10-4 Magazine - For Today's Trucker

COVER FEATURE - JANUARY 2006

"TWIST" OF FATE
JAMES CADY’S LIFE TOOK A TURN FOR THE BEST

By Daniel J. Linss - Editor

Life doesn’t always go the way we planned. Sometimes it takes a turn for the worse, and sometimes it gets better than we thought it ever could be. But when a twist of fate puts us on the road we always knew we should have been on, that is when things get really good. In the case of James Cady, the “twists” came in the form of an injured shoulder and a rotating wrecker. And James couldn’t be happier about it.

Born and raised in Bakersfield, California, James grew up around the family business – which included truck repair, painting and towing. The Cady name is pretty well-known in their neck of the woods. James’ father Jim has been building, fixing, painting, customizing, driving and towing big rigs since the early 1960’s. In 1963 he opened Cady’s Customs in Bakersfield, specializing in body and paint. Later, it became Cady’s Truck Repair, as Jim expanded his scope of operation. For the sake of convenience, he bought a wrecker for the sole purpose of transporting his customer’s trucks to the shop. Not long after that, C & J Towing was formed as a separate company.

In 1980, Jim hired a female driver. Robyn had not been driving for long, but she adapted quickly to operating a wrecker. The following year, she “married the boss” and the year after that, James was born. James has always been a big boy. He was born a month early and still weighed in at eight pounds and measured twenty-one inches long. The doctors told Robyn that if he had went full term he would have weighed about twelve pounds and been twenty-four inches long! Needless to say, Robyn was glad he came early. In 1985, the company incorporated and became Ten-West Towing.

Because of his height (which is just a few inches shy of seven feet) and athletic abilities, James excelled at basketball. Throughout high school, he played on several all-star teams and traveled the country playing the game. Upon graduating, James received scholarship offers from schools across the country. He accepted the offer from Cal Poly Pomona and attended the school for three years, studying Business Management and taking a lot of physics and math courses.

After a coaching change at Cal Poly, James was looking to transfer to another school. In the process, he met a sports agent who convinced him that he could play professional ball. But by then, James didn’t really believe that he had what it took to be an NBA star. Over the years, James had the opportunity to play with 5th and 6th-string NBA players, whom he felt were way beyond his abilities. James said that the NBA stars you see on TV are the best athletes in the world, and he knew that he couldn’t play at their level – especially after hurting his shoulder. As he prepared to go to Spain to play pro ball there, he got a “twist of fate” phone call that brought him home instead.

Apparently, a new towing company had opened up in Bakersfield and lured away three of Jim’s wrecker drivers with ridiculously-high sign-on bonuses. Jim called his son and told him that he needed some help. James didn’t think twice and came home to help save the company that had put clothes on his back and a roof over his head since he was born. Truth is, his real passion wasn’t basketball – it was trucks, wreckers and recovery. He had a lot of fun playing ball and it opened up many opportunities, but he isn’t sad about missing out on becoming an NBA player. He made it very clear to us that he is living his dream, which is driving a beautiful truck and helping firefighters save lives. Recovery is his passion, and he is very good at it (thanks in part to all those geometry and physics courses he took back in college).

James’ parents made his job a little easier and much more exciting when they ordered a brand new 2003 Kenworth W900L and sent it to Bill Bottoms of B & B Industries in Elkhart, Indiana, to be fitted with a custom-built, severe-duty wrecker bed. One of the largest wreckers ever built by B & B, this rig features an 80-ton rotating boom with two 60,000-pound winches. The truck was ordered from Kenworth with a 550 Cat, an 18-speed transmission, a 23,000-pound front axle and 52,000-pound rears, all sitting on a full length 13-inch triple frame. The boom and 18-inch wrecker sub-frame were constructed of T-1 steel and sub-arched (welded underwater) to prevent any distortions. The boom’s turntable is powered by two planetary motors rated at 250 tons each. Most rotators, as these units are called, only have one motor to turn the boom. Having two allows James the option of lifting and turning his load or just dragging it. One motor will usually stall if you try to drag a heavy load, but two makes it possible, which comes in handy at many recovery scenes. Wireless controls allow James to operate the unit at a safe distance.

