All American Towing picked up by Affordable Towing (MN)

[TowNews]

 

Finally, Kent Reeves can ignore the weather.

“I wake up in the morning now, and I don’t care what it’s doing outside, snowing or blowing, I don’t have to do anything,” said Reeves, who as the longtime owner of All American Towing & Repair knew that anytime the roads got icy or a snow emergency was called, he and his crew would be looking at long hours of work.

 

Reeves recently sold the business to Bruce Macrafic and Rick Kahnke who co-own Affordable Towing. All American has been absorbed into Affordable.

 

Reeves began working as a young kid at the towing business owned by his dad, Brad, and other partners. While Kent owned the business, the building and land it was on were in his father’s estate. His dad died in August and Kent had to decide whether to buy the properties from the estate or sell.

 

“After 47 years doing this, I decided I didn’t want to spend another 20 (years) paying for the building and land,” Reeves said.

 

He swept the floors starting in seventh grade and took his first tow truck out in 1972. After high school, he went to the University of Minnesota Duluth to study business for two years, then returned to work in the business office of All American while going to night classes.

 

After about a decade, he bought a third of the business and later he and his dad bought out a partner, and eventually Kent bought his dad out.

 

“We’ve always had a good relationship with Affordable. They hired as many of my (13) employees as they could, which was a big deal to me. They took almost all drivers but not my office manager, which was hard,” Reeves said.

 

Reeves, 61, said he plans to work part time somewhere for a few years before retiring.

 

While Affordable bought the building and property from the estate along with the business from Reeves, they won’t be using the building. Macrafic said they will lease the building to Express Care Auto Center, now between Kwik Trip and Big Dog on Commerce Drive in upper North Mankato. The business is expanding and needed a larger space.

 

Macrafic said all of the All American Towing equipment and employees have been moved to Affordable, at 600 Summit Ave.

 

“We have a full 10 acres here, so we have plenty of space,” Macafic said of their site, which includes an impound lot used when vehicles are towed during city-declared snow emergencies. Affordable will now have the sole contract for towing for the city. They and All American shared the contract in the past.

“We’ll be doing all the snow emergencies and all the crashes,” Macrafic said.

 

He said the company does a lot beyond towing cars and responding to accidents. The business now has 44 vehicles, including light-duty tow trucks, light-duty flatbeds, heavy wreckers and tractor trailers for hauling equipment. Affordable now has 30 employees.

 

 

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