By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
Some days I feel pulled in different directions. Probably lots of people feel that way these days. Today we’ll meet a company which finds that its products are definitely being pulled in lots of different directions – but that’s a good thing. That’s because this company makes livestock trailers that are pulled by trucks from Kansas to locations all across the continent.
Jeff Grieshaber is co-owner and manager of TravAlum Trailers, produced by Liberty Inc. in Manhattan. From its home base in Kansas, this company’s trailers are being pulled in lots of different directions.
TravAlum Trailers has its roots in the Travalong trailer company which was based in Waterville. In 1991, Jeff’s father Tom and two other gentlemen bought the Travalong company. Jeff came on board in 1992.
Travalong Trailers were built from steel. In 1995, this group also bought an aluminum stock-trailer business in southwest Missouri. After operating two facilities for a number of years, they brought that business to Kansas. In 2014, they sold the steel factory at Waterville along with the Travalong brand name, in order to concentrate on the aluminum trailer business. Because of the historical connection with Travalong and because these trailers are made of industrial strength aluminum, these trailers are called TravAlum. Continue reading “Jeff Grieshaber, TravAlum Trailers”
