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Home Under The Hood Supporting the Trucking Industry for Over 100 Years

Supporting the Trucking Industry for Over 100 Years

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The story of Parts for Trucks is interwoven with the development of Canada itself. Starting in 1919 as Scotia Garage, the company emerged when there were only 1,000 commercial vehicles in Nova Scotia. Today, as a coast-to-coast operation, Parts for Trucks stands as a testament to Canadian resilience and innovation in the heavy-duty trucking industry.

The early days of transportation in Canada were vastly different from what we see today. In the 1700s, goods were primarily transported via canoes, which served as the "commercial truck and trailer" of that era. By the 1800s, corduroy roads—pathways made by laying logs across muddy or swampy areas—became common, followed by horse-drawn carriages. These crude transportation methods were the precursors to our modern highway system, which began development with the Canada Highway Act of 1919. This pivotal legislation provided 40% of funding for road construction, though Atlantic Canada faced unique challenges due to its rugged terrain. For example, Prince Edward Island had to ferry crushed stone from the mainland just to begin building its roads.

The relationship between roads and national development is profound. Interestingly, many of the roads initially connecting Canadian provinces to the US border were constructed primarily for defense purposes, anticipating possible American incursions. Today, these same roads facilitate the extensive trade relationship between our nations, with exports doubling from 25% to 50% of Canada's GDP within a few years of signing NAFTA in 1994. As Joel Miller, author of "100 Years of Trucking in Atlantic Canada," describes it: "It's a delicate tightrope of tariffs, incentives, and regulations that must be carefully navigated."

During the Great Depression, when Atlantic Canada's unemployment rate reached a staggering 60% compared to 32% nationally, government work programs focused on highway construction became essential economic stimulants. These projects not only provided employment but created critical infrastructure that would serve Canada for generations. During this challenging period, many Canadians even reverted to attaching horses to their automobiles—dubbed "Bennett buggies" as a critique of then-Prime Minister R.B. Bennett—because they couldn't afford gasoline.

The Raymond family became stewards of what would become Parts for Trucks when Phil Raymond joined Scotia Equipment in 1963, eventually acquiring full ownership in 1975. His sons, Paul and Andy Raymond, continued the legacy, implementing technological innovations like computerized inventory systems when such technology was still in its infancy. In 1987, they rebranded as Parts for Trucks, pioneering a customer-friendly store layout where parts were visible and accessible rather than hidden behind counters—a revolutionary concept at the time.

Under the current leadership of the Miller family since 2017, Parts for Trucks has expanded its vision while maintaining its core values. CEO Corey Miller emphasizes that their formula for success is simple yet profound: "There's no such thing as being perfect, but I think we want to strive for perfection every day in making our customers' lives easier." This philosophy guided the company through recent challenges including the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, and economic uncertainty.

Today, with over 600 employees and growing, Parts for Trucks continues to exemplify what it means to be "heavy duty"—not just in the parts they supply, but in the people who make up the organization. As Jamie Irvin, National Sales Director, aptly puts it: "The trucking industry is the backbone of society. Without it, people's lives and our way of life really do hang in the balance."

This century-long journey reflects not just the evolution of a company, but of Canada itself—from canoes to corduroy roads to coast-to-coast commercial transportation that delivers everything Canadians need to survive and thrive. The commitment to supporting this essential industry continues to drive Parts for Trucks forward into its next century of service.

Episode Summary

Episode 2: What happens when the trucking industry's wheels stop turning? It's a question most Canadians never consider, but every essential item in your home—food, medicine, clothing, fuel—arrived on a truck. Without the trucking industry, our way of life would grind to a halt. But what is the history of this industry we are so reliant on?

This second episode of the Parts for Trucks podcast takes you on a journey through a century of Canadian trucking history and reveals the remarkable story behind one of the industry's most enduring companies.

Available on PartsForTrucks.com/podcast, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms. 

Key Topics Covered

Resources Mentioned

Guest Bios:

Disclaimer: The Parts For Trucks podcast is produced by Parts for Trucks, Inc for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content, opinions, and views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies, or positions of Parts For Trucks, Inc. Read more...

Transcript

Jamie Irvine: 0:00

Because in the book you talk about our partners to the south, the United States, and the relationship that Canada and the United States has historically had. You describe, and I quote it's a delicate tightrope of tariffs, incentives and regulations that must be carefully navigated. Now you wrote that, like five, six years ago. That is more relevant today than it ever has been.

Corey Miller: 0:24

That is more relevant today than it ever has been. There's no such thing as being perfect, but I think we want to strive for perfection every day in making our customers' lives easier, and I think that that's truly a winning formula.

Jamie Irvine: 0:38

You're listening to the Parts for Trucks podcast. My name is Jamie Irvin. I'm the National Sales Director at Parts4Trucks and your host. In future episodes of the Parts4Trucks podcast, you will walk away with tools, strategies and knowledge to make your job easier, cut costs and elevate your already stellar performance in the Canadian trucking industry. In this episode, we wanted to introduce you to the people and the company behind the Parts for Trucks podcast.

Megan Bouchard: 1:15

Welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast, where we explore the latest trends, technologies and strategies in the heavy-duty trucking industry. Each episode you'll hear from industry experts to help keep your trucks on the road and your business thriving. Now let's get into gear. Here's your host, jamie Urban.

