Tom Kidd’s day-to-day business provides specialty welding and maintenance services for a variety of businesses, but things steop up during hurricanes, when he's available 24/7 making emergency repairs.
Tom Kidd enjoys battling hurricanes. The 70-something entrepreneur from Holly Springs, North Carolina owns Tom Kidd, L.L.C, a “heavy maintenance company” that expands into 24/7 action when a hurricane strikes the East Coast.
“There’s nothing like working at 3 in the morning, the power’s off, with the wind blowing 100 miles an hour,” he laughs. “We’ve got to be there. People depend on us.”
Kidd’s day-to-day business provides specialty welding and maintenance services for a variety of businesses, but steps things up during hurricanes, making emergency repairs. He outfitted his latest service truck for those emergency repairs as well as to service the day-to-day needs of more than 80 Harris Teeter grocery stores in his region.
“We need a truck with a crane that can lift 500 to 1,000 pounds of compressors up to the motor room on the second story of their buildings,” he said. “We worked with Maintainer (Corporation of Iowa) to get a custom-designed 14-foot service body with a 34-foot-long crane. With (the crane) mounted six feet off the ground on the service body, we’ve got 40 feet of reach, straight up.”
Kidd admits it took time to get his truck’s design “right.”
“Troy (Ward, salesman at Lilley International in Williamston, N.C.) put up with my crap for seven months before I was satisfied,” Kidd chuckled. “I kept adding and changing stuff until I was surprised that he would take my phone calls. I wanted the 34-foot crane, so I had to get a 37,000-pound truck. Ended up with a F-750 Ford, with a 6.7-liter PowerStroke and a six-speed automatic transmission. I had Maintainer install mounting rails to the top of the compartments on both sides of the service body, then we built our own aluminum tool boxes to mount to the rails. That way we didn’t have to drill holes in the compartments. The compartments are pressurized to keep dust and dirt out, so we didn’t want to drill holes in them.”
Maintainer Corporation of Iowa custom-designed the 14-foot service body.
Because Kidd’s company focuses on specialty welding and maintenance rather than traditional repair work, the truck’s tool and parts inventory leans toward metal working supplies. It carries tanks with three different types of gases for welding aluminum, stainless steel, and mild steel. A Hypertherm 45 plasma cutter handles cutting chores. A Millermatic 211 MIG welder is rigged for lightweight stainless steel welding. A Lincoln 350MPX wire welder handles larger work, and an Ingersoll Rand tankless air compressor supplies compressed air for the plasma cutter and other high-pressure needs. All the engine-powered units on his truck are wired to the truck’s engine battery, and are fed from a central 45-gallon fuel tank.
“You never want to run out of fuel when you’re working in a hurricane,” said Kidd. “It’s our job to keep running when there’s no power to gas stations. One part of our business is that a week before a hurricane hits, we set up 750,000 kW generators at Harris Teeter stores so they can provide food and water for people till things get back to normal.”
Kidd outfitted the truck to work in the dark under hurricane conditions. All the tool compartments
Rear bumper incorporates emergency lights.
are illuminated with LED lights. He had Maintainer install flashing emergency lights in the front grille and rear bumper, and his employees added a light bar to the cab. A powerful floodlight on the end of the crane serves triple duty.
“The light on the end of the crane is a big help when we’re setting something in the dark,” he said. “It shines down and helps see exactly what we’re doing. Or, we can swing that light out over where we’re working, to light-up an area. We always carry a big American flag, fly it off the crane as much as we can, and it looks really nice to see that flag all lit-up at night.”
While Kidd is satisfied with the way his custom-designed service truck performs, he’s already planning his next truck.
‘If the economy stays good, in another year or so we may look for a service body with a 42-foot crane,” he said. “This truck has a cab-and-a-half, and I’m thinking the next one should be a crew cab. There are always ways to make a better (service) truck.”
— Dan Anderson
Dan Anderson is a part-time freelance writer and full-time heavy equipment mechanic with more than 20 years of experience working out of service trucks. He is based in Bouton, Iowa.