About Com-Truck Limited
LOOKING BACKWARDS
Com-Truck Limited was established on 1st January 1991 to serve the haulage industry in the North East of England. It began and has remained a family run business; in fact, before Com-Truck Limited there was CTS (Commercial Truck Spares), a husband and wife partnership who started the business on 1st January 1988. There have been many changes over the years but we remain a small independent company and our philosophy has not changed: we aim to provide quality items and an excellent customer service at realistic prices. In fact, quality is at the heart of everything we do here, always striving to do our best, which may sound like a cliché but we make no apologies for that, it's what we truly aim to achieve.
We've operated in different ways over the years. It began with Tom (Tom Stewart - creator, proprietor, director ... the one with the idea) working out of a Mercedes van, the back of the van shelved and organised as a mobile store, calling at local businesses to sell our wares. The office was Tom and Julie's (Julie Stewart - wife of Tom and co-creator, company secretary, director ... the one with the pen) dining room at home; where others might have stood a nest of tables or a cabinet, Tom and Julie boasted a (very large) photocopier and paper cupboard. Like many small family businesses, home life revolved around work life and working from home allowed Julie to do the school runs, attend coffee mornings and school plays, working around the kids (Dave and Jill Stewart - now all grown up, directors ... the ones with all the new ideas).
By 1991, the paper-work was threatening to take over house and home and Tom was struggling to meet the demands of the business on his own - he was having to turn work away and this didn't sit well (obviously) so the limited company was born and, along with it, a new purpose-built warehouse with offices was built on the Cold Hesledon Industrial Estate, near Murton, Seaham, Co. Durham (there's a story attached to this but it's a bit political!). Anyway, the business now had extra staff, there was somewhere to keep all the paperwork (it was nice to have regular furniture at home) and now work and home life was kept a (little) bit more separate from each other.
With the opening of a purpose-built premises, Com-Truck now had a trade counter but the main business continued to be mobile sales. As the business grew, so did the ideas, and Com-Truck became involved in motor sport to promote the company and meet like-minded people. This set up was to continue for some time before circumstances prompted the scaling down of the business, and we sold our premises and reverted to our tried and tested ways of old - Tom out selling and Julie working the office from home. In business terms, this was a backward step, but in personal terms, it was a step towards slowing down, more quality family time, a sort of phased retreat.
During this phasing down of sorts, Julie took a less active role in the business, taking care of the financial management and accounting and less of the day-to-day administration, while she concentrated on her own career. By this time, Com-Truck was trading in a wider range of motor parts and accessories than those solely used in the haulage industry but Tom was still keen to both diversify and tailor the business to suit his personal interests, while ensuring those faithful customers we had served for many years continued to receive as excellent a service as Tom was able to provide. By this time, Tom had turned 50 and was beginning to look forward to the prospect of semi-retirement and more time to do the things he'd always struggled to find the time to do. Julie, by this time, was working full time outside the business but still supporting on the financial management and accounting side of things; Julie wanted to spend more time with Tom and thought that her employer may consider she work part-time. While other businesses embraced the technological revolution and marketed themselves to the world, Tom and Julie continued to work in the old-fashioned way, real life person-to-person, as they planned how the business would quietly reach a natural end. But things were to change.
Tragic news turned the lives of Tom, Julie, Dave and Jill upside down and things would never be the same again. Tom died on 22nd November 2010, 30 years to the date that Tom and Julie became engaged to be married (Tom always liked circles!).
Tragedy changes everything and people make new decisions. Dave left his job as a business adviser and took over the reigns at Com-Truck full time, keen to reverse his Dad's plans for the future of the business and move it forward into this modern age. Jill continued to work full time, also as a business adviser, but became a director of the company and took on responsibility for the day-to-day office administration, working evenings after her full time job, and weekends, but with a view to reducing her external working hours to part-time at some point, to release more time to concentrate on Com-Truck Limited. Julie agreed to retain a small share in Com-Truck Limited, to support her children in the business wherever possible with the benefit or her experience and expertise, and continues with her own career.
Dave and Jill were immediately keen to use modern networking to promote the business and open up more opportunities to expand. Now with a growing online eBay store and a web presence, Com-Truck Limited is proud to continue to serve local businesses in the North East of England, as it always has done, but with Dave and Jill at the helm one thing is for sure, fresh ideas will give Com-Truck Limited a new lease of life.
LOOKING FORWARDS
Dave and Jill have plenty of ideas to move Com-Truck Limited forward. Their philosophy is (as Tom and Julie's was) to start small and take manageable steps towards achieving their plans for the business.The very first thing they wanted to do was to use eBay to sell items that wouldn't attract too high postage and packaging costs, so our online presence began with packets of electrical terminals for sale to the UK marketplace. Then we took the next step and opened an eBay store. Still in its infancy, with a few selected items for sale, Dave sees this store as stocking our entire range in the future, which is quite some feat given the wide range of auto spares and accessories we sell. We hope that you will find our store easy to use and not give up on us if what you need is not yet shown in our store ... please, call Dave direct: 07836 795918.
Then Dave wanted an online presence to complement and support our eBay shop, a sort of 'this is who we are and this is what we do' information site to share our hopes and dreams, and our expertise, with the world. This website is where this begins and our intentions include a blog, news and product updates and special promotions.
Next, we want to share our interest with motor sport and bring you CTS Racing news, pictures, stories and merchandise. We are proud to sponsor cars 93 and 95 in the Dunlop TVR Challenge. Motor racing has always been a part of Tom and Dave's lives, Tom racing BRISCA Formula 2 stock cars in his youth and joining other club championships later. Dave now races in the Dunlop TVR Challenge, in car 93, and our CTS Racing website will provide personal racing history and photos, driver profiles, race calendar and events and lots more. If you see us at the race track, please say hello and take our business card.
Further ahead, Dave has plans to expand our range of products even further but always to keep quality at the top of what we aim to do. He sees our mobile service, our real life person-to-person business, continuing alongside a growing, complementary, online trade. (We hope his dreams will come true) And Jill? ... Well, Jill has more creative ideas. She would like to see us all wearing Com-Truck Limited, CTS Racing vests and T shirts, carrying Com-Truck Limited, CTS Racing bags, using Com-Truck Limited, CTS Racing pens and keyrings and hanging Com-Truck Limited, CTS Racing prints on our walls.
And through it all, we'd love you to stay with us, share our story, see where the future takes us.
Thank you for your interest in Com-Truck Limited.
May 2011