Jamie Irvine: 1:33

First, let me give you a brief overview of the history of Parts for Trucks, started in 1919 under the name Scotia Garage, later Scotia Equipment, by Harold Spencer and Harry Richard. When they started this company in Nova Scotia, there were only a thousand commercial vehicles at that time. Later, phil Raymond and his family acquired the company in 1975 and rebranded to Parts for Trucks in 1987. Later, the company was acquired by the Miller family in 2017, where they went on to purchase Fleet Break in 2022, making Parts for Trucks a coast-to-coast company. So those are the highlights, but there's a lot of details in a hundred-year history that we need to talk about, and I'm really excited to share with you three interviews in this episode One where we're going to go and dive into the history, because if you don't understand the history of the Canadian trucking industry, then it's hard to kind of place how Parts for Trucks got started all the way back in 1919 and how it became the company that it is today. We're also going to have a chance to talk to one of the stewards of the Parts for Trucks company, who participated in owning and operating this company for decades. Have you ever heard the expression we all stand on the shoulders of giants. Well, andy Raymond is certainly one of those giants of our history that we are all really privileged to be standing on his shoulders and trying to take this company to the next level, and we wouldn't be able to do that without our current leadership. So we're going to get a chance to talk to Corey Miller, ceo of Parts for Trucks, and really get some insight into where this company is going and how the Miller family is setting Parts for Trucks up for the next 100 years. So let's get started by diving into the history of the trucking industry.

Jamie Irvine: 3:31

I'd like to introduce Joel Miller, the author of 100 Years of Trucking in Atlantic Canada, a book that was commissioned by Parts for Trucks. Joel, welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast. So glad to have you here. It's nice to be here. So let's start off the conversation. We're really talking about the trucking industry over the last hundred years and since you authored this book, I thought you'd be a great individual to talk to. But what was the motivation behind creating the book A Hundred Years of Trucking in Atlanta, canada?

Joel Miller: 4:03

Well, I know at the time that it had been the 100th year anniversary for Parts for Trucks and they approached me and said we're thinking of some unique ideas of ways to celebrate kind of trucking in Atlanta, canada, and we had a little bit of discussion and this is kind of what we came up with. And, of course, working with Part, working with parts for trucks, they had access to a lot of uh great people in the industry so we were able to go out talk to a lot of the the industry leaders, so people from michelin, people from armor, people from irving, uh, some of the smaller uh places around around the provinces, as well as a lot of drivers. It was a great opportunity and I had just been leaving my organization where I had a lot of experience working with truckers, so I thought it was a good fit.

Jamie Irvine: 4:56

When you first tackled the project, what was the general feeling that you had? Was it just one of pure excitement? Was there a bit of overwhelm? It's a big job to document a hundred years of trucking in Atlantic Canada.

Joel Miller: 5:08

Well, and that's it. There's just, I mean we're talking about all of the Atlantic provinces and like where do you, where do you kind of cut things off? Where do you, where do you decide? Finally, I've got enough. I've got enough content. You know, I probably could have made it kept going if I wanted, but I'm really happy with how the final product came out.

Jamie Irvine: 5:28

Yeah, I've had a chance to look through the book and read through it myself and I thought it was very well done. Now in the book I want to read a quote To track the growth of the trucking industry in Atlantic Canada is to track our growth as a nation. As a result of the First World War, canada was able to finally step out from under the shadow of Great Britain and take its place amongst the nations of the world. That's quite the quote and really puts into perspective the place that the trucking industry kind of sits in our history. Can you explain how the establishment of the Canada Highway Act in 1919 and the development of roads was really important as a precursor to the establishment of the trucking industry?

Joel Miller: 6:16

Walk us through a little bit of a history lesson there and basically the way that worked is the federal government was going to give us 40% of all the monies required in order to produce roads. So you can see in places like Ontario that really exploded the amount of roads that they could produce. In Atlantic Canada it was a little bit more difficult because 40%, while a huge amount of the cost of building a road, especially at the time, is much harder when we're in such a disparate kind of rugged land, especially when you get to Cape Breton, newfoundland, pei At the time PEI didn't have a quarry so they actually had to ferry all of the crushed stone from the mainland for them to even start building the roads. This was kind of the first steps for Canada to making its kind of impact across those new arteries and those new roadways that were going to become what we enjoy today.

Jamie Irvine: 7:24

It's interesting as you're reading the book you talk about. Prior to the invention of the automobile and subsequently the commercial truck, there were interesting ways that goods was moved in the Atlantic provinces. So let's go back to the 1700s. What was the dominant way of moving goods in the 1700s?

Joel Miller: 7:45

you go far enough back.

Jamie Irvine: 7:46

We're moving everything via canoe that was the commercial truck and trailer of the 1700s that's, that's how everything's getting moved.

Joel Miller: 7:56

it's, uh bivouacs and and canoes, you know you move past that. Then of course we're moving to what's called, uh, cordroy roads where, once you have a well-trodden cart path, they start laying down logs at the places where they know that they're getting hung up. And of course they're called corduroy because that's what it looks like and you can imagine what a road made from logs probably felt Not the best thing you've probably ever driven on.

Jamie Irvine: 8:26

Right. So I mean, first of all, there's a tremendous amount of physical effort to to move canoes by water and then you hit. You hit uh like, let's say, the ice flow changes something in the river or there's a jam and you have to unload everything and portage it around, carry everything, including the canoe, around this obstruction. So is that why those corridor roads were created? To try to get around things like that or to make it easier to move on and off the water? Or was it really truly the first just establishment of roads for carts?

Joel Miller: 8:59

Once our towns and villages started getting more established, it became necessary for those kinds of roads to be developed. And I mean, you work with what you have and the thing that we have is lots of wood.

Jamie Irvine: 9:12

For those listening who don't know much about the history of, let's say, the province of New Brunswick, this was a ship building capital for a large time period because of the lumber that we had. So, yeah, lumber was readily available. All right, let's go a little ahead in time. We hit the 1800s. What big invention and development happened that really changed the way goods were moved in Atlantic Canada and really the rest of the continent.