The rig is rated at 80-tons, but no one is sure how much it could actually lift. It has never said “no” to any job. In the past, James has completely suspended a fully-loaded tractor-trailer with the wrecker. Another time, he used it to pull a fully-loaded tri-axle bottom dump, grossing over 100,000 pounds, out of a ditch. This is not the biggest rotator that B & B has built, but it is one of the strongest. Painted Omaha Orange (which was a mistake), covered with chrome and stainless, and featuring a 1,000 watt stereo system, this rig is the truck that James always wanted. And being an only child, James is used to getting what he wants.

Currently, in addition to the severe duty rotator, the Ten-West fleet includes a 60-ton 1998 Freightliner (also built by B & B), a 2000 Western Star with a heavy-duty underlift (no boom), a 2000 Kenworth T2000 that pulls a 48-foot Trail King low bed, a 16-ton FL70, a medium-sized Ford slide-back, a service truck and a 1967 Peterbilt cabover wrecker. This truck has been part of Cady’s fleet forever, and has no hydraulics – it’s an old-style mechanical wrecker – everything is chain driven. This old faithful Pete is a real workhorse, so they send it out to all the really dirty jobs. All of the trucks are “Cady Orange” except for the Western Star, which is burgundy, and the rotator, which is Omaha Orange (oops).

The big Kenworth rotator goes out on calls almost every single day. One very busy day, it performed seven severe recoveries. In addition to serving the needs of law enforcement at accident scenes, this rig is also used for towing breakdowns, pulling out trucks that have found themselves stuck in the mud or in a ditch, moving oil drilling rigs and field supplies, equipment setting, load shifts and more. If the company could afford it, they’d love to have five rotators (they are very expensive). But the job that brings James the most satisfaction is extrication. He has helped rescue eight people that were trapped in their vehicles and saved their lives. He is a member of the EX-TEAM, an organization that gives hands-on training and certification to firefighters and wrecker operators, and teaches them how to effectively work together at recovery operations and accident scenes. Along with some battle scars from rogue cables, James has a tattoo on his arm featuring the organization’s crest.

James really enjoys what he does (and he’s very good at it), but towing and recovery can be a messy and hazardous job. Working in the worst conditions, using dangerous machinery and lugging around hefty chains, wrecker operators regularly put their life on the line doing their job. Imagine lying under a broken-down rig on the side of the road, in the middle of the night, in rain or dense fog, with cars and trucks speeding by. It doesn’t sound like fun. Imagine being on-call almost all of the time. You can never really relax because you don’t know when the phone will ring or where you might be sent. Such is the life of the average wrecker driver. It’s also a pretty thankless profession. Even though your job is to help people, nobody really wants to have to call a tow truck. So the next time you call for a wrecker, don’t complain about the price and be nice to the driver – whether you believe it or not, he is there to help you.

At only 23 years old, James has already seen and done a lot. His parents are looking to retire in five or ten years, and at that point, James will take over. Along with the fleet, James will inherit Ten-West’s great customers as well – clients like J.B. Hunt, Schneider, Swift, Knight and a host of small companies and local customers. The Cady name goes a long way with most of these organizations, thanks to Robyn and Jim’s hard work and dedication over the years. James is committed to carrying on the family name in an honorable fashion. Ten-West is not concerned about being the biggest operation out there – just the best.

To help their customers, Robyn started taking pictures at every accident and recovery scene. She keeps a copy of all the pictures she takes, and if a customer needs a photo for insurance purposes or wants to contest a bill, she simply pulls up a few pictures and e-mails them to the client. Not only is this an invaluable service to their customers, but it protects the company as well. Drivers who get towed don’t always tell the truth about what happened, but a picture is worth a thousand words! In taking these pictures, Robyn has really got into photography. She started out with an old Sony camera that used a floppy disk for memory, but recently purchased a semi-professional Canon digital camera. She really enjoys taking creative pictures – in fact, she can take the credit for two of the photos in this article – the one taken under the Bakersfield sign and the one of the rig pulling a piece of oil field equipment (thanks Robyn).

James has been telling everyone at the company what to do and how to do it for a long time. Robyn told us a story about how he once called a driver “stupid” in the shop. This really upset the driver. When asked why, James said, “The guy was being stupid!” Robyn replied to her son, “Maybe so, but a 40 year old man does not like being called stupid by a four year old boy.” Apparently, James has wanted to be in charge his entire life. And if things go as planned, he’ll get that chance sooner than later. In the meantime, he’ll continue to work hard, save lives, make his parents proud and dream about the future of Ten-West Towing. And if he’s half as good as his parents, he’ll have no problem taking the reigns. Sometimes, life does go the way it should – whether we planned it that way or not. How’s that for a twist!