The sign in the corner of Joe Napoleon’s shop describes his approach to everything, life or his TurnKey Industries trailer business.
“Innovate or evaporate,” Napoleon confirmed.
The bold saying has been the mantra of the man who came from the humblest of beginnings and earned his way into one of the most talented high-end trailer manufacturers. Some might consider him a Picasso of trailers.
“That right there is what I live for,” said Napoleon. “Our focus is not to be like everybody else. We earn our jobs in our work one shot at a time, and we like to build innovative, out-of-the-box stuff. Man, I refuse to build that 1800s covered wagon technology.”
Not a bad approach considering Joe started almost four decades ago, honing his craft off the back of a pick-up truck. He was a teenager wise beyond his years; looking back, that might have been his saving grace.
It, unfortunately, took a painful experience to push Napoleon’s life’s mission into play.
A week before his 18th birthday, Napoleon’s dad passed away. In the days, weeks, and months following this tragedy, he learned a crucial lesson that life is not fair. Napoleon also learned that life has to be dealt with by having a plan to counter misfortune.
Napoleon was a broke teenager, growing up on a humble dairy community farm in Upstate New York. He knew he needed to do something the counter the direction life was leading him in.
“It took me a long time to even talk about losing my dad,” Napoleon admitted. “Immediately after that happened, I told my mom I was moving to Texas. The only promise she made me make her was I finish out high school.”
Life forced Napoleon to be self-sufficient, even before his father’s passing. He had operated a successful auto repair shop since he was 15.
“I shut my shop down; I got me an old Chevy Longhorn truck, put a new motor in it, did a brake job, and hit the road six months later,” Napoleon explained. “I didn’t even know what the word Yankee was. I had to ask when I got to Texas.”
Napoleon arrived in Texas in March of 1982.
“I got down here, long story short, and knocked on the high school door, finished out high school, then someone broke in my shop and stole all my tools,” Joe said. “I grew up in a community where honesty was at the forefront, we didn’t even have keys. We didn’t lock anything up.”
Napoleon met his wife Lynne shortly after that, and they married, and he looked into a career in computer repair. At that point, he faced the reality that the adults from the school he left, and once he landed in Texas, the former and current schools never got together to ensure he had the proper diploma.
“I had to end up going to get my freaking GED,” Joe admitted. “And that’s okay… being a GED guy is just fine with me. I honored my mom’s wishes, and that’s all that mattered to me.”
Napoleon set his sights on building a new business called Napoleon’s Auto Electric days before the birth of his son, Justin. As time went by, he mastered Auto Electric and started selling trailers which led to TurnKey Industries, which morphed into something that was indeed his calling.
“I work truly from my heart, and I just work hard every day, put more and more deals together, had to pull in more and more resources to make different projects happen,” Joe explained. “It became very frustrating to rely on so many different sources to follow through. Hence one by one, we ended up putting all these little different specialized segments together and ultimately created TurnKey Industries. It was never really my original vision, just something that came together naturally over the years.”
Back then, Napoleon’s world was full of trial and error.
“We didn’t have YouTube University in the day,” Napoleon said. “It was truly the School of Hard Knocks. We learn from our mistakes in the world. We don’t really necessarily learn from our successes, right?”
Turnkey Industries can build you any custom racing trailer a customer desires. They pride themselves in being diverse and specialized in building commercial trailers, command centers, marketing trailers, motorsports trailers, or anything a customer can dream up. If you dream it, they can build it.
“We’re really professional problem solvers,” Napoleon said. “We sit down, and we bring solutions to the table to help with their transportation and marketing needs.
If you come to TurnKey Industries seeking a trailer to fit your needs, expect to get it because, by the time you leave the meeting, Napoleon and his team will have a complete understanding of your goal.
“We ask lots of questions,” Napoleon said. “We want to know what industry you’re involved in, what are your goals, what are your objectives. What are you currently doing to work on this? What are the pros and cons of your program that’s working and not working? With the diverse background we have in different levels of Corporate America, we’re able to bring different concepts to the table for you to help create this solution because we genuinely care about the customer.”
Napoleon has heard the saying, “jack of all trades, master of none.” He’s all about being the exception to the saying.
“We don’t find it to be difficult at all to stay on the cutting edge of it all,” Napoleon said. “We find it to be very, very natural. It’s really all about the people and their concepts and ideas and bringing all this stuff to reality. Yeah, it’s just been an amazing journey, honestly.”
Out of the markets TurnKey Industries competes in, motorsports holds a place near and dear to the heart. TurnKey signed on with the Rooftec D4 Comp Eliminator Bonus Fund and has found the program to be a fit.
“It’s racers supporting racers, keeping the name out there,” Napoleon said. “We do it because we care about people in the industry. It’s not really decision-driven on making money or anything like that. Our motto is we build cool stuff for cool people and that complementary class is full of cool people.
Napoleon’s Director of Marketing, Ron Bergenholtz, said TurnKey Industries has been a hit amongst those seeking quality for their needs.
“When we were at the PRI show a couple of weeks ago, it became evident to me that we had something very unique on the market,” said Joe. “I couldn’t leave the booth for two solid days; we were so busy. And it was an amazing experience.”
In the end, Bergenholtz best summed up the approach Napoleon and his team had toward creating the special projects.
“Technically, Joe and I shouldn’t get along, but it’s the crazy, self-driven passion we share to do cool stuff,” Bergenholtz explained. “And then, especially with both of us being racers, you never settle. Let’s say you hit the 5’s. Well, what’s it going to take to hit a 4.99? And then you hit 4.99; what’s it take to hit 4.80? So it’s an ongoing process.
“Joe’s wife put it best to both of us, ‘How come you guys can’t leave anything alone?”
“Our values say we can’t leave anything alone. There’s always room for improvement. Right when you think you got the perfect trailer or the perfect car, or the perfect race car, you want more.
“It’s natural for us never to be satisfied and always look for improvement.”
As Napoleon believes, “You either innovate or evaporate.”
