Custom Truck One Source Commitment to Growth and Workforce Lands a Spot on the Manufacturing Express

Posted August 5, 2024

Custom Truck One Source’s commitment to the equipment manufacturing sector in the Kansas City region as well as maintaining a healthy workforce has earned the company recognition as a national leader in the industry.

On Thursday, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers made its stop in KC on its initiative to honor the biggest contributors in the equipment manufacturing industry across the nation. The event hosted food trucks, games and multiple prize raffles.

AEM’s Manufacturing Express embarks on a 10,000-mile tour across America, visiting 80 companies in 20 states. Custom Truck One Source (CTOS) was the 23rd stop on the tour.

Founded in 1996, CTOS has grown its workforce to over 2,500 full-time employees, with about 1,000 in the KC area, and 40 locations around nationwide. CTOS founder Fred Ross believes the company has found its success through years of innovation, creating a better fleet for the market as well as vehicles that “help bring the guys home every day safely.”

Custom Truck One Source co-founder, Fred Ross. Photo credit: Will Crow.

“I knew based upon the team that we had and the relationships we had in the industry that we would be able to grow the company into a meaningful business. But I wouldn’t have dreamt we would achieve and employ as many people as we do,” Ross said. “If somebody asked me what I thought my greatest achievement was it would be the fact that we created good jobs for thousands of families.”

Ross handed over the role of CEO to Ryan McMonagle in March 2023. McMonagle has been with the company since 2015, when he joined as a CFO, and in that time he learned his employees are the most important factor to the company’s success. Maintaining such a workforce involves reinvesting in the employees by providing opportunities that can later bloom into leadership roles.

“So many of our leaders today started off on the shop floor and became production leaders and then managers. It is remarkable to see the number of people we have been able to grow and develop internally,” McMonagle said.

Chris Eperjesy, who was appointed to CFO in August 2022, echoed the emphases of CTOS’s commitment to its employees as an avenue for the company’s future success. He also added the work that has gone into the company’s facilities through renovation is integral to growth.

Located on the CTOS KC headquarters are old steel mill buildings that have been renovated to operate as manufacturing, repair and storage facilities on site.

I get to give tours and show people around these buildings that have been brought back to life. It’s a powerful marketing tool but when you invest in a facility and you show workers that you care you’re going to keep them here and your quality and everything else goes up with it,” Eperjesy said.

Alex Russ, AEM’s senior advisor of global public policy said the Manufacturing Express initiative is trying to give back to the employees that help make the manufacturing sector so vital to many American communities. The mission is to bring awareness to workers across the U.S. about policy issues in the sector. One issue is a labor shortage.

During the height of the pandemic, the manufacturing industry lost roughly 1.4 million jobs. The gap has been recovering since then with around 622,000 manufacturing job openings yet to be filled, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We are trying to give back to the industry and get the employees more involved. A lot of folks work in a certain area and think their voice only reaches their local community but it’s bigger than that on a national level,” Russ said.

CTOS is still continuing to grow with new facilities opening in Sacramento, CA and Salt Lake City, UT and Casa Grande, AZ just south of Pheonix. Utility is the main industry CTOS provides and there has been an increase in investment in new transmission lines across CTOS’s locations, McMonagle said.

The company is also looking to innovate and bring more services to more industries. Refuse, waste management and telecom are all industries Ross believes are promising businesses that fit well in CTOS’s portfolio.

“There is a lot more runway for our company,” Ross said.

CTOS experienced a 77.28% growth rate year-over-year having earned over $1.83 billion in revenue in 2023.