NATDA Magazine Mar/Apr 2020 NM_March2020_Final022720 | Page 18

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.” 18 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. NATDA Magazine www.natda.org