Tow-truck company is Springs' Old Faithful

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jan 8, 2006 | by DENNIS HUSPENI THE GAZETTE

When a tractor-trailer truck tips over on Interstate 25, blocking traffic for miles...

When a huge jet veers off the runway at the Colorado Springs Airport...

When a car careens off the steep embankment of Gold Camp Road or the Pikes Peak Highway...

There's one name police and fire department rescuers use to move the metal: Randy's.

Randy Schranz has righted those overturned semis with tractor- trailers weighing some 40 tons and pulled a Boeing 737 airliner back on the runway in 2003 when the pilot accidentally hit the throttle when the front wheel was crooked.

Schranz has seen cars twisted to unimaginable shapes and gotten them out of places cars were never meant to go.

"Over the years, I've seen them pull cars out of trees, office buildings, houses, lakes. It's amazing the places people can put their cars," said Lt. Carl Lyman, Colorado Springs Fire Department spokesman.

Since October 1974, when Schranz sold his 1973 Dodge pickup and bought a 1974 Ford 1-ton tow truck, Randy's High Country Towing has been a fixture on Pikes Peak-area streets.

"They have the equipment and training necessary to solve problems," said Lt. Dave Barron of the Fire Department's heavy rescue team. "They use a lot of imagination and hard training.

"I haven't seen a problem yet they haven't been able to solve."

Schranz said after 31 years running his tow company, he still seeks the challenge of a difficult "tow."

"I enjoy driving instead of staying at the shop," said Schranz, 57. "We just had a concrete truck roll over the other day. When I'm there, it goes smooth.... It's a challenge to get it back on its wheels and get it out of there."

Randy's has been a family-run business from the beginning.

Schranz's wife of 36 years, Pati, is an integral part of the business.

Thirty-one years ago, before the advent of cell phones -- or cordless phones for that matter -- Pati hesitated even going to the mailbox for fear of missing a call.

"We train our dispatchers: Don't ever say no," Pati said. "We're in the business to help."

Back then, they started with just one call a day. Now Randy's has more than 100 tows a day. The one-day record stands at 260 tows during a blizzard.

The company has 40 employees -- including son Layne Schranz, who drives -- and uses 45 trucks. Some of those trucks they've built and modified, like the Major Accident Recovery unit.

The unit is a tricked-out shuttle bus with special airbags that can right overturned semis. And they're working on modifying a 50- ton, sixwheel-drive truck with a snowplow on the front. They call it the "Plan B."

"I've seen them right overturned tankers -- they use four of the bigger rigs to bring it up," Lyman said. "It's quite the ballet."

Schranz said they have to be careful -- one broken cable can send a fuel truck, for example, back to the ground and risk explosion. Or it can mean tons of broken eggs spilled on the freeway.

"It's better to get what's inside and keep it inside," Schranz said of loaded, 50-foot-long trailers.

Randy's has a contract with the city to help with bigger jobs.

What Schranz doesn't enjoy is carnage on the roads or the risks tow-truck operators run -- people dying in car crashes or big equipment falling and crushing people.

"It still bothers you," he said.

"Our guys work with death and sadness all the time," Pati said. "One of the guys had to work four deaths in one week. We talk together, and we pray together."

Colorado Springs police detective Mike Johns, who's worked traffic crashes for 20 years here, said Schranz's drivers are always well-trained.

"There's a comfort level there," Johns said. "We trust their talent."

What Pati and Randy Schranz ultimately are looking for is respect.

"In the old days, you picture a tow-truck driver in a greasy, white T-shirt chomping a cigar," Schranz said. "It's an image I've been working 31 years to erase. And we're not a 'wrecker' -- we're a tow company."

When one of Randy's trucks pulls up at a crash scene and the uniformed driver goes to work, rescue workers know it's "problem solved."

After 31 years, that's the definition of respect.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0110 or dennis.huspeni@gazette.com