In It For The Long Haul
Master Truck Tech Builds A 30-Year Career Keeping Engines Running
As a kid, Curtis Clark can remember sitting in the backseat of his parents’ car, trying to get the semi-truck drivers to honk their horns.Fast forward several decades, and those drivers are saluting Curtis for a different reason: As the master truck technician at the Foley Truck Service shop in Topeka, Kansas, there’s a good chance he rebuilt the engines that keep them on the road.
Thirteen Foley Truck Service shops around the state service all makes and models of on-highway trucks, earning a reputation as the area’s leading provider of engine rebuilds for both Cat® and Cummins engines. That’s due in no small part to technicians like Curtis, whose career at Foley dates back 30 years.
Home sweet home
A Carbondale, Kansas, native, Curtis moved to Arizona after high school to attend Universal Technical Institute, where he studied automotive and diesel technology. A few months before graduation, a shop manager from Martin Tractor Co. — which was acquired by Foley in 2009 — visited the school looking for technicians.
“I did an interview, and he told me to look him up when I got back home,” Curtis says. “So I did another interview, got hired and have been here ever since. My anniversary date is January 6, 1995.”
A love for trucks and the relationships he’s been able to build with their owners keep Curtis coming back to the shop day after day.
“We have a lot of repeat business, people who end up having multiple trucks,” he says. “I’ll rebuild one engine for them and then they’ll be back for another one. I’ve grown to have really good friendships with customers. The best part is seeing their faces when they see their rebuilt engine. A lot of them don’t know what to expect. They think it will be fixed and painted, but they’re surprised to find it’s like brand new.”
Rebuilt and ready to go
That large number of repeat customers speaks to the quality of the work performed at Foley Truck Service.
During every Cat on-highway truck engine rebuild, for example, technicians like Curtis completely disassemble the engine, fully inspect and clean it, and repair and replace components as needed. Then it’s reassembled, painted and tested to ensure it performs just like a new engine. (You can see some of the finished products on Instagram at @FoleyPowerSolutions and @FoleyEngines.)
“You can get a rebuild somewhere else, and it might be cheaper,” Curtis says. “But there’s a lot of attention to detail that goes into what we do here, which is just not the case in a lot of other places. That sets us apart.”
And it brings in not only local truck owners but also customers from around the country.
“We had a guy from Pennsylvania come here to get his engine rebuilt, and he stayed for a week until it was done,” Curtis says. “We had another local customer whose truck broke down in Montana, and he paid to have it shipped back here to be repaired. We’ve built a pretty good reputation among truck owners.”
Millions of miles of performance
Cat on-highway truck engines have an equally strong reputation, one Curtis can speak to firsthand. He spends about 95% of his time on working on Cat engines and has seen plenty topping one million miles of operation.
“The one I’m rebuilding right now has over two million miles on it. This guy hauls livestock, and he’s out there working hard every day, and it only goes through a gallon of oil every 10,000 miles,” Curtis says. “Of course, it all depends on maintenance. We find the people who get a million miles have a really great maintenance program.”
The most miles Curtis has seen on a Cat on-highway truck engine? 5 million. The most times he’s ever rebuilt a single Cat engine? Three.
“That’s something Caterpillar has always been known for,” he says. “You just don’t get that kind of longevity out of other engine brands.”
A career that’s built to last
Curtis believes there’s a lot of longevity in a career as a truck engine service technician, too. He should know — he’s well into his third decade in the business.“Everything is moved by trucks, from your food to the materials it takes to build the home you live in and the roads you drive on,” he says. “The trucking industry isn’t going away anytime soon. There are always going to be trucks and truck engines out there that need to be worked on.”
Breaking into the industry doesn’t require years of experience. Foley Truck Service provides on-the-job training. The company also participates in the Caterpillar ThinkBIG program, a two-year program where students alternate between labs, classroom work and paid internships.
What is required to be successful is drive.
“You’ve got to be willing to put in the work and get dirty. You’ve got to be willing to learn and open to criticism,” Curtis says. “It’s a great industry to be in, and Foley is a great place to work that’s provided a good living for me and my family. I started my career here working on Cat engines and I’ve never left.”
That’s definitely something worth honking for.