Some of these companies exist solely to move vehicles across the country and all around the world. Some are brokers, working the telephones to finagle transport for their customers through contract transporters. And then there are the towing firms that include auto hauling in their menu of services.

Jesse DeGraeve, owner of Anytime Towing in Traverse City, Michigan, is a former automotive engineer. Four years ago he was looking for a career change, so he took a hard look at the towing industry. “I noticed that there was a lack of customer service at existing towing companies in town,” he said. “I figured that if I started a company that concentrated on customer service, it would not be very hard to break into the business.” DeGraeve got a Freightliner flatbed and opened his business in a local industrial park, offering light- and medium-duty towing services.

Business grew steadily. Today DeGraeve’s shop has six trucks: two Freightliner FL60 flatbeds, a Kenworth T300 flatbed, a Dodge 5500 wrecker, a Ford F-350 wrecker and a Freightliner tractor with a four-car wedge trailer for hauling cars. Anytime Towing offers auto transport anywhere in the United States. “We’ve hauled a little bit of everything,” said DeGraeve, “from tractors and construction equipment to Porsches, classic cars, and everything in between.” American Towman magazine honored DeGraeve’s shop with its Customer Service Excellence award three years in a row.

Although it’s common practice to subcontract the hauling to other companies, DeGraeve keeps the entire operation under his own roof. “As far as subcontracting goes,” he explained, “we stay away from that because I would rather not have another company doing work under our name. If there is damage to a vehicle, the customer is looking to us, not who we hired to do the job. It is just a lot simpler to do the work ourselves; then we can do a better job of quality control and customer service.”

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