COVER FEATURE - NOVEMBER 2004

FORCED TO GROW UP
Pat Jacobs Gets His Life Together After a Harsh Reality Check

By Daniel J. Linss - Editor

Sometimes it takes a personal tragedy to get your perspective clear. Ten years ago, Pat Jacobs of El Cajon, CA was just a young kid who had never really done much of anything. He always knew he could rely on his father to bail him out of any problem that came up. In a word (his word), he was pretty lazy. But Pat got a wake-up call when his father died of cancer and he realized that there wasn’t anyone left but himself to get his life moving forward and going somewhere. At that point, he began making good decisions, working hard and building a future. And in the last eight years, he has accomplished quite a lot.

Pat dropped out of high school halfway through his tenth grade year and went to work. He got a job at a local sand pit operating a loader. His father had driven trucks his entire life, so it was only natural for Pat to be interested in a trucking-related career. After a few years, he began to take notice of the trucks coming in and out of the pit, picking up and delivering pieces of equipment, and started considering going to work for a company that did low-bed work. Taking a step in the right direction, Pat left the sand pit and began driving a transfer for a local San Diego-based company. From there, he went to a company that did heavy hauling, but he really wasn’t that serious.

Back then, Pat goofed off a lot, went to a lot of parties, and just kind of cruised through the days. In our interview after the photo shoot, he even went so far as to say that he was just plain lazy. But then his father got sick and died in 1994. That was a reality check for Pat. Sometimes a tragedy like this can break the will and spirit of a person, and sometimes it can light a fire. In Pat Jacobs’ case, it helped him to get his act together. He realized that it was his job to make something of his life and that nobody was going to do it for him.

Pat’s father left behind many things, one being a 1936 hot rod Ford pickup truck that he had built. Pat had it in his garage for quite a while. He didn’t like to drive it much because everywhere he went, people gave him the thumbs up sign or wanted to talk to him about it. Pat was pretty shy back then and didn’t want to talk to strangers, and he felt a little guilty getting all that credit for something he hadn’t done. One day he got the bright idea of selling the hot rod and using the money to buy his own truck and trailer so that he could start his own trucking business. And that is what he did. He took the 1936 Ford to a hot rod swap meet and sold it. He then took the money and bought a Freightliner conventional tractor and a Witzco low-bed trailer, and Jacobs Trucking was born in January of 1997.

Pat learned fast that if you want to get ahead, you have to be willing to work hard - and work hard he did. He hauled heavy equipment at night and spent his days selling dirt. This led him into the dirt hauling business, in addition to his low-bed work. Today, with seven tractors pulling Murray low-bed trailers, Jacobs Trucking is the second largest heavy hauling operation in the San Diego area. The company also has a tractor that pulls an end dump trailer and eleven or twelve other end dump trailers that are pulled by leased-on owner operators. Pat also does a lot of brokering. On any given day, Pat oversees the movements of up to 50 or 60 trucks, which has become much easier since he hired a Truck Boss to handle the day-to-day problems that can crop up. Now, Pat has more time to focus on customer relations and oversee the larger projects (and do photo shoots).

The dirt end of the business usually stays local around San Diego, while the low-bed work covers most of the Western states. The Jacobs fleet consists of five Peterbilts and three Kenworths, all painted brown to match. Pat likes things to be subtle, which is why he opted for the brown (which some have criticized him for). He admits that his trucks might do better at the truck shows if they were painted a flashy color, but flashy rigs aren’t what he wants. All of his trucks are clean and well-maintained, but none of them feature bright green stripes or neon orange flames. It’s just not Pat’s style. At the end of 2004, a ninth truck (another Pete) is being added to the fleet. The drivers like the Petes, but Pat likes the KW’s. He feels that the Kenworth is more rugged and practical and that the visibility is better, but all of his drivers want Peterbilts. So to keep his terrific crew of drivers happy, he buys them Peterbilts. What a guy!

