(Top Left) Art Knapp, Owner. (Top Right, L-R) Vicky Walker, Roberta Walker, and Clint Hoffman.
(Below) Art’s Trench Plate & K-Rail Service Co. office. (Inset) Art’s Trench Plate & K-Rail Service Co. yard.
This is the year Art’s Trench Plate & K Rail Service celebrates its twentieth
year in business. However it is not the last twenty years that owner
Art Knappis focused on; it is the future that his truly holds his attention.
|
When Art first started his company back in 1988, he had already spent 17 years in the trucking industry.
He received his Class A drivers license when he was 18 years old, and worked in the roofing wholesale business hauling
and delivering materials. Art was then exposed to the business aspect of the industry when he worked for a local entrepreneur, launching rental businesses. Art continued in this line of work for the next four years, opening several
different entities during that time.
“As soon as I would get one going, I’d move on to the next challenge,” Art explains.
Art had several opportunities to run other businesses on a long-term basis, but he decided that the time was right to start his own business. “I had a lot of knowledge and I thought I needed to do it right then or forget it,” he continues. |
|
Art spent the first 3 ? years running his business out of his home and garage in Harmony Grove, California. He hauled and prepared his own steel for trench plates. He also purchased concrete K Rail and then delivered and picked them up at the jobsites. Additionally, Art purchased his first crane truck, a two-story 1957 International, for just $4,000.
“The first week the truck worked I made $8,000, so I covered the cost of the truck and then some,” Art says. “I was working all the time, sleeping maybe two or three hours a night, seven days a week.”
In 1991 Art’s sister Vicky Walker came to work as the office manager and the business expanded to an office very close to its present location on Mission Gorge Road in San Diego. Then in 1992 Art’s Trench Plate & K Rail began manufacturing its own K-Rail at their yard in San Diego.
Since then, Art’s Trench Plate & K Rail Service has expanded its business opportunities, without sacrificing the extraordinary customer service, Art says it has come to be synonymous with. As part of that expansion, Art has brought on new members to his team to continue to grow his company and to ensure its future prosperity. After twelve years of running her own business, Art’s sister, Vicky has returned to the accounting department. Joining Vicky is Craig Schwartz. Craig worked with Art in the early 90’s and has been rehired as the yard foreman and to oversee the company’s K-Rail manufacturing. With the addition of Craig, the company looks to hire a crew that will be dedicated to manufacturing K Rail on a daily basis. Craig’s 30 years of experience in the concrete masonry industry will certainly be a great asset to the company. |
|
| |
|
Joining the company last year was Art’s niece, Roberta Walker, who moved her family from San Antonio, Texas to take on the Office Manager position. Roberta has 15 years of customer service experience, making her well suited to help in meeting the customers’ needs. Rounding out the new additions to the staff is Art’s nephew, Clint Hoffman. Clint’s background is in the ironworking industry where he spent most of his career managing his own rebar crew. At this time Clint is training for future management.
Since the company’s inception, one tradition has always held true: customer service. Any customers that need to speak with or see Art Knapp in person can do so on a daily basis. “I’m very accessible and I take emergency calls 24/7”, he says.
Dealing with those emergencies is another thing that sets Art’s Trench Plate & K-Rail Service apart. “We work for several water districts in and around San Diego and if there’s a pipeline break we’re ready to deliver trench plates, shoring and K Rail,” Art explains.
(Below) Concrete is being poured into 10’ K-Rail mold. |
(Above) Joe Ober setting
trench
plate with boom truck. |
(Above) Joe Ober, Driver.
(Above) Art’s Trench Plate employees patching and painting damaged K-Rail.
|
|
The company also supplies and installs K-Rail cushion barrels (those found at the beginning of exit ramps). Art’s Trench Plate is often called in to replace those cushion barrels if they have been damaged as a result of an accident on the highway. Because of the type of work the company does and the readiness at which they do it, Art’s employees often work nights in order to install or remove both trench plates and K-Rail. They also make themselves available for weekend work if the job requires. Art remarks, “That’s our job, that’s what we do.”
Art’s Trench Plate & K Rail Service Company provides hydraulic shoring, H-pile beams, trench plates—equipment used in underground work as side wall fortification and on roadways as temporary covers over underground work, as well as K-Rail—temporary concrete barriers—on construction sites throughout Southern California, including San Diego, Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Imperial counties, and occasionally in Las Vegas, Nevada and Phoenix, Arizona. They can also provide quotes for any area in the Southwest.
|
|
(Left) Welding trench plate for Eye Bolt attachment. (Middle) This tool cleans the threads so the Eye Bolt can easily screw into the trench plate. (Right) Neil Feerick, Welder.
Art’s Trench Plate manufactures its own product, installs it and removes it when the contractor is finished with the project. Some of the company’s work is secured through the bid process, but Art says they also have several long-standing customers. Ironically, the greatest challenge for the company isn’t the slow growing economy, but the rising cost of fuel and materials. Art says the price of steel has doubled in the last five years and manufacturing K-Rail is a very labor-intensive process. Art has made it a professional goal not to let that increase pass on to his customers, all while providing the best personalized service in the business.
Over the past year, Art Knapp has been looking to the future of his company and the traditions that he holds for himself and his customers. With the infusion of family into the company, it appears that those traditions will remain intact for many years to come. Art’s Trench Plate & K Rail Service is becoming the strong “family business” Art Knapp has envisioned for many years and believes it will continue to be for many years to come.
For more information about Art’s Trench Plate & K Rail Service Company call (800) 350-1947. Cc
(Bottom Left) Smoothing rough surfaces on the trench plate.
(Bottom Right) 5’ K-Rail at a radius. |
|
|
|
|
