Roads To Success 7

Ron and Cristy Varela (continued)

Leap of Faith

Growing more and more practiced in his profession each working day, Ron was becoming an expert truck driver.  He knew from the beginning that he would earn good money driving, but he began to see that there was better money in being an owner-operator of a truck.  When the opportunity to purchase a truck presented itself, it was hard for Ron to resist.  He was 21 years of age; he still wanted to improve himself and his situation.  He believed the gamble of buying his own truck was worth the risk.

“I remember telling him there’s no way we can afford to do that,” Cristy told me on-camera.  “But he was just real gutsy.  We talked about it some more.  He said he was going to do it no matter what, and he did.”  Cristy paused a moment and then added, “I had to learn to trust him and trust his instincts and trust his abilities.”

The truck was a new, 1971 International Harvester with a price tag of $21,000, for sale by a private party.  “I borrowed $1,000 from my parents.  The payments on that truck were $2,100 a month,” Ron explained, vividly remembering the dollar amounts.

With his own truck, Ron began driving as an independent contractor.  He was enjoying his independence and his increased income.  His family was growing, too, with Cristy giving birth to a son, Jason.

Ron’s owner-operator status would not last very long.  All went well for about two years, and then an unexpected turn of events derailed his thriving business.  Unfortunately, Ron had unknowingly purchased his truck from a man who was struggling financially.  The troubled man declared bankruptcy and Ron was forced to turn the truck over to the bank in order to satisfy claims by creditors.

Ron had a wife and two young children to provide for, but Cristy wasn’t worried.  “I knew that he would be able to go out and find a job.  I just could see by the way that he did things that I could be confident in the fact that he could find a job,” she said.

Cristy knew her husband well.  He quickly landed a job as a dispatcher for a dirt hauling company.  From dispatcher he transitioned into a foreman position; eventually he would become an estimator.

What some might have viewed as a setback, Ron viewed as a learning opportunity.  “I learned all the different phases of the construction business,” Ron recalled.  “I saw the money that was being made.  Actually, the money I was making for the company.  The last job I had done for the company made $26,000 in one month, and I had done that job all by myself.”

The income from that single job was more money than Ron made in one year.  Ron always had big visions and he began entertaining ideas about starting his own company.  It’s not unusual for people to dream about their future, dream of a better life, but Ron could always visualize the possibilities in choosing a particular path.  He believed that if he could generate $26,000 working for someone else he could certainly do it for his own company.

So, once again, Ron started his own business, the Ron E. Varela Company, Inc.  The new company would sell dirt by the truckload.  “That was when Orange County was just really starting to grow,” Ron explained.  “It was an opportunity for me to go into business for myself.  So, I turned in my resignation and bid a job.”

Ron was awarded the job he bid on, a school site requiring 200,000 cubic yards of dirt.  The $350,000 job would necessitate twelve thousand truckloads of dirt.  Ron rented all the equipment to do the work and fulfill the contract.

The job itself proceeded very well, but enjoying the profits proved to be more difficult.  Once again, unknown to Ron, the contractor whom had sealed the deal with Ron’s new company was having financial problems.  The man, obviously hoping to avoid personal and professional disaster, skipped town with the project funds.

For months, unable to pay many of the bills generated by the project, Ron managed to stay afloat.  His suppliers knew him to be an honest, responsible and hard-working businessman.  They knew he was not responsible for the missing cash and willingly worked with him when their invoices came due.  Ron’s reputation essentially gained him the time he needed and the thief was eventually captured.  “The police ended up tracking him down and recovered most of the money,” Ron recounted.  “We finally got our money after months of worrying.”

Even though the first official job for the Ron E. Varela Company resulted in a good deal of stress and a lengthy delay in receiving payment, Ron would not give up.  He pushed his young company on to other projects.  “We ended up getting into the grading and excavating business,” Ron explained.  “Originally we were doing $2 million, $3 million a year.  And it gradually grew to $5 million, $7 million and $10 million.”

Still in their twenties, the Varelas personal income had grown to over $200,000 a year.  They had no way of knowing that it was just the beginning.

© 2011 Philip Kassel