Joel Miller: 9:37

In the 1800s. Well, that's when we started getting our first kind of standard roads. You'd see the horse and buggy on most of our roads at that point in time. I mean you look at what today. I mean some listeners would know what I mean when I say the St Margaret's Bay Road.

Joel Miller: 9:54

I believe in the book I've got pictures of St Margaret's Bay Road in the 1800s I think, probably up until 1850. They've still got bison being used to haul lumber straight up and down those roads. But yeah, that's what we'd see. And of course that's also when you'd see a lot of roads from kind of central Canada and our area here through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where roads would have to be developed to go to the border. I mean the consideration now is that well, that's great We've got all these passageways to facilitate trade, but at the time a lot of those roads were actually being built to facilitate defense in the case of American incursion on our borders. I just find that very interesting how those roads first were made because of our very adversarial relationship at the beginning.

Jamie Irvine: 10:53

Right, Well, and then there was also the introduction of the railway right, and I thought it was interesting in the book how you talked about how trains were able to now move large amounts of goods to a certain point, but we still needed to be able to get them to the towns and villages that weren't necessarily located on a rail line. So then we saw the real cooperation between the, and I think you did a good job of explaining how that Road Act started to help fund the development of what we would now consider our highways here in Canada. My grandfather actually built roads in New Brunswick in the 40s and 50s. That was one of his jobs, so I guess he benefited from the Highway Act because they would have still been funding it at that point. Let's talk about some of the tough times that came about, but how that impacted the trucking industry. So during the Great Depression in the 1930s and the subsequent new war economy that really came forward after that time, how did that actually cause the trucking industry to expand?

Joel Miller: 12:12

So when you look at the Great Depression in Atlantic Canada I believe the statistic was 60% of people were out of work and that was compared to 32% across the rest of Canada. So you can see how we were pretty heavily impacted. We were major exporters and if nobody's buying, then our economy collapses. What the Canadian government did the local economies it's going to keep people working and it's going to provide tangible benefits for the country moving forward, and so a lot of those first highways were as a result of just these work programs, essentially where they would go out and see all this unemployment and say we need to get our people out and being productive. Right, and, as you can see, it ended up being a tremendous boon to the nation. That being said, you didn't see the kind of massive recovery in the economies until, of course, the Second World.

Jamie Irvine: 13:21

War bone of society right. Everything we need to survive medicine, food, energy, clothing, all those things, all the things that we rely on that really make our way of life possible today is all interconnected and because of the trucking industry. But when you go back into our history and you can really see how the trucking industry was such an integral part of the development of what we now get to benefit from 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 years later, Well and that was one of the things that I found really interesting was, during my research, finding there's over 500,000 trucking jobs directly related to trucking in Canada.

Joel Miller: 14:09

There's consumer and food goods. 90% of every consumer and food good in Canada at some point is traveling on a truck. When you see that kind of stuff, you realize just how important the industry is to the rest of Canada.

Jamie Irvine: 14:25

I think, a lot of people who aren't in the industry. It's kind of invisible to them, right, for them, the only interaction they have with the trucking industry is maybe passing a truck on the highway or getting stuck behind a truck on a snowy day and cursing that transport truck for splashing them with snow and rain. But the reality is that everything that we come to rely on comes on a truck. I thought it was interesting, because when were you doing the research? What year was it like? 2018, leading up to 2019?

Joel Miller: 14:59

The majority of it in 2018, I believe it printed in 2019.

Jamie Irvine: 15:03

Okay. So this is really interesting because in the book you talk about our partners to the South, the United States, and the relationship that Canada and the United States has historically had. You describe, and I quote it's a delicate tightrope of tariffs, incentives and regulations that must be carefully navigated. You wrote that like five, six years ago. That is more relevant today than it ever has been. So how important has trade with the US been to the Canadian economy historically and how has the trucking industry really benefited from that?

Joel Miller: 15:38

The implementation of NAFTA, which was preceded by the auto parts agreement, and before that there was the Canada-US agreement and then NAFTA. I believe it was that our exports increased from 25% to 50% of our GDP just within a few short years of signing that agreement. I mean, that was 1994, I believe that we signed that agreement and you can see just how much of an effect it's had on our and how much more intertwined our economies have become as a result of NAFTA and, of course, with the new USMCA at the time of writing the book was still being negotiated you can see that that relationship is obviously going to continue in some form or another, tariffs or not.

Jamie Irvine: 16:35

Yeah, in any long-term relationship there's always ups and downs and it's lasted for this long. It's not going to end. It's just probably going to change and will adapt and then things will ebb and flow and move. So for those that are having a lot of anxiety about this, just take a step back, look at the larger picture. That's one thing that looking at things from a hundred year time perspective really helps you to see. Right. It's a long wave cycle.

Joel Miller: 17:05

Well, again, it's those roads that are now bringing us their goods were originally built to protect us from their soldiers, right? So when you consider it like that, it's like, hey, things have gotten a lot better.

Jamie Irvine: 17:18

Their goods were originally built to protect us from their soldiers. So when you consider it like that, it's like, hey, things have gotten a lot better, a lot better, that's right, that's right. So you dedicated a chapter to trucks through the ages. What did you learn when putting this together? That really stuck out as interesting.

Joel Miller: 17:31

So and I absolutely encourage you to look this up. But if you're familiar, have you heard of the Scott truck, the Scott truck from DeBert, where it was manufactured from 1972, from 1980. It's an interesting thing to think about, when we're talking about all these trade wars going on right now, that we actually used to manufacture our own trucks here in Nova Scotia, so those Scott trucks used to be getting built here. I mean, there was a time during the Great Depression as well. This was another fact that I found super interesting that even though automobiles were already kind of introduced into a lot of the provinces, you saw people actually go backwards and start taking uh harnesses and attaching their horses to their cars so that they could just drag their cars around when it was too, too expensive to afford afford gas those poor horses, yeah uh, they're like really that's what we're doing now.

