B
ob Albright built trailers for nearly fifty years, working out
of a modest building in Tennessee. It’s the same building
where Bob’s sons, Todd and Keith, opened their own shop,
Albright Trailer Manufacturing, in 1998. Now, the pair are using
the industry experience that their father passed on to carve out
their own niche in the trailer industry.
“My father owned WACO Truck Bodies. We grew up around
it, working for him while in high school and college,” Todd
remembers. “I was close to twenty when I asked him, ‘Can I try
building a frame for you?’ Bob was having frames built offsite and
Todd thought they were charging him too much.
Todd set out to find the best materials to fabricate a frame for
his father. After witnessing first-hand Todd’s talent, Bob decided
to save costs and allow Todd to work on more frames. Eventually,
Todd’s work caught the eye of one of his friends, who needed a
horse trailer.
“I built, five or six horse trailers,” Todd explains. “We have a big
Wilson County Fair. I was there and one of the local dealers saw
my horse trailer and asked me if I could build cargo trailers.”
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This conversation at the Wilson County Fair eventually lead Todd
and his brother, Keith, to where they are today. Working less than
an hour away from Nashville made for a chance encounter that
changed it all. It’s no secret that Nashville is full of entertainment
and rich musical history, bringing acts from all over the country and
more. When these acts are carrying more than just an acoustic
guitar and a dream, someone must haul all the equipment for
those sold-out shows. A tour bus driver who worked in Nashville
and lived in Lebanon eventually stumbled upon Todd and Keith
Albright’s cargo creation.
“He saw one of my horse trailers, found out where I was and told
me ‘these things are tanks.’ He said they could really use them in
his industry,” Todd shares. “He said they have to pull trailers, and
nobody builds a trailer that can withstand what the busses do to
them.”
With that information, Todd and Keith built their first coach trailer
have haven’t looked back since their start in 1995. Now, Albright
Trailer Manufacturing has been providing coach trailers that
withstand not only the wear-and-tear of the equipment it hauls,
but also the impact that the coach busses inflict on it.
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