph Winds, So Almost 330 Degrees Difference In My Life. Now I Just Moved To Jerome, Idaho After Two Plus Million Miles Under My Belt Running The Alaska Highway For Thirty Times A Year Hauling Oversized Equipment, StepDeck, RGN, Flatbed, Refrigeration Trailer, Dry Van, You Name It, I’ve Hauled It.
Moving To Jerome Was Because My Only Daughter Made Me A Grandpa (Ruco) Thats What I Called My Mom’s Father, Ruco. So I Decided To Get Off The Big Road And Be A Grandpa To My Granddaughter Josie. I’ve Been Living Here Now Five Months. I Had A 2018 Peterbilt 389 With A X15 Cummins 585HP With A 18 Speed With A 290 Inch Wheelbase With A 70 Inch Hightop Sleeper Running 24.5 Rubber With 3.45 Rear Ends. I Took A $90K Loss When I Sold It To Buy My 2018 Freightliner M2-106. I Ran A Tow Truck In Arizona 35 Years Ago And Loved It, So I Decided To Do That In Jerome In Order To Be Home Every Night Instead Of Being Away For Four Months At A Time. I Also Needed To Get Off The Interstate For Health Reasons. It’s Not Like It Used To Be 40 Plus Years Ago. It’s A Different Breed Of Drivers Today Who Don’t Care Or Help One Another, Like When My Father Started Driving. I’ve Meet Some Great People Out On The Big Road – Terance Lipka From Alberta Canada 🇨🇦 An Awesome Old School Real Truck Driver. Those Guys Are Far And Between To Find, & Are Getting Ready To Retire. My Father Wanted To Get Into The Tow Truck Business When I Was Little. The Happy Hooker, The 24 Hour Hooker Were A Couple Names I Remember My Father Mentioning LOL 😂… Mom Didn’t Care For It.
Now I Run NCT NORTHERN CROSS TOWING. Hope Dads Looking Down On Me. It’s Taken Tens Of Thousands Of Dollars Of Logistics To Get My Business Moved Over To Idaho From Alaska, To Texas To Idaho, With A SOS, Secretary of State, I’m Able To Legally Run My Business Here Now In Idaho. It’s Also Taken 9.5 Weeks To Get My Fingerprinting Back Ground Check Cleared With Idaho State Police Department, And Now I Can Work With Them And The Local Sheriff’s Department And Local Jerome Police Department. However, ISP Just Turned Me Down. The Day After Giving Me The Green Light, Lieutenant Mark Donahue Emailed Me And Changed His Mind Due To Too Much Activity At The Impound Yard I Was Paying Rent At. Now I Need To Find Some Land So I Can Be The ONLY PERSON TO HAVE ACCESS TO THIS IMPOUND YARD. I Plan On Having My Old High School Buddy David Lindamood Be 24 Hour Security At The Impound As Soon As I Find The Right Place. My Biggest Motivation Pushing Me Right Now Is My Fiancé & I Are Fighting With The Great State Of Texas Trying To Gain Custody Of My Two Year Old Granddaughter Josie. The Current Case Worker, Michael Treviño, Was Having Relations With My Daughter While She Was In Rehab. After Confronting Him About It, NEVER Notified Me About My Daughter Losing Custody Rights To Josie, And Now I’m Fighting With The New Case Workers, Tori Lucas & Mayra Morales. They Are Fast Tracking Adoption With The Foster Parents Instead Of Giving Josie To Family. I Also Just Found Out My Daughter Regina Is Getting Ready To Give Birth Again, And The Case Workers Won’t Request Idaho For A Home Assessment To Be Done. After Getting A New Three Bedroom Apartment & Child Proofing It, With All New Furnishings For Josie, They Made Up There Own Minds And Not Grant This Request Because Idaho Is A Kinship State, Which Will Grant Me The Right To Have My Granddaughter & Possibly The New Baby. Also, I Would Want The Sisters Together With Family And The Current Case Worker’s Don’t See It This Way. I Hope To Have All Three People Mentioned Here Dismissed Of Their Jobs For Their Actions With The Welfare Of My Daughter And Granddaughters. This Is What Drives Me To Be A Successful Entrepreneur In The Tow Truck Industry In Our Little Town Of Jerome Where I Want To Help Raise Josie With My Fiancé Bryn, Who Has Helped Me More Than Anyone Person Has Ever Done In My Life, Other Than My Mother WHO I’ve Missed Dearly, Six Years This November.
