COVER FEATURE - JULY 2009
WHO SAYS CRIME DOESN’T PAY?!
BOUNTY HUNTERS BUILD SKULL-COVERED SHOWPIECE
By Daniel J. Linss - Editor
It’s been said that crime doesn’t pay, but for two young bounty hunters from Glendale, Arizona, it actually does – well, sort of. Longtime friends Jeff Suer (37) and Tom Trautman (41) are involved in many business ventures together, but they chose their “recovery” business as the theme for their outrageous “Bounty Hunter” big rig truck. Once an integral part of their operation, the truck has since been retired, tricked-out, and turned into a showpiece used just for fun. Coming from very different backgrounds and being almost exact opposites (Jeff is large and loud, while Tom is small and quiet), this modern-day odd couple, with help from Jeff’s wife Crystal, has succeeded in just about every endeavor they have attempted.
Jeff was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. His father was a big cement contractor, so Jeff grew up around trucks and heavy construction equipment. When Jeff was a little kid, his dad would take him to the local truck stop on weekends to check out the trucks in the parking lot. Jeff can remember his dad’s first truck – a cabover International – because he helped him pick it out. Growing up, Jeff always liked to work and was very resourceful – some days he would go to school, while others he would go to work with his father (which drove his mother crazy). Jeff says that he learned how to drive a semi truck when he was only four years old. When Jeff was eight years old, his father, tired of pouring concrete in the snow, sold his company and moved the family to Arizona.
Once in Arizona, Jeff’s dad started a couple new concrete businesses, mostly centered on decorative stone and swimming pool decks. Jeff worked with his father a few days a week while still going to high school, and then at 16 he moved into his own apartment and became the maintenance man for the complex. It was a pretty sweet deal for a sixteen year old kid – he got free rent and utilities, and a small paycheck at the end of the month. During the four years he worked as a maintenance man, Jeff left high school and got his GED. He also began collecting cars and working on stereos.
Tom, on the other hand, had an entirely different upbringing. His father, Gerald Trautman, was a Harvard-educated attorney in San Francisco who represented the Greyhound Bus Company, among other companies. He later became the vice president and general counsel of Greyhound and negotiated numerous acquisitions. In 1966, he phased out his law practice to become the president of Greyhound and later its chairman and chief executive officer. In 1971, he moved Greyhound’s corporate headquarters from Chicago to Phoenix, where Tom grew up.
Under Mr. Trautman’s direction, Greyhound bought Armour/Dial, a meat processor and soap maker twice its size, and made other acquisitions, large and small, in fields as diverse as car rentals and financial services. At one point, he directed 150 companies with 57,000 employees. Gerald Trautman retired from Greyhound in 1982, but continued to serve on its board, as well as on the boards of 20th Century Fox, Lehman Brothers, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Salk Institute. When he retired in 1982, Greyhound was one of the 50 largest corporations in the nation.
Tom can remember, as a young kid, flying all around the world in the corporate jet and being chauffeured around in stretch limousines, but he doesn’t remember a whole lot about his father because he was never there. As you can imagine, he was a very busy man, and he did not have a lot of time for kids and family and such – even though he had a wife and six boys at home. At the time, Tom resented his father, but later, as he got older, he came to respect and appreciate all that he had accomplished, and realized that he was a good, hard-working man that did his best to provide. Tom was always good at working with his hands and, like Jeff, was very resourceful. Tom was also a gear-head and, like Jeff, had taken an interest in car stereos. In 1990, the two met at a stereo shop. They hit it off immediately and have been great friends, roommates and business partners ever since.
The first real project they worked on together was a stereo for Jeff’s pickup truck. And when we say that they began working on stereos, what we really mean to say is that they began building amazing, mind-blowing, ear-bleeding, heart-pounding stereo systems. Jeff acquired a 1986 Chevy Dually one-ton pickup truck and the two young men proceeded to make it a rolling concert hall. “Black Thunder” went on to become one of the most famous stereo trucks in the world.
