10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

COVER FEATURE - JULY 2005

GLIMMER MAN’S SHINY RIDE
Mike Pagano “Reflects” on His Truck, His Business and His Life

By Daniel J. Linss - Editor

All that glimmers is not gold. For Mike “Glimmer Man” Pagano, it’s stainless that shines - namely the custom polished boxes on his transfer truck and trailer. For a guy who tried hard to avoid becoming a trucker, Mike is doing pretty well at it. Having just added a second truck to his “fleet,” Mike’s company, Statewide Material Transport, is on the grow and looking good. But for Mike, success is not about image, it’s about pride, freedom and the ability to do what he loves everyday.

Mike (38) was born in Montebello, CA and grew up in the Ontario area. His father has been a single truck owner operator his entire life, running transfers and end dumps all around Southern California. Today, he pulls a drop-deck back and forth between Arizona and Nevada. Mike’s brother recently got involved in the industry as well, pulling a drop-deck like his dad. But for some reason, while growing up, Mike was reluctant to follow in his father’s footsteps and he tried to avoid trucking. But like so many others born before him with diesel in their veins, he just couldn’t resist.

When Mike was in sixth grade (1976), his family moved over the hill to Hesperia, CA. Back then, it was just a tiny desert community with no sidewalks, no street lights, and only a few stop signs in the center of town. My have things changed. Back then the city did not even have its own high school, so Mike went to the school down the road in Victorville. After graduating from high school, he went to work at a wholesale electrical supply warehouse in Barstow. His father waited patiently for Mike to “get this out of his system” and start trucking. I guess that’s what every father wants: for his kids to respect him and what he does enough to want to do it themselves.

Mike liked his job but it got boring pretty fast. He used to watch the trucks from inside the warehouse, including his dad’s, running rock out of Barstow. After six years inside, he was ready to give in to his destiny outside. He went to work at a local gravel pit and started working hard. In 1991, he left Hesperia and moved to the other end of the high desert. Settling in Lancaster, Mike liked this city a lot more simply because it was growing in leaps and bounds and had a lot more to offer.

In 1998, Mike decided to take the “plunge” and bought his first truck - a 1989 extended hood Pete transfer - and Statewide Material Transport was born. Mike’s business quickly grew thanks to word-of-mouth and plenty of hard work. In 2000, he bought his second truck, and this one he did right. He ordered it just the way he wanted it. Painted his signature blue color, this new Pete transfer featured lots of chrome and Rogue boxes. He ran this truck hard until he replaced it with his current ride - the clean rig featured on our cover and centerfold this month.

Following the advice of his tax man, Mike ordered the truck in May of 2004, and, as you can see, he really went crazy with this one. Six months passed before he actually took delivery of the new rig in November of 2004. Wanting to do something really different, Mike contacted Keith at Rogue Truck Body in Kerby, Oregon. Rogue is known for their quality and style and owner Keith Hill always likes a good challenge, so when Mike told him that he wanted to do the opposite of what everybody else was doing, Keith agreed to tackle the project. Lately, the trend in transfers has been painted boxes with polished upper and lower rails, so Mike thought it would be cool to have polished boxes and painted rails.

The truck was shipped directly to Rogue from the Peterbilt factory in Texas. Once there, the guys at Rogue stripped the truck down and repainted the frame, rear-ends, fuel tanks, and steps in Mike’s signature color - Metallic Blue Affect. In considering how to exactly do the boxes, Keith was worried about the new paint on the rails getting damaged when the finished boxes were being polished, so he called “the expert” and got his advice. Vic Caliva of Caliva’s Polishing in Montebello, CA is known for being one of the best polishers around, but he wanted the truck for four weeks to get the job done right. That didn’t go over well with Mike who was chomping at the bit to get his new truck. Vic suggested that Keith have the flat stainless panels trucked down and polished before the units were built. Vic got the polishing done in a matter of days instead of weeks, because raw, flat stock is much easier to polish (as you can imagine).

Once the polishing was complete, the pieces were sent back to Oregon and the boxes were built. Some touch-up polishing had to be done around the welds, but other than that, they were good to go. The guys at Rogue including Keith, his son Cody and his son-in-law Greg, did all of the stainless work. Rogue is a true family operation and they are known for their customer service and quality products. And they didn’t let Mike down.

The finished 2005 truck features a C-15 Cat engine with 475 horsepower, an 18-speed trans, low-profile tires, 3.25 rears (you gotta have long legs when running thin rubber) and a 5-inch drop axle. Other notably cool items include almost 100 white-lens LED lights, full 74-inch long tanker fenders custom-made by Hogebuilt, smooth stainless deck plating (on the front of the pup trailer), shaved cab lights and custom-mounted light bars all around.

Once Mike got the truck back, he added 8-inch smokers and then took the rig to Bob Moon in Reseda, CA to have the graphics painted on the hood. Mike was a little worried when he realized that Bob was going to do all the work in his backyard, but he seemed to know what he was doing so Mike let him run with it. His one request was that he didn’t paint flames or scallops. And what did he get? A graphic design that was a combination of flames and scallops! But Mike loved it and decided to keep it (Bob dodged a bullet).

With the current boom in building, guys like Mike are extremely busy. Mike works, on average, six days a week, starting at 3:00 or 4:00 AM and getting home around 6:00 or 7:00 PM. He mostly hauls decorative rock out of Arizona and Nevada. The work got so busy, Mike had to order another new truck. He didn’t really want to grow, but it’s hard to say “no” to more work. His newest truck was just put into service a couple weeks ago and looks a lot like this rig - minus the polished boxes and graphics.

When he’s not working, Mike enjoys spending time with his wife Tracie and their 5-year-old daughter Cyleigh at their home in Quartz Hill, an upscale suburb of Lancaster. And when Mike really needs to unplug, he climbs onto his 2002 Harley Davidson Road King and takes a ride in the hills. Tracie keeps herself very busy going to Cosmetology school and handling all of Mike’s paperwork. After she graduates, the couple hopes to open their own hair salon. Another activity that Mike likes to participate in is the Rural Olympics, held annually at the fairgrounds in Lancaster. Most of the contests involve farm equipment, but they also have truck backing contests and a transfer dump competition. Mike won the event back in 1995 and set a course record of 2.29 minutes, a record even he has been unable to break in ten years of trying.

John Murray, a sales consultant for Rush Peterbilt, has sold Mike his last two trucks. We’d like to thank John for sending us photos of Mike’s truck. Once we contacted Mike, he found a great location, just around the corner from his house, where the wildflowers and Poppies were in full bloom. But the flowers don’t stay around for long, so we had to get the shoot done quickly. It was really beautiful out there, and really convenient as well.

Easy going, modest and laid back, Mike really loves what he does and can’t imagine doing anything else. Like most truck drivers, he loves the freedom and he enjoys working outside. When forced to reflect on his life and his business, success, it seems, has not been his biggest priority, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him or his trucks. I guess when you love what you do, you’re good at it. And when you’re good at what you do, success just seems to follow. I guess Mike Pagano is good at what he does - whether he likes to admit it or not! Shine on, “Glimmer Man”.