Joel Miller: 18:37

Those were the Bennett buggies, which was, I think, a bit of a dig at the at the prime minister at the time. Right, there's so much that you can learn by kind of digging into our history and some of what what Atlantic Canadians had have been able to accomplish during those times of upheaval.

Jamie Irvine: 18:58

Yeah, and talking about trucks being manufactured in Canada on the West Coast with all of that old growth, timber, massive trees, they actually had to build extra large trucks and trailers to handle those loads. So there was a Pacific and a Hayes truck. They were huge. So I've got a picture, and I'll I'll share it now on the screen of my wife. When we were first married we went on a sales trip together and we and we found one of these trucks and she's standing beside it and she's like little five foot three and the front wheel is like six feet in diameter, so the front wheel is taller than her.

Jamie Irvine: 19:34

And these massive trucks carrying like 130,000 pounds of timber down the sides of coastal mountains. I was lucky enough at the early parts of my career to actually see it in person and truly, at the time, those things were really engineering marvels. So you know, canadians, we've got this spirit. We are very innovative people and whatever challenges come our way, I think we're going to be able to find solutions to those challenges. So on that note, joel, let's talk about being Canadian and supporting the Canadian trucking industry. Now that you've done this project, you've written this book, you've had experience with the industry the time that you've done this project, you've written this book, you've had experience with the industry the time that you've had experience with the industry. When I say that being Canadian and supporting the trucking industry, what does that mean to you? One of the big things is respect those truck drivers.

Joel Miller: 20:28

They're professionals just like any other professional that you might see. It is a difficult job and they deserve respect for the job that they're doing. A fact that I learned that kind of speaks to this is the TransCanada utilized the maple leaf as a kind of Canadian icon before it was ever implemented onto our flag, which I believe was 1965. It just shows, you know, roads are so important to our nation Roads, highways and our drivers Absolutely.

Jamie Irvine: 21:06

Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. We're going to make sure that people who want to actually read the book we will make it available to those digital companies available, and Joel really appreciate it. We'd love to have you back on the podcast in the future. Anytime we're talking about the history of the trucking industry, I think you're going to be our go-to source. Well, another hundred years, right? Yeah, well, hopefully. I don't know what condition you and I would be in in 100 years but maybe with modern technology.

Jamie Irvine: 21:37

Right, that's it. Thanks, joel. Thanks for being on the Parts for Trucks podcast. Really appreciate you having here. It was my pleasure.

Jamie Irvine: 21:45

It was great to talk to Joel about the history of the trucking industry here in Canada and there's so many fascinating details. I really would love to spend more time with him, so I think we'll probably have him back on the show again to talk about more of the history, because it truly is fascinating. Now I want to share with you an interview I had with Andy Raymond. Now Andy, this is a really humble guy. I think that the impact that the Raymond family had on Parts for Trucks is so huge. I think they were excellent stewards of this business for decades and it was really great to talk to Andy about some of the interesting things, the innovations that they brought to the company, the history of where the company started and how it transitioned and set itself up to be the company that it is today. I think you're going to really enjoy our conversation with Andy Raymond. Andy, welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast, great Thank you Jim.

Jamie Irvine: 22:44

I'd like you to take us back in time. What was happening in the world in the years leading up to the original founders of what would one day become parts for trucks? So Harold Spencer and Harry Richard, they started Scotia Equipment in 1919. What was the world like back then?

Andy Raymond: 23:03

Well, they actually started a company called Scotia Garage well before my time but my understanding of it, that automotive use, whether it's trucks or cars, was a minor part of the economy or the way people did things. The big event was the First World War, which brought a recognition of a bigger world to a lot of people and particularly to people who lived in rural areas might not have seen a car, and that was most of Canada. So in traveling maybe going overseas to serve or traveling to Halifax to serve in the support work for the war effort people would have seen vehicles and as the war progressed I know that that became more and more a part of what they did. So my thinking is in 1919, that a number of people not just Richard and Spencer thought about how would they employ the new technology in a changing world.

Jamie Irvine: 24:01

It's hard for many of us to understand. My daughter is almost 21. I remember when we sat her down and showed her a phone book. She looked at it. She goes why would people ever use this? Why wouldn't they just use Google? And she looked at it. She goes why would people ever use this? Why wouldn't they just use Google? Like for young people, they can't even imagine a time before the internet, never mind a time before vehicles were so prolific, and I can imagine, I believe, that when this company was started, there was what less than a thousand vehicles, even in Nova Scotia. That's what I read in the book by Joel Miller. Right, yeah, yeah, even in Nova Scotia. That's what I read in the book by Joel Miller. Yeah, yeah. So you could imagine I'm trying to put myself in the minds of these two men who are starting this company. They must have been forward thinking to some degree, though, to be able to look at this current situation, the trend, and see where is this going to go, and obviously they were a bit ahead of the curve.

Andy Raymond: 24:51

If you look at the history, early history of the company, a more telling example of who they were was not that they took a chance. Lots of people take chances on different businesses. It was 10 years after they started the Great Depression. The Worldwide Depression came on for 10 years. The business survived that. That probably tells you more about them than their idea of founding a company.

Jamie Irvine: 25:16

The statistics around business success and failure are pretty clear. I think most people have heard that a lot of businesses fail in the first five years. But what a lot of people don't know is that actually a large amount of businesses either sell or close at the 10-year mark, where the founders are just hired right, they just are kind of worn out. So you could imagine just at that time in an entrepreneur's life where things are kind of really at that level at 10 years and then you have this global depression in 1929. Yeah, I tend to agree with you. I think that speaks a lot to their character. So let's fast forward in time now. How did the Raymond family come to own the company that would become Parts for Trucks?

