Baggerly & Son, Inc.
Added November 17, 2009
In the early 1990’s, Teresa Baggerly was visiting truck dealers throughout the United States. As an executive working for Universal Underwriters Group, an insurer of heavy truck dealers, she had no idea that she would eventually own a fleet of dump trucks, and be working with some of the same dealers in a whole new venue.
After graduating with a Masters in Business Administration from Rockhurst University (Kansas City, MO), Teresa started on a career path that included marketing, communications, strategic planning and business development. As she advanced up the corporate ladder, she had the unique opportunity to travel the country and meet and interview auto and heavy truck dealers.
Teresa knew that she eventually wanted to own and operate her own business, and after a series of chance events, she started Baggerly & Son, Inc., a small dump trucking company with just one truck operating out of a local quarry. Abandoning the security of a corporate career, complete with a lucrative benefits and vacation package, Teresa opted to take on the laborious, and often frustrating, task of building Baggerly & Son, Inc. into a profitable, well-respected enterprise.
CarterEnergy provides Baggerly & Son, Inc. with bulk tank fueling. “The number one benefit of having a tank on site is that we are able to fill up in the evening, rather than wasting time filling up elsewhere each day at the beginning of a shift. We calculated that we lost a load a day by doing it the other way—and that equates to money lost,” said Teresa.
Why CarterEnergy?
“An important lesson I’ve learned as a business owner is how important it is to partner with the right vendors. It’s just critical to find ones that are as interested in the success of your company as you are. When I go after a new customer, I try to put myself in their shoes, and find ways in which I can be an instrumental part of their success. This is what I expect from my vendors—and that is what I’ve always gotten from CarterEnergy. They’ve always treated me like a big customer, despite our smaller volume. Not all vendors are willing to do that.”
“I worked with another vendor prior to CarterEnergy and experienced the complete opposite level of the service that I get now. Switching is a big undertaking that involves many key steps, so you have to be pretty unhappy to go through the process. While pricing may be big part of the decision, service level is just as big of a piece of the decision making process. You can’t afford for your service to go down because it messes up your routine and affects your bottom line. I can’t think of a time that CarterEnergy has let me down, and because of that, I refer them often to other business owners.”
Baggerly & Son just received its WBE (Women Business Enterprise) certification and was just nominated for Kansas City Small Business Magazine’s annual “25 under 25” award for small businesses with 25 or fewer employees. When asked ab out future goals, she stated that she wanted to continue to be a “driving force in the way that trucking companies conduct business, and to possibly be on the cutting edge of new business opportunities arising out of the ever-growing green movement, such as construction debris recycling.”
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