Black Thunder, which was built in 1991, was the first vehicle that Jeff had painted in the black with purple flames scheme (today, almost all of his vehicles are painted in that scheme, including the “Bounty Hunter” semi truck). Black Thunder was fitted with twenty sub woofers and fifty-six mid-range and high speakers, as well as nineteen car batteries and two alternators. To help alleviate vibrations, the walls, ceilings and floorboards were lined with Medite fiberboard (it’s like Masonite only denser). They had to beef-up the truck’s frame to hold the extra weight. When it was all said and done, the system pumped out about 10,000 watts of power and actually created a 22 mph headwind inside of the vehicle.
In 1991, the guys took Black Thunder to an international competition in Northridge, California where it earned the title World’s Loudest Amateur Car Stereo. The next year, in 1992, they took the truck to Canoga Park, California where it was named the World’s Loudest Professional Car Stereo. And they didn’t just judge it on loudness – it had to sound good, too. But boy was it loud! A jet engine measures about 145-147 decibels, while Black Thunder’s stereo came in at 158 decibels. Over the years it has won numerous competitions and was featured in at least seven car and audio magazines. Although he no longer competes, Jeff still has the truck parked in his garage, and it still looks and sounds great.
Around 1993, when Jeff was just 21 years of age, he got involved in “skip tracing” when his father introduced him to the business. Jeff then started a company called MIP Refunds, which found people who were owed money by the federal government, and, for a fee, helped them get it back (in this case, MIP stands for Mortgage Insurance Premium). Using various methods and software programs, as well as good old fashioned detective work, Jeff finds these people and then returns their money to them. He makes his money by charging them a fee of around 15% to 20% of the money refunded. He even has an office in Washington, D.C. to help him run this company, and he also sells training manuals for people who want to learn how to do what he does. This business, which centers on finding people, naturally led to bounty hunting – the only difference was that now they were looking for bad guys. In 1995, Jeff & Tom formed MIP Recovery (in this case, MIP stands for Missing In Progress).
Becoming bounty hunters was not easy. Jeff and Tom had to first get registered and licensed with the Federal Bureau of Bail Enforcement and with the Bounty Hunters Association. Bounty hunting is dangerous yet tedious work, sometimes requiring days upon days of surveillance. As the “bad guys” became more aware of the types of vehicles that bounty hunters were using, like cargo vans and motor homes, Jeff and Tom had to get a surveillance vehicle that would be less obvious – they chose a plain black truck. In 2005, they purchased a 2000 Kenworth W900L with a 60 Series Detroit from FedEx and began using it on stakeouts. At first, they even left the FedEx signs on the doors. The truck worked great because there was plenty of room inside and the guys could stand up in the sleeper and look, unnoticed by those outside, through the sleeper’s tinted windows.
After using the truck for about a year, the word started getting out about the truck and it soon became a less effective tool for their trade. They also started to fix it up a bit, adding some chrome here and there, and before they knew it, the truck had become far too noticeable. So they retired it from duty, and then decided to really fix it up. Over the years, they had built just about every type of custom vehicle imaginable, but never a big rig truck. The two guys thought it would be a challenging and fun project, so they went for it. The entire project took almost two years, and all of the work was done by Jeff and Tom except for the paint and some of the custom fabrication. And, as you can see in the pictures, the guys did not skimp on anything – everything was done top-notch and first class.
The first thing they did was take the truck to Fleet Painting in Phoenix to have the black base coat redone. After that, they brought it back to their shop where Hal Loo from the Mural Lab in Phoenix spent six weeks painting all the murals. After Hal completed his artistry, spraying flames and skulls and such using Candy Magenta, Cobalt Blue and Purple, the truck was taken back to Fleet Painting to be clear-coated and buffed out. Once all of the painting was complete, it was time to start hanging all of the extra accessories and installing all of the lights.
