Scaling up from snowplows: How the Menzel brothers built a multi-state towing and trucking operation

The brothers started working for the family business before most kids knew what work was. At 8 and 10 years old, they joined their parents in plowing roads and parking lots on snowy mornings in Wisconsin. Once in middle school, the oldest plowed with a tractor and the youngest plowed with a bobcat. Dad used a dump truck, and Mom plowed with a pickup. It was truly a family affair.

“I’d wake up at 1 a.m., we’d be on the road by 1:30 in the morning, [and] we would plow snow until 9 a.m.,” Todd Menzel, chief operating officer at Menzel Enterprises, told FleetOwner. “Of course, I had school … so I would always be late.”

Menzel said his teachers were understanding—especially after his dad died when he and his brother Tim were 12 and 14 and took operational and sales roles at their dad’s business. Teachers “understood what happened and where we were at,” he said. “They knew what we were going through, and they knew what we had to do to survive.”

That was back in the 1980s. Since then, the brothers have built the business up to multi-state operations with business units in towing and recovery, dump truck services, concrete pumping, and commercial property management. The company also designs and sells vehicle surveillance technology. 

Menzel Enterprises has about 75 trucks, including a few recently added International HX trucks with International’s S13 integrated powertrain, which Menzel said aids in maintenance planning. The company currently has 75 employees, and the Menzel brothers plan to grow even more through acquisitions—adding to the seven the company has under its belt thus far.

Menzel Enterprises' first days as a small business sought to fill transportation gaps

Early expansion driven by community demand and operational grit

Gary Menzel started the family business back in 1984. His son, Todd, recalled his dad having around 40 snowplow contracts for local businesses all over town. The Menzels also towed vehicles, washed cars and boats, and had a small vehicle repair and body shop. They even sold cars, boats, lawnmowers, and snowmobiles.

“My dad was a jack of all trades,” Menzel reminisced. “He was always grasping for this vision of getting bigger and bigger and bigger; but he was only one guy with one mechanic [and] very limited staff.”

That limited staff included Menzel’s mom, Jeanne, who kept the books for the business, and, unofficially, brothers Todd and Tim. With their dad at the helm, the boys’ employment wasn’t official because Menzel said working wasn’t something their parents made them do. 

“It was not that we had to do those things, but we did those things because we're helping Dad out, we’re helping Mom out,” he said.

As frequent helpers, the Menzel brothers watched their dad do everything—from making sales and building industry relationships to working in his shop and loading vehicles onto a tow truck. Looking back, Menzel said that most of his dad’s endeavors were solutions to a problem or to fill a gap within their small town.

“He did all types of crazy stuff,” Menzel said of his dad. “But he was filling holes to create solutions for what he considered, probably in his mind, a business that was going to grow and scale.”

After their dad’s death, the boys had no choice but to fill his shoes—which were big. While their mom worked for the company on the back end, their dad was the face of the business, and it was up to the boys to keep the business running.

Transitioning leadership and maintaining operations after loss

Ask Menzel, and he’ll tell you: Running a business as middle schoolers isn’t for the faint of heart. Of course, the boys had the help of their mother, and their uncle helped out often. Their granddad would also help from time to time. 

Those 1 a.m. plow calls still came early, but with their dad gone, the workday picked back up after school around 4:15 p.m. The boys wouldn’t have dinner or do their homework until 9 p.m. After, they would rest for the night and do it all over again the next day. While this wasn’t the typical workday for the Menzel brothers (these hours were reserved only for snow days), this is a reality Menzel remembers all too well. 

Aside from snowplowing, the boys also towed cars. Because neither of them had licenses, their mom drove the company’s medium-duty 5-speed chassis. But even this required the boys’ expertise as their mother didn’t know how to drive a stick shift until a while later.

“There'd be a customer in the passenger seat, and we'd be [sitting] in the middle, kind of straddling the shifter,” Menzel said. “Mom never knew what gear she was in. She never knew if she was in reverse or she was in first at the stoplight. … My brother, probably more so in the first few years, would correct her and be like, ‘OK, you're not in first. You're actually in third.’ But it would be a silent thing. The customer didn’t have any idea.”

Despite their young age, the boys were successful enough to buy their first heavy-duty 13-speed tow truck at 18 and 20.

“We were children! … And we had no idea how to drive it,” Menzel mused, admitting they drove the truck home the night before Tim would take his commercial driver's license test.

From there, the company grew.