Being Able To Provide A Service During An Emergency 🆘, Makes Me Feel Great, To Know They Are In Great Hands When I Get The Job. I Totally Understand Hard Times. When I Arrive I Have Water For The Customer & If They Have Someone With Them, Or For Their Animal, And I’ve Been Known To Do It At A Discount Or At No Charge If That What Needs To Happen To Get Them Out Of Harm’s Way. Only If More People Could Show Some Compassion For A Total Stranger, Life Could Be The Way It Was 50 Years Ago.
Our Goal Is To Take Over The Towing Business In My Local Area And Help Mentor Some Young Adults Wanting To Know About The Towing Industry. I’ll Eventually Employ A Swamper To Ride Along With Me & Get Multiple Trucks & A Heavy Duty Rotator 75 Ton. My Brand NCT Is Everything To Me, I Want It To Be Bigger Than It Is On Social Media. I Was Once Asked By Shipping Wars To Be On Their Show As The New Main Character Due To My Experience And Background, Then I Changed My Mind And Turned Them Down & Moved To England, United Kingdom 🇬🇧 England For Six Months. When That Didn’t Work Out I Moved Back To America 🇺🇸 And Bought My 2018 Peterbilt And Leased On To LandStar For Two Years. When The Market Crashed And Went Down Hill, That’s When I Decided I Needed To Get Out Of Trucking And Into The Towing Business. Best Decision Ever I’ve Made. I Have The Best Partner I Could Ask For To Help Make This Into A Huge Company, She Has Had Great Ideas Already….. She’s Amazing
I’m Hoping To Get My Step Son Hirmiz To Move To Jerome And Help Run The Family Tow Company & Have Our Children Grow Up Together & Have Our Own Compound On Ten Plus Acres With Adjoining Properties.
He Hauls Livestock In His 389 Peterbilt With A Kitty CAT Under The Hood Of His 18 Speed He Can Help Run The Transport & Recovery Side Of The Towing.
We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.
How I Met My Partner Fiancé, By A Crazy Miracle/Accident 🤭🥰
Many Years Ago While Trucking She Was In Charge Of A Hazmat Load I Was Assigned To Haul. In The Summer When Schools Out She Was Overlooking A Hazmat Department And We Met While Getting Loaded. We Hit It Off And Always Stayed In Touch, But Never Thought 💭 To Take It To The Next Step Due To Me Living On The Road And Not Having A Real Home Lifestyle That She Was Accustomed To. Ever Since I’ve Made Idaho My New Home We Started To Talk More And Decided To Take The Next Step, So She Flew To Boise And We Had An Amazing Three Day Weekend Together. She Has Her Doctorate Degree In Chemistry ⚛️ & Teaches At A Private University In St. Louis Missouri With 800 Students For The Year. She Has An Amazing Brain 🧠 And Always Willing To Help Me With How To Make Things Better Or Easier To Help Run The Business. We Are An Amazing Team Together And Why I See Us Taking Over Towing In Our Area.
What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?