Andy Raymond: 26:01

Well, my parents are both from Nova Scotia but early in their marriage they moved to Montreal in the 1950s and my dad was working there and my dad was working there again had this friendship with uh jim morrison, the, the son-in-law of the of the owner of scotia equipment. That led to an offer from mr spencer senior for my father to come and join the parts and trucks the scotia equipment team and our family moved to nova scotia, to Nova Scotia, in 1963. My father joined the company senior role with the company. He worked with a team of Mr Spencer's senior head was less active in the business, still still owned the principal amount of business.

Andy Raymond: 26:45

But Harold Spencer Jr, his son and Jim Morrison, my father directed the company made a big move to move from downtown Halifax to a new industrial park in Dartmouth, the bridge, and that was a bold move. People said, what are you doing? You're leaving downtown, but downtown was changing and they saw that we went to a much bigger facility, we're able to stock more lines and that was the start of growth. And that was the start of growth. And then from there my father took over full ownership of the company in 1975. Paul and I joined a few years later, and we took over ownership of the company when my dad retired in 1996.

Jamie Irvine: 27:27

When you and your brother Paul joined the company. What capacity did you join the company? What did your father have you do? How did you learn the business?

Andy Raymond: 27:37

I started drove a delivery truck, worked in the parts department. A couple of years prior to my joining the company. My father had made a bold move of buying a computer. That wasn't done back in the day. They spent a lot of money on it and there was no package software, so it was kind of custom software. The machine was as big as a refrigerator. It had 20 megabytes of hard drive storage and not much memory 256K. That was kind of interesting and I was on board as we were getting used to that. But there were flaws in the software and this is before modem. So I'm on the phone trying to talk to somebody, just gave up and figured out how to program myself and I rewrote all the code and that carried us for a good while.

Andy Raymond: 28:26

In addition to that I was looking after the accounting management of the company and my brother, paul Paul, is a mechanical engineer. He was working for a large company in Montreal, came back to Nova Scotia around the time I joined and Paul became the service manager. He had some great people supporting him. He learned a lot in that industry and on that side of the industry and then he also got specialized in selling truck mounted equipment which again, he was contacted with engineers, so we all grew our responsibilities. There was plenty of work for me and paul and for other key people. It was never just paul and myself, it was a a team right throughout the whole company, but in terms of leadership, we had other leaders than just paul and me. We were very successful and we had fun. Our families had fun with each other and it was a great place to work.

Jamie Irvine: 29:20

I don't know how successful you can be if you aren't having at least a little bit of fun right? I think those two are hand in hand. So talk to me about the decision to rebrand the company Parts for Trucks. What was the thought process behind it? When did that happen?

Andy Raymond: 29:34

Well, after my father bought the company he started an expansion. We went to New Brunswick and then to Newfoundland and we were using the name Scotia Equipment. There was a legacy, certainly, to that name, but equipment was thought more to mean something off-road and not that we don't sell parts for off-road, but not necessarily trucks. And we had obviously grown outside of Nova Scotia so we were searching around for a name. At the time we opened a new store in Truro and that was in 1985. And that was our fourth store and we decided to make that a different type of store.

Andy Raymond: 30:09

So in the past most commercial sales were done with a customer coming in, going to the counter and asking for a part or asking for help, and the person serving that customer would disappear into the warehouse and come back with something or say, no, we don't have it. And the store in Truro. We designed the store so the counter wasn't a barrier to the parts, so the customer could see the parts, touch the parts, pick one up if he knew what he wanted. And that was a different design. It required different shelving, obviously more low rise and better lighting and more signage, but that was very successful. We called that store a Parts for Trucks store, so it was a trade style first. It was so successful we started remodeling our other stores and as we did, we changed the layout. We called it a Parts for Trucks store and then, 1987, april 6th, we renamed the whole company Parts for Trucks Incorporated.

Jamie Irvine: 31:12

So you were able to be part of a legacy business and play a significant role in shaping that company over a long period of time. What would you say was the ingredients that led to success during the time that the Raymond family had the opportunity to own and operate this business?

Andy Raymond: 31:34

Fundamentally it was the people. We took care to seek out exceptional people to join the company and then gave them the tools whether it's information technology, training to serve the customer as well, as the customer deserves to be treated and our customers deserve to be treated really well. So we were, of that common mindset, very successful in getting our staff on board and it was always a team approach. Having said that, there were challenges and certainly there were so many changes in our industry. So, in terms of technology, when I first joined the company, we were still mailing purchase orders to some suppliers and then this Telex came along that you could type it in, but it had no memory. And then someone was selling Telexes where you had some memory, had it on a tape that you made. That lowered the cost, and then it was a fax machine, which was wonderful.

Andy Raymond: 32:34

Now it's all changed. We wanted to be ahead of those changes. So I think we're very progressive in terms of the technology we use. We're progressive be ahead of those changes. So I think we're very progressive in terms of the technology we use. We're progressive in terms of changing in the way we do things and training our staff. So I think that was a key to being successful with having our whole company on board, with staying ahead of the changing environment.

Jamie Irvine: 33:00

Knowing what you know now, if you were doing it all over again, if you were like in your 20s and you were just coming into the industry, what advice would you have for people? And knowing everything you know now, what would you do?

Andy Raymond: 33:12

There's no large regrets. I think we really had our timing right and, in the macro sense, and that comes from in the micro level, constantly monitoring, constantly willing to admit we've got to change this slightly.

Jamie Irvine: 33:28

So be adaptable and be flexible. Great advice, great advice. What does being a Canadian and supporting the Canadian trucking industry mean to you?