Building a multi-state towing, trucking, and construction services network

The Menzels wanted to follow what they believed were their father’s goals. After he died, many of the business decisions Menzel and his brother made early on were based on what they believed their dad would have done.

“I think that we were chasing a ghost of a vision of what he wanted in his business, or what he thought it could be,” Menzel explained.

This vision of growth and a strong work ethic, both passed down from their dad, is what allowed the brothers to build such a successful business.

Before the 2020 pandemic, Menzel Enterprises held multiple government and municipal towing contracts that built the company up to 170 employees and 147 trucks across three states. The fleet moved 1,000 vehicles each day, Menzel said. But after the world shut down that March, business slowed, and Menzel Enterprises chose to pivot in a new direction: diversification.

“That’s when quad-axle dump trucks came into play,” Menzel said, adding that while towing was slow at the time, construction was hot. “We basically reclassified some of our staff and moved them into dump trucks, and we built up a pretty sizable dump truck operation.”

Shortly after, Menzel Enterprises added concrete pouring to its list of offerings and added concrete pumpers to its fleet.

Why International HX trucks and the S13 powertrain anchor fleet performance

The Menzel Enterprises fleet includes vehicles of multiple makes and models, but Menzel is especially happy with his International HX trucks with the International S13 integrated powertrain. He has a handful of HX trucks equipped with dump bodies and more trucks on order. The goal is to have 50 HX trucks “as quickly as possible,” Menzel said. 

He rattled off a list of aspects he appreciates about the HX series: comfort, visibility, ingress and egress, reliability, and longevity. But Menzel spoke most about these trucks’ ease of maintenance due to the S13 integrated powertrain.

The S13 integrated powertrain is a unified engine, transmission, and aftertreatment system from International. According to the OEM, the powertrain is capable of up to 515 hp and 1,850 lb.-ft. of torque, and while Menzel is pleased with its performance, he appreciates the warranty most of all.

“I think the biggest sell for us on the International Truck itself … is that the warranty is all wrapped under one roof,” Menzel said. “You’ve got the motor, transmission, PTO: the three most important pieces of our power unit in our truck. Those are three things that we need good longevity out of and good mileage, whether that's fuel economy, maintenance strategy, and just—no issues.”

With other trucks in the past, Menzel felt maintenance to be cumbersome. Trucks equipped with an engine, transmission, and PTO from different manufacturers sometimes required stops at multiple dealerships, depending on which component needed maintenance and which dealer specialized in it.

With the S13, “it's a one-stop shop, and that 100% makes my life and my maintenance department's life a lot easier,” Menzel said. The truck is “going to go to the dealership, and the dealership can handle everything from front to back, top to bottom, wherever it might be. That's a huge plus. It's kind of a warm and fuzzy feeling that I don't ever have to bring it somewhere else.”

When the trucks do need maintenance, Menzel’s International dealer partner, Lakeside International Trucks, handles them. Together, Menzel Enterprises and Lakeside designed a purpose-built lease and maintenance plan that will enable Menzel Enterprises to focus on revenue-building aspects of the business rather than on growing its maintenance department.

With this plan, Lakeside extended Menzel’s lease warranties and will cover bumper-to-bumper maintenance on the truck for 36 months when the lease period ends. At that point, Menzel will have a new truck waiting for him.

“All I have to do is put tires on the truck!” Menzel said of the maintenance plan.

Balancing legacy with growth through smart diversification and partnerships

While the Menzel brothers first made business decisions based on chasing the ghost of their dad’s vision, Menzel said he’s come to realize that much of Menzel Enterprises’ trajectory was inspired by his and Tim’s vision, too.

“The startup [mindset] is the ‘What would Dad do?’ That's kind of always what's in your head,” Menzel explained. “And then, as you push on and move further in your career, it's what you do that makes the difference. … It's a balance in your own mind that you want to maintain a legacy of what he started, and at the same time it's becoming your own.”

The result of that balance has been making hard decisions and taking risks, such as diversification during the pandemic, standing firm on what you need from your industry partners, such as with designing a bespoke maintenance plan with a dealer, and building toward the company that, right now, Tim and Todd can only dream about. 

And perhaps, their dad shared that same vision, too.

“Our dad instilled in us a lot of life lessons that you probably never realized or understood until 30-some years later,” Menzel said. “You look back at a lifetime of accomplishments, a lifetime of struggle, a lifetime of a vision, and it's ever-changing all the way up to today. The vision continues to change and evolve, and that's what keeps our business steady.”