By DRUW GIAMALVA The Reporter
Torrey Whitaker, the president of Alabama Towing and Recovery Association, has been a part of an amazing family business for the past 45 years.
Just last week, on July 18, 2024, the Whitaker family got to celebrate 64 years of being in business.
The business started in 1960, under the name of City Service Station, where they worked with one tow truck. The business has grown into three locations in Guntersville, Albertville, and Huntsville. The Whitaker family business is only growing, as now the third generation of Whitakers are taking over.
Whitaker explains the complete history of the 64 years of the Whitaker family business.
“My father, Gilbert, after he got out of World War II, worked in a couple of car dealerships and then in 1960, he started a city service station that was a full-service gas station with one tow truck. We grew that into five tow trucks and stayed as a full-service gas station until about 1986, so we were there for about 25 or 26 years. We did all kinds of repair work for automobiles, trucks, and washed cars.”
“In 1986, we moved our location to Railroad Avenue in Guntersville, where we still did auto repairs. In 1996, we got out completely of the auto and truck repair business and went strictly into towing. In 2004, I opened a location in Albertville, and we’ve had a towing contract with the city of Albertville for the last 14 years. We also got into the crane business in 2004, so we’ve been doing that now for 20 years with four cranes. At about that same time, we got into heavy equipment hauling, so presently we have about five tractor trailers that we do heavy hauling with.”
“Finally, about four years ago, we moved to our present location in Guntersville, which is our main office. We also opened a place in Huntsville. I hope we’ve done everyone proud, as this will be about my 45th year working in this business. I also have two kids in the business with my daughter Payton, as she is our office manager, and my son Ethan is in charge of our craning service.” Whitaker said.
Whitaker was born into the business, as he was put on his first towing call when he was two weeks old.
“Basically, my parents took me on my first towing call when I was two weeks old, so I grew up in the trucks and I loved it. I went with my dad everywhere in the trucks after school and I didn’t have a choice. I loved it,” Whitaker said.
While the Whitaker family business had seen challenges over the past 64 years, they could always get over them and come back stronger.
“You always face challenges during tough economic times. I have seen three or four recessions in my time in the business. I took over and ran the business when I was 30 years old, so I really had to comprehend what was going on with our business, not just operating the trucks, but understanding everything about the business,” Whitaker said.
“My father taught me, and emphasized to me, that you treat your customers the right way, whether they’re your best customer or someone you are meeting for the first time, you treat them all the same with fairness and respect. We pride our business on service. We try to say what we will do and if we say we will be there in 30 minutes, we are going to bust our butts to be there in 30 minutes. We try to sell our business on service,” Whitaker said.
Whitaker thanks his peers and his community for always having trust in him and believing in him.
“I want to thank my peers and the state for having faith in me to be in charge of the towing association, as I am in my third term now. I want to thank all of our customers and community for always believing in us,” Whitaker said.
For more information on Whitaker’s towing, recovery, hauling, and crane services, visitwhitakertowingandcrane.com.
