ON THE COVER
REFLECTIONS OF THE ROAD WARRIOR Abrams Towing’s Joey Gagne on the truth behind his legendary rise through the industry BY SAM HOUPT
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sk any of Canada’s towing professionals who Joey Gagne is, and you will get the same response—“a living legend.” What they won’t agree on is why. Some will point to his impressive career. At the helm at Abram’s Towing Group, Gagne has built up a family business into one of the best known—and most trusted—names in the auto-recovery and towing industry. Indeed, the story of how—at 19—he turned a $2,500 loan from his mother-in-law into one of Canada’s premier collision recovery and towing businesses has been told and retold so many times that different versions have an almost mythical feel. While his version may lack some of the drama of the industry epics based on it, the story is still impressive. “My parents owned a towing company, so I grew up around it and got hooked. When I was old enough to drive I drove a tow truck for them. Once I met my wife, she kept saying, ‘you’re always talking about tow trucks, why 6 TOWPROMAG.COM
don’t you buy a tow truck and start your own business?’” Joey’s version begins. “So, her mother lent me $2,500.” Turning the loan into the foundations of a business was no simple matter. For one thing, he found a tow truck that was going unused but needed to spend several months pestering the owner to sell it to him. For another, even after securing his tow truck, Joey knew very little about the business side of the industry. “I started blind. I was 19, and I thought I knew the business. It took me a little while to realize what I didn’t know. There was lots of trial-and-error.” It would be twelve years later before Joey’s fledgling business began the dramatic expansion regional campaign that turned it into the behemoth it is today. In the interim, however, Joey would work on building-up his reputation and looking into expansion possibilities. In 1995, this hard work began to pay off—big time.
“In early 1995 we opened a location in Mississauga, so that really got us into our initial jump into diversification,” says Joey. 1996 we had a contract with the Toronto police, which was a new type of business for us that helped us grow a bit more. We really just made sure we kept doing business with as many different people as we could.” “That winter, we started brainstorming for other cities to move into. Slowly but surely, it all started coming together.” Over the next two decades, Abrams Towing continued to follow the same strategic growth plan—developing relations with municipalities, police forces and clients, and entering into new Ontario markets. With 200 employees based throughout Southern Ontario—in Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, Hamilton, Windsor, Ottawa, Newmarket, and Burlington. Today, the Abrams fleet of 160 trucks is the