Andy Raymond: 33:37

Well, we have a number of associations across North America, certainly with our suppliers and trade associations. There are differences in our industry from what's south of the border and our company has been quite successful in getting recognition of those differences. And certainly to the extent our suppliers recognize the differences and modify their selling procedures, their training procedure, for one, of having a French language training I think we've been a champion of that that benefits our whole industry.

Jamie Irvine: 34:13

Well, and you think of the integral role that the trucking industry plays in our society, right, I always say the trucking industry is the backbone of society. You know, without it, people's lives and our way of life really do hang in the balance. So for me, I know when I look at that, I think it's a real privilege to be able to contribute to this great industry that supports all of our neighbors and friends. In 2017, you passed the torch to the Miller brothers, the Miller family. What was it about the Millers that gave you confidence that you were handing the torch to someone that the company would be in good hands?

Andy Raymond: 34:52

Well, we've known the Millers for some time. I knew Cory and Brett's dad, brian, absolutely wonderful man, and you see that in Corey and Brett the timing was good for us. They were from our industry but didn't compete with us, so they had the entire business, had the same customers, kind of the same geographical footprint. It was a great match for us, who had knowledge specific to our role in the industry and they had the general knowledge of the customers. They're hardworking, smart guys and they also they care about the things we care about. They cared about their employees, cared about doing things ethically supporting the customer. So there was a real, a really good match, a real good media of minds. It was good timing for us to do it.

Jamie Irvine: 35:40

Well, thank you very much for taking time to talk to us and share the history of the company Some fascinating stories. Really appreciate it. And thank you for being one of the first guests on the Parts for Trucks podcast Great Thank you, jim. Well, up until now, this episode has been quite the history lesson. But now we're going to talk about the present day and the future, and so I'd like to introduce you to Corey Miller, ceo of Parts for Trucks. In this conversation, we are talking a lot about what is the driving force behind Parts for Trucks, what are we doing here, why are we in business and what is being done to set this company up to support the Canadian trucking industry for another 100 years. Enjoy my conversation with Corey Miller.

Jamie Irvine: 36:29

Corey, welcome to the Parts for Trucks podcast. Glad to have you here. It's great to be here, jamie, thanks for having me on. Well, it's an opportunity for us to allow future customers, existing customers people are going to watch this in the future. This gives us a real opportunity to get to know you, kind of the way that you think, how you approach the industry and what makes Parts for Trucks special. So I'm really excited about our conversation. Let's get into it. Yeah, me too. You acquired Parts for Trucks. This is a legacy company in Atlantic Canada. What about this company made you want to acquire it?

Corey Miller: 37:05

Parts for Trucks was a really well-known legacy brand in Atlantic Canada when I was growing up in the business. So I started in the tire business. It was a company that my dad ran since the seventies and I grew up, you know, down the street from a parts for trucks. We were a customer of parts for trucks. I had so much respect for the brand and the team and you know everything they did in the industry. You know there's a great breadth, as you know, in the products and the services. It was really that legacy and that when we bought it in 2017, it was almost 100 years old. It was actually 98 years old. When someone gets a chance to get involved in an organization that has that kind of history and such a strong brand standing, it's almost a no-brainer.

Jamie Irvine: 37:58

In some respects, it's a bit of an honor to be able to continue on the legacy of a company that has been around for nearly a century. I'm sure when you first took the business over, though, there was some hurdles that were unique to acquiring a legacy business this wasn't a startup by Eddie Meads, so what kind of hurdles did you first face as a new leader in this legacy company?

Corey Miller: 38:22

On, the personal side, it was just a huge learning curve. As you're aware, we carry so many products in our industry and the heavy duty industry in general and do so many services that, coming from an industry like tires, there were just a lot of um, a lot of things to learn when it came to the product offerings. And you know I still am working on that today. Right, we offer so many things that it's impossible to be, uh, an expert in all of them. We're really fortunate that we have experts in in a lot of areas in our organization. You know I certainly lean on on those folks a lot, uh, as far as uh knowing the products but that would be the first one is that. You know that was a personal challenge to overcome.

Jamie Irvine: 39:08

One of my parts mentors when I got into the business. So I've been in the business coming up 27 years and uh, he said to me. He said how do you get 20 years experience in the heavy duty parts business? I'm like I don't know how he goes. Come see me in 20 years.

Jamie Irvine: 39:21

And it's true, right, and I think it's one of the things that heavy duty people really love about this business, though, is that you know, 20, 25, 30 years in, we're still learning new things every day. It still is challenging us, so that really resonates with me, uh, why you would feel that way coming into the business and everything. So you mentioned there was an item that came up as you took over the business. What was that? Tell us more about that.

Corey Miller: 39:45

Speaking more corporately, Parts for Trucks had a long legacy and a lot of really strong people at the helms of different businesses, right?

Corey Miller: 39:55

So my brother, Brett, and I purchased the company from Paul and Andy Raymond, who had been in the business a long time and were veterans of the industry.

Corey Miller: 40:07

They had with them a really strong team, right? People like Kevin Swan and Doug Banfield and Robert Sittle, who have all since retired, and you know they made up a large portion of the management team. So you know, one of the challenges initially, upon getting into the business, was to identify some of the best talent in the organization and really give them an opportunity to boost their skills and step into those shoes of the experienced leaders that you know we knew would be leaving within a matter of years when we first bought the business. So we were really fortunate that, you know, we identified, you know, just awesome, awesome people like Jason Frazier and Mark Bowser, who form today the backbone of the company, along with Luke McKenzie. And without identifying that talent and being able to work with them to have them come in behind the experienced talent that we knew would be retiring, I don't think the company would be existing today without those folks stepping up. So it really was a team approach to keeping the business strong and really making it stronger with that new young talent.