In addition to the exciting graphics and eye-catching colors, the “Bounty Hunter” is covered with lights and skulls. Featuring 280 various LED lights (214 of them have a plastic chrome skull cover) and 14 LED neon tubes, this truck looks pretty amazing at night. It also has custom wheel spinners, an eight-inch Dynaflex exhaust system and a Peterson Power Lift (hydraulic opener) for the hood. Up front, the truck has an American Eagle 22-inch stainless steel bumper, eight headlights (four of them are mounted in the bumper), a custom grille and two modified plastic skull piggy banks, mounted atop the fenders, with LED lights for eyes. The back of the truck features WTI fiberglass fenders, a one-piece deck plate and rear tail bar made by Mike at Roadworks, chrome air horns, and a crazy “Bounty Hunter” painted on the back of the sleeper with the phrase “Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay?!” running across the bottom of the mural.
Inside the cab and sleeper, you’ll find a big stereo (of course) with 10 speakers and about 8,000 watts of power, several purple neon tubes, a GPS system, refrigerator, three flat-panel televisions and a ton of lights and chrome. The truck had a wood floor, but Jeff didn’t like it so they took it out. On the dash and throughout the cab there are sixty small purple LED lights, as well as jeweled toggle switches, and every button of the truck’s button-tuck interior (over 600 of them) has a chrome cover pressed over it. Future plans for the truck include a painted floor and dash, sprayed to match the exterior. Most of the accessories for the truck were bought at Danny’s Big Rig Resort in Phoenix, but a few of the pieces were purchased from 4-State Trucks in Joplin, Missouri. Jeff and Tom wanted to especially thank Pete’s Polishing, Terry at Truck Stuff, Jeff’s wife Crystal, Polly Trautman and Jerry Aufk for all of their help.
While building the truck, Jeff started yet another company called Gorilla Builders. Taking advantage of the housing boom, this company specialized in building custom homes. The company’s first job was to build Jeff’s beautiful new 16,000 square foot house and 8,000 square foot garage, which houses all of his toys and his vehicles. The first year was great, they built several high-end custom homes, but then the housing crunch came, which seriously affected the business. Since then, they have changed gears a bit and the company is now focusing on building custom garages. Tom supervises all of the work crews at the various job sites.
Jeff also owns a limousine company called Celebrity Limos, which offers a stretched out, 33-foot long, black H1 Hummer that seats 18 people, for rent. Tom takes care of the limo and also does most of the driving. Jeff and his wife Crystal also have numerous rental properties. Jeff has always been a self-starter and a hard worker, and he has always had several businesses. He stays diverse to compensate for the ever-changing market conditions – when one business gets slow, there are others to pick up the slack. Tom helps Jeff run most of these companies, and Crystal handles all of the paperwork. She also works part-time doing manicures at a chic salon near their home. She never liked it when Jeff was bounty hunting, and he never liked having to look over his shoulder all of the time, so for those reasons, he and Tom have not performed any “recoveries” in a while.
Jeff’s mother nicknamed him Gorilla when he was a kid because he was always big (he has always had huge arms) and he was always a bully. This is where all of the gorilla-references come into play – like the tattoos all over Jeff’s arms, the mural on the hood of the truck and the name of his building outfit (Gorilla Builders). Looking at Jeff, he is certainly a very intimidating individual, but when you get to know him, you realize that he is just a big, soft-spoken teddy bear with an infectious, booming laugh – but we still wouldn’t recommend getting him mad!
Jeff and Crystal have been together for 21 years and married for the last 15 of them. They were both only 15 years old when they met in high school. For many years they have been trying to have children, but for now they just have dogs (Dachshunds) – two little spoiled wiener dogs named Smokey and Rocky. Jeff had their beautiful new house built mostly as an investment, not a permanent home, because what they really want is to one day live in a big house right on the beach. That is their dream. And with Jeff’s tenacity and work ethic, along with some support from Crystal and help from Tom, it won’t take long for this terrific trio to fulfill that dream.
Jeff’s motto has always been, “Go big or go home!” and that attitude is evident in the many “big” things he does. But every big thing that Jeff dreams up, Tom has always been able to make a reality. And Crystal, well, she’s the glue that keeps everything together. And that is why these three young people have been able to accomplish so much so soon. So whether crime pays or not doesn’t really matter – what matters is that they work hard and that they work together – and when that happens, like it says across the knuckles of the insane-looking bounty hunter painted on the back of the truck’s sleeper, “GAME OVER!”