With Today’s Technology We All Rely On Our Phones To Find Everything From How To Do Something, How Many Ounces Are In A Pound, What The Celsius Temperature In Fahrenheit, How To Get To Alaska From Texas Or Whose The Nearest Tow Truck In The Area? For Me That’s Been The Struggle Of Who To Use To Help Promote Me & Put Me On The Map. There’s So Many Third Party Websites Scammers Out There. I Was Scammed For $200 Bucks On July 26, 2024 By Steve Jeffrey With Top Quality Resources Who Just Wanted To Hold Hostage My Website To Gain More Money Each Month From Me To Gain More Followers Using My Website Against Me. They Were Going To Do That By Helping Me Get Verified For Google. Once I Figured Out Their Angle, I Pulled Out Before Giving Them Access To My Website. Then I Went With Yelp, I’ve Done Everything Using Yelp For Years. They Have A Free Month Worth Of Marketing Worth $425 Dollars Per Month. After The 30 Days Trial, I Was Able To Get Three Jobs From It, But Thought It Was Way To Expensive For Me. So My Fiancé Suggested (Yellow Pages) Thryv Is What They Are Called These Days After Seven Different Name Changes Through Out The Years. They Helped Me Get Verified The First Time With Google. That Took A Week To Be Verified, From Monday Morning To Friday Afternoon, I Was On The Internet With Google And By Sunday Morning I Was Off The Internet. Google Needed More Verification, Due To My DBA, Things Didn’t Match Up To Them. There Are More Fraudulent Businesses Advertising On The Internet Then There Are Legitimate Business. After Attempting Multiple Times Trying To Zoom With Thryv In Order To Get My Account Locked In With Yellow Pages And Wasn’t Able To Make It Happen, My Account Agent Drove Down From Boise To Help. Joe Pain Was Fantastic, But Due To His Counterpart Is Why I’m No Longer Working With Thryv, So I Lost Another Month Worth Of Money Paying For Something That Never Happened. I Had An Alaska Friend WHO Doing Floor Polishing In Tennessee Reach Out To Me & Tell Me About A Analytics Company Who Helped Get Him On Google After He Was Verified Himself. After Working With These Folks For A Month And Paying Them To Do Absolutely Nothing For My Website, Another Month Went By. I Did A Few Tow Jobs From Word Of Mouth, And Finally Reached Back Out To A Company Called OMG Towing, Who Specializes In The Towing Industry. They Have Over 120 People Working Within The Company Helping Getting Business Like Myself Ranked Highest In The Local Market. This Is What I’ve Been Trying To Do For Months Now That My Local ISP Idaho State Police Department Changed Their Mind The Day After Lieutenant Mark Donohoe Had Approved Me & After Waiting 9.5 Weeks For My Finger Printing Background Check Cleared. I Was Putting All My Eggs In One Basket Using The Police Agencies To Keep Me Busy, Just To Be Let Down The Next Day. Thats When I Started With Yelp And So On. When ISP Changed Their Mind, That Took Away The Opportunity To Be On The Southern Idaho Regional Communication List (Sircomm) Which The Big Truck Dealership Use, Kenworth, Peterbilt, Freightliner, Etc.
So The Best Source Of New Clients For Me, Have Come From OMG Towing. It Was Time To Change Gears, And Pay For What You Get – A Team That Knows The Industry I’m In, Not People WHO Think They Know What Key Words Might Make The Algorithm, So I Can Be Found In My Local Market.
Other Influencers In My Life Is My Mentor In Alaska Martin Hanson, Introduced Me To Dr. Mike Murdock, What Makes You Comfortable Makes You The Same, What Makes You Different, Makes You Money 💰, That Spoke Volumes To Me…
Martin Shared These Things Privately With Me And I Hope 🤞 It’s Okay That I’ve Shared Them With Whoever Ends Up Reading This Interview.
What Helped Me Build My Reputation Within This Market?
My BRAND On Social Media & My Cleanliness Of My Equipment And Attention To Detail & Communicating With My Followers, Even The Ones I Upset Or Piss Off, Cause You Can’t Fix Stupid Or Teach Common Sense. People Don’t Know How To See The Whole Picture Before Actually Doing The Job At Hand, In Order To Be Safe With Everyone Around Them.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.northerncrosstransport.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northern_cross_towing?igsh=MWw4aWhnZnFrYXV3cQ==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/gkfAHyftfcyPpKzq/?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ren%C3%A9-a-garza-50ab4353?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Twitter: https://x.com/akchevyss?s=21&t=vZAdQyzYJ3g2Kh1zAkm2bg
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@nctllc24?si=c4eaPgmfh0qvRqb3
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/tXGNX71lqQ
- Other: http://www.tiktok.com/@nctllchttps://nextdoor.com/p/3cwdc6-j2C7J?utm_source=share&extras=MTAwNTk0MDU4&utm_campaign=1722900073421
Image Credits
Bryn Lucille
Hirmiz Cesar Yousif
Josie Garza
Regina Garza
George Garza
Esther Garza
Mark Garza
Martin Hanson
Clint Mott
Adam Waugh
Lynda Nelson
Ernesto Gonzales
Lieutenant Mark Donohoe
Jared Fischgrund
Terance Lipka
Francis Stanush
Eusebio Pacheco
Sami Khnanisho
Craig Simon
Steve Jeffrey
Joe Pain
Damita Hill
Tori Lucas
Michael Treviño
Mayra Morales
Rosa Poz
I’m Sure I Missed A Few Names