Jamie Irvine: 41:37

Listen, I didn't know you, corey, before coming to work for Parts for Trucks, and I will tell you that absolutely a big part of my decision to join the company was both what we've been talking about the legacy of the company as well as the management team that you'd put in place. It's exciting to be part of that leadership group Now. We have a bunch of people who are passionate about the industry. They are knowledgeable, they've grown up in the industry, so they really bring a lot of experience and for me, it's really an honor to be able to join those people and to work alongside them every day. I know myself it's expanding my knowledge and pushing me, and I hope I can add something to the team as well. So, no, well done on that and, like I said, it was a big part of my desire to join the company. You've managed through some pretty tough times, like things like a once in a hundred year pandemic that you know. The last time a pandemic happened parts for trucks was one year old.

Corey Miller: 42:39

Yeah.

Jamie Irvine: 42:40

So then you managed through uh times like COVID think about, after COVID, right, we had all the supply chain collapse, then we had hyper inflation, now we have geopolitical instability. I mean, these have not been what I would call normal times in the trucking industry and you've had to lead this company throughout all of that. What lessons in leadership did you learn going through all of this?

Corey Miller: 43:04

I really enjoy a challenge. You know when, when, things that are status quo. You know it's really it's a little bit boring and I think that that that's why a lot of us are in business right, it's the opportunity to go through change and help create change in in our industry. That that gets us up in the morning and you know, part of managing through all of that disruption over that period of time, you know I would get up in the morning kind of as you did, probably turn the TV on and just wonder what's going to happen today, right, like what else is going to go wrong. That helped us identify some of the strong management team that we have today and we aligned ourselves and brought people into the company that thrive on change and thrive on challenge and want to get up every morning and they think how do I make this business better? How do I serve customers better? How do I get through the challenges I'm going to face today? It's just awesome to see the resiliency that came through.

Corey Miller: 44:16

That really shone through in our team during that period. It was an all-hands-on-deck sort of thing. We were really fortunate that we didn't have to lay anybody off. You know we kept everything going and rallied with a lot of the industry to ensure that we were considered an essential service. Partially, I came to accept that there's just a lot of things you can't change. You got to go with the flow sometimes and have a certain resiliency to take your bruises and take your bumps and your punches and just keep going. And, like I say, I'm really proud of our team because, uh, they all proved as well that they could just take a punch and and keep going and, uh, you know it was, it was a pretty cool team building experience. I wouldn't want to do it again, but it was. It was a. It was a. It was a neat team building experience to go through, right, uh, cause you really do see some extraordinary characteristics of people come out when they come together during something like that.

Jamie Irvine: 45:22

This concept of being heavy duty isn't just something that you apply to the parts and the equipment that we service. It actually can be applied to the individual people. You almost know when you're talking to someone who's heavy duty. So think about this. The definition of heavy duty for equipment is a resilient piece of equipment that can operate efficiently and effectively in the most extreme circumstances and environments that we can put that equipment in. And that's a great metaphor for the heavy duty people that work in this industry. Because they are resilient, they can endure difficult times, they rise to the challenge and they can operate in these tough environments and succeed.

Jamie Irvine: 46:06

And I think when I hear you describe what you witnessed through those years, I think that really exemplified that quality of being heavy duty. So, with that in mind, you've talked about the leadership, but we've got like over 600 employees at the company and growing. What do people need to know about the men and women that work at Parts for Trucks? Because, remember, our current customers and future customers are going to go back and watch this video. So what do they need to know about the people that work at Parts for Trucks?

Corey Miller: 46:39

The culture at Parts for Trucks takes its time to ensure that we understand the challenge that our customers have.

Corey Miller: 46:47

You know, it's one of problem solving and, like we chatted about earlier, resiliency right and help the industry right Become a better place. We also take a lot of pride in developing people and we've got a lot of tools in place internally, but also externally, through our supplier partners and organizations that we belong to, like Vypar and CV, know, help us provide tools to our team so that they can continually learn more, like we were talking about all the product categories that we deal with in in the heavy duty industry and and there's always something new, right, I mean, the industry is always changing. There's always something, a new product coming out in every product category, likely every day of the week, and you know, one of the things that Parts for Trucks has done well is enable our team to become informed on those products and ensure that that kind of thirst for knowledge gets quenched, because we really do have a great group of people that want to do right by the customer, and part of that is staying on top of products, services and what's important.

Jamie Irvine: 48:10

So Corey, who's the most important person in this company.

Corey Miller: 48:14

In an organization as complex as ours, that's serving an industry that is as complex as the heavy duty industry, it takes every single person to fill their role right and it includes people on the shop floor mechanics, apprentices, folks in the warehouse driving forklifts. It takes the people at the parts counter. It takes the people at our call center. It takes our folks on the road, the outside sales, reps, accounting, hr. There's so many roles in the organization and if any one person doesn't show up to work that day, it impacts the whole operation and everybody is integral it's everybody is integral to the, to the day-to-day operation of the business, and it's impossible to say who the most important person is, because it's uh, everybody is the most important person.

Jamie Irvine: 49:09

Yeah, I agree with that a hundred percent. So we are a, a group of people that when we all come together and we all play our specific roles, then, um, you know, that creates like a composite person.

Jamie Irvine: 49:20

That's the most important and, Corey, I think you're going to hear from me a lot. I mean, the trucking industry is the backbone of society. When you really think about it, without the trucking industry, the essentials of life don't get to people. So, whether we're talking about energy to heat our homes in the Canadian winter, whether we're talking about medicine, food, clothing the very fundamentals that preserve people's lives, but it's also our way of life Everything that we enjoy in this great country is because it came on a truck, and so when you think about your job especially we're speaking now to the employees of Parts for Trucks but when you come and do your job and you're contributing, you're doing your part to contribute to supporting the trucking industry, which supports Canada, and that's something we can be really, really proud of, and I'm sure that you feel the same way moving efficiently if they don't receive service when they break down, if they don't receive regular maintenance, if they don't have the parts available when they need them lettuce doesn't get on the shelves and fish doesn't get delivered and heating oil doesn't get delivered.