Shortly before his dad died, Pat hooked-up with an old friend named Denise whom he had known for years. They grew up together and eventually ended up working together at the same company. They got married in 1996 and now have two children, Paige (6) and Dylan (5). Denise runs the office and handles all of the paperwork and day-to-day office stuff. Pat’s mother helps out by taking care of the kids, and Pat’s sister is involved as well. In eight short years, Pat went from being a lazy 24-year-old kid to a successful, 32-year-old businessman who runs a multimillion dollar organization which supports all of his family and several others. That’s quite a turnaround!
About a year ago, Pat purchased the Pete on our cover this month and added it to the fleet. At the urging of his wife, he hired a driver named Jerod Cooper to run the new Pete. At first, Pat didn’t want to hire Jerod because he thought that he had a bad attitude, but Denise convinced him that he would be a good driver so Pat hired him - a decision he has not regretted. Today, Jerod has the privilege (and responsibility) of running Jacobs’ flagship truck and he is Pat’s most productive driver. Both Pat and Denise called him “irreplaceable” and a perfect employee. Jerod, who is also young (28), already has over ten years of driving under his belt and is very talented at getting that low Pete in and out of construction sites without destroying it or ever letting it get dirty.

The truck is a “subtle” but sharp 2004 Pete 379 painted Saddle Metallic (brown) with black fenders and ghost flames. The ghost flames are so subtle, in most lighting situations you can hardly see them at all. The truck is powered by a Cat C-12 with 430 horsepower, a 13-speed tranny and 40,000-pound rears geared at a 3.90 ratio. Pat switched out the headlights to old-style double rounds with Double JJ hangers, the grille and air cleaners to Pete’s new oval pattern design, the exhaust to a Donaldson 8-inch system, and the bumper to a Valley Chrome unit with boxed ends and a “frenched-in” license plate. Full fiberglass fenders from WTI were added over the drive tires and the straps were removed from the air cleaners (they are now bolted on from the inside). Pat had a friend make custom (Jacobs) logos on a CNC machine out of billet aluminum and replaced all of the Pete oval logos with them. Hillbilly customs in Ramona, CA fabricated the truck’s one-piece, boltless, stainless steel deck plate as well as the custom air line box that sits on it. Most of the accessories were purchased at a local chrome shop called Truckin’ Stuff in El Cajon, CA.

The interior features Bostrom Wide Ride leather seats, a Pergo wood floor and a custom overhead console (built by Advanced Audio) to house the truck’s C.B. and a fold-down DVD system. The rig’s Alpine stereo/CD system is equipped with a 10-inch woofer in the console between the seats and a 200-watt amplifier. The dash and door panels have been replaced with Rockwood accessories and all of the lights in the gauges have been replaced with red bulbs. The steering column is wrapped in chrome and a boltless, stainless steel shift tower plate was added. But the coolest things inside of the cab are the stainless steel floor mats which are laser-engraved with the Jacobs logo on them. Nice touch!

With about 140 or so active customers, Jacobs Trucking is going strong. Pat’s largest customer, on the low-bed side of the business, is by far Hawthorne Rent-It Service. We gave Jim Freeman from Hawthorne a call at their Escondido office (one of seven locations they have in and around San Diego County) and arranged to have a brand new Caterpillar 140H Motor Grader loaded onto Pat’s brand new Murray double-drop trailer for the shoot. This amazing machine weighs about 48,000 pounds and retails for around $350,000 (if you want a laser guidance system, you’ll need to fork out another $50,000 or so). Caterpillar machines (like Rolls Royce automobiles) are each hand built for precision and quality in Peoria, Illinois. Jim, a friend and customer of Jacobs Trucking for many years, went along with us and hung out for the entire shoot. In fact, Jim goes to all of the truck shows with the “Jacobs Crew” and always has a blast. Jim handles dispatching, billing and customer coordination for Hawthorne’s Escondido branch. We’d like to thank Jim Freeman and Hawthorne Machinery Company for allowing us to use their beautiful, brand spankin’ new piece of equipment for the day. Hawthorne Rent-It Service not only rents heavy equipment to building contractors, but sells them as well.

When asked if they were excited to be on the cover, both Pat and Jerod said, “Yes, but our wives are even more excited.” Pat and Jerod are both pretty low-key and aren’t always comfortable with all the attention a truck like this brings. But the wives are happy to see their guys get the recognition they deserve for all the hard work they do. Pat is hoping to do a little more work to the rig (suicide doors are the next project) but work always comes first. And with that philosophy, Jacobs Trucking should be around for many years to come. Not bad for a young, lazy, punk kid who liked to party! It just goes to show that you can always turn a negative into a positive - it’s all just in the way you look at things.