Corey Miller: 50:34

It would be catastrophic to the entire country and every single Canadian without people like the folks at Parts for Trucks playing a role in ensuring that, literally, the wheels of the economy keep turning.

Jamie Irvine: 50:49

So we took a moment to speak to our employees. I'd like to take a minute to speak to our customers now, and I've got a question for you. Why should customers come to Parts for Trucks instead of our competitors? What's your answer to that question? And here's the thing you can't use the five things that I call the barriers of entry into the business right. So we know we have to have experience, we know we have to have tenure in the industry, we know we have to have a wide range of parts and good service and we have to have competitive pricing. So, if that's all aside, what are those intangible things that makes Parts for Trucks a special supplier in the industry?

Corey Miller: 51:25

Yeah, our goal is to be the easiest organization to deal with.

Corey Miller: 51:30

We've all been in that situation when you've tried to buy something or source something or have a repair done and it just seems more complicated than what it should be.

Corey Miller: 51:43

I think it's important to wake up every day and think about how we can make our business easier to deal with and how we can take away stress from customers and things that get in the way of us doing business.

Corey Miller: 51:57

It's important that when someone needs a part, or when someone needs service, or when someone needs advice on how to maintain their vehicle, that we make it easy for them, and that includes being available in multiple ways, right? I mean, you can pick up the phone, you can walk down the street or drive down the street and visit a store. You can shop 24 hours a day, seven days a week, online if you want to. There's no such thing as being perfect, but I think we want to strive for perfection every day in making our customers' lives easier. Yes, everybody can get parts, everybody can offer competitive pricing, everybody can give good service, but it's really about just making the customer's life easier in the process, and I think that that's truly a winning formula If you can do something right and do it quickly and make it easy, it's a recipe for success.

Jamie Irvine: 53:01

That is a continuous improvement kind of proposition, right? It never ends.

Jamie Irvine: 53:06

It's going to go on and on and on. So for you, to the customer who's listening to this right now, I guess the message that we'd like to share with you is that we are working every day to try to make your life easier, because we take that very seriously. So we welcome that feedback. We want to hear from you, we want to know where there's friction and where you're having struggles, so that we can try to come up with solutions that don't just fix the problem today but become a permanent part of the way that we do things, to make it easy for you as time goes forward. What gives you confidence for the future, for not just our company but Canada as a whole.

Corey Miller: 53:48

Canada has so many great attributes for us to be proud of. Right, we have wonderful natural resources that we can use to our advantage. We have two amazing coasts really three amazing coasts if you, if you count the arctic. We're just positioned really well to succeed as a nation. The heavy duty industry is always going to be an integral part when the country does well. Our industry does well because we are a great nation and, uh, you know, you look at how, uh, our nation pulls together when it's really necessary. It's an, it's an awesome thing. That's that's what gives me a lot of hope and confidence that our best years are still ahead of us. I know that we have a winning formula in our country. Uh, you know, it's, it's. We're not without our day-to-day struggles, but over the long term, we are so well positioned to be a strong nation and in doing that, the heavy-duty trucking industry is going to be a winning piece of that industry is going to be a winning piece of that.

Jamie Irvine: 55:07

When you talk about that, what I think about is I think about some of the amazing accomplishments that individual Canadians have made and the contributions they've made on the world scene. It makes me think that, at the end of the day, it always comes back to being about the people. I grew up in the Maritimes in New Brunswick. I've lived for almost 20 years on the West Coast in Vancouver. Now I'm in Alberta, so I've gotten an opportunity to experience a lot of different types of Canadians. So for you, as an individual Canadian, what does it mean to be Canadian to you?

Corey Miller: 55:39

I think Canadians are really caring, know we really want the best for you know, not only our own nation, but you know our families, our communities and the rest of the world right. Canadians are famous and have always been famous for standing up for what's right. That makes me incredibly proud Canadian when it comes to building a business and being Canadian. I'm very proud to say that Parts for Trucks is a well regarded and well-respected brand and company all over North America and we're really well known and people watch us to see what we're doing. Some cases they copy what we're doing and that's a great sign. There's nothing more flattering than having people copy you right.

Corey Miller: 56:38

Like you, I grew up in Atlanta. Canada. Being a Maritimer has given me a perspective that you know. Business can be really tough, you know, and the Maritimes doesn't have a really booming economy the way the rest of the country has experienced at different times. You just learn by growing up in that environment to do better and work harder to make more with less. You know that's what being a Canadian in business to me means and, more generally, you know being a Canadian in the world means.

Jamie Irvine: 57:15

Well, corey. Thank you so much for taking time. I think this has been a great conversation. Corey Miller is our CEO of Parts for Trucks and really appreciate you taking some time to talk about this, and we will continue to do our part to make Parts for Trucks a success and make it easy for our customers to do business with us. Thanks, corey, for being on the show. Thanks, jamie. It was a pleasure.

Jamie Irvine: 57:35

You've been listening to the Parts for Trucks podcast. I'm your host, Jamie Irvine. In the second episode, we really did get to learn a lot about our 100-year history as a company. In our next episode, we are going to provide you with an overview of what Parts for Trucks has to offer from a parts service and equipment perspective, but we're also going to talk about the way that we are leveraging all of the resources available to us to help you, our customers and the people listening to this podcast. So come back for episode three. I think you're going to learn a lot more about this company and it'll give you the perspective of why we exist, what we're trying to do to fulfill that mission and how we actually support our customers. Thank you for watching and listening to this episode and thank you for being heavy duty.