(energetic music) - Welcome to "Business Forward."

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Bill Winkler.

Bill is the Owner and President of Peoria Charter Coach.

Welcome, Bill.

- Thank you.

Thank you for having me, Matt.

And thank you for having me on your hit list.

- Well, I tell you, you've got quite a business, so we're gonna take a deep dive into it.

Because one of the things that gets lost sometimes when we talk about business is the history, and the history is so much fun, especially being in Central Illinois.

But even though, your company, I see your buses and- - Well, wait a minute, they're coaches.

- Coaches?

- Coaches.

Yes.

- Sorry.

I see your coaches all over the country.

- Yes.

- So we'll get to that in a second.

But where are you originally from you?

Are you from here?

- Yes, I grew up in Peoria.

In fact, when I was 10 years old, I wanted to be a Bradley basketball player.

I went to all their games.

And I grew up, I went to Columbia Grade School.

All from kindergarten to eighth grade, high school at Central, and then two years at Lincoln College.

- So how'd the Bradley basketball thing work out?

(laughing) - Oh, I loved it.

I loved at the field house.

That game against Louisville and beating Louisville was topped ranked in that year, and never forget it.

- That's cool.

So you're celebrating, not you, your company is celebrating 80 years, that is an unbelievable accomplishment.

But this actually was started, this is a family run business, right?

- Right.

- Started by your grandfather?

- That's right.

In 1941, my grandfather, he got a loan from his sister, who had an egg business, and I have a picture right here that shows his sister with a hand, and he sold his only car.

And he got a loan from a sister and purchased his first bus in 1941.

And I had brought a picture of that first bus.

It costs $2,500, which, back in 1940, was a lot of money.

- [Matt] That is a lot of money.

- It is.

And then he wasn't alone.

His vision was to transport caterpillar workers from Spring Bay to the new plant in Peoria.

And that's where he saw his vision.

There was gas rationing in World War II.

So he saw that vision and he couldn't have done it without his two sons who worked with him, which I brought a picture of, my grandfather, my uncle Stan, who was in the middle, and then my dad Roger, who worked their entire life at Peoria Charter.

- I mean, think about how rare, what you're saying, how rare it is in this day and age?

- It's very rare, absolutely.

So it's just amazing blessing from God, no doubt.

- Yeah.

And so, 1941, I mean, World War going on.

I mean, how do you have the entrepreneurial mindset during a World War with all that's going on?

I mean, do you know that part of the story?

- He just had the vision of, like I said, caterpillar workers, and there was gas rationing, and he was the first one to take that risk.

I would say, he's a true entrepreneur.

He took the risk that nobody else would take.

- That is unbelievable.

So, I said earlier, you see these coaches all over the country.

- Yes, 3.5 million miles in a typical year, Matt, and we carry the name of Peoria at all these places, too.

- I know.

- But I do say, we do bring the people back.

So it's not like (Matt laughing) we're taking people out of Peoria, we're bringing them back.

- Yeah.

So I've been down, I went to a Super Bowl once and I remember seeing Peoria Charter Coach at the Super Bowl.

- Absolutely.

Yes, yes.

Group travel, that's our game.

- Group travel.

So, what's it like, and I don't wanna talk about COVID, what's it like, we'll get to that, running a family business?

I mean, there's some pressure there, isn't there?

- There is a lot of pressure.

And it comes down to, it's just not my family, it's the employees, you have to treat them like family.

They have to take ownership in your company.

And you have to treat them right and find the right work ethic, trustworthy Midwest people.

And they're here, no doubt.

And so, yeah, you take it home with you, too.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Let's go back to your grandfather for a minute.

I like talking to the family piece.

So he starts the business in '41, he's got some other family members involved with it, what was the next step?

- The next step was in 1975, my uncle and my dad took over.

And then in 1990, 1990, I joined my dad in the business.

And I have to say, my mom worked full-time there as well.

So that was in 1990.

And that's where my family bought out my uncle, which he had a reasonable price and he wanted it to go on as well.

He was just tired and I was fresh out of college, I was ready to go.

- And when you're looking at a family owned business, whether it's a restaurant or your business, I mean, you're going in, you're cleaning everything, you're going in, doing everything, because, again, your name's on this company, or your family's names on this company?

- That's correct.

A lot of pressure.

And it's back to the employees finding good people.

What was nice about my family is my dad was the technician, he was the mechanic, he got the coaches running.

My mom was in the office, and my job was comptroller.

And so I did all the numbers and the financials and I was in the middle, so we didn't run into each other.

And yeah, dad's been the hardest one to replace when he retired.

(laughing) - I bet.

- Well, especially with today, I mean, it's way different.

- Yeah, it is.

And my mom felt that I have to say she got us into the tours, she got us into other revenue producing avenues.

So, yeah, it was, we talked business all the time, Matt.

- Let's talk about the tours.

Because with COVID, you have casino trips, you have Cubs Cardinals games, and now, it starts going away, and nobody wants to go up to Chicago to see Hamilton or nobody wants to go to St. Louis to see the Cardinals, or whatever it may be.

When did you realize this past year that you were really just taking a kick in the gut?

- I can tell you, I got the date here.

March 16th is when I laid off 90% of my staff.

- [Matt] Oh, my goodness.

So, March 21st, at 5:00 p.m. was the governor's executive order.

And then on April 15th, I was able to get a PPP loan 'cause I was done.

And of all things, the PPP loan said that I had eight weeks to spend it.

So I hired all my employees back, trying to find a job for them to do, which we did.

We did things into the community with Hy-Vee, we had a food drive.

We had gone to medical places where they had to get medicine to shut in, so we had vans.

Our professional drivers were transporting medicine to them, which is trying to do anything to give them a job.

Of course, May 13th came around, and we actually sent two coaches to DC, rallying around the motor coach industry, 'cause until people felt comfortable indoors, inside for a long period of time, we're dead in the water.

- [Matt] Right.

- So this rally in DC was a big...

So, back then, President Trump, he put the motor coach industry on a pedestal.

June 17th, we went to Springfield, and we did the same thing.

We took 30 of our coaches, plus other operators, we had about 60 coaches circling Springfield that day.

July 15th, I ran out of the PPP money.

And it was funny because they gave me eight weeks, and then, oh, halfway through it, they said, "We'll give you 24 weeks."

- They're trying to change the rules.

- Yeah, you change the rules, I said... (both laughing) So I had to lay them off again.

I get emotional over this because this is how good employees I have.

When I laid them off the second time, I could not tell them, I could not go and say, "Hey, I'm gonna have to lay you off the second..." I had someone else do it.

And as they were being told, I kinda walked out a little bit, next thing you know, they're applauding, they're clapping, "Way to go.

You wanna save the company and we do too."

So I got laid off two times.

I got a big grant December 11th, from the State of Illinois, $150,000, which that paid for my leases on my coaches for about a month, (laughing) but it helped.

On the 14th, December 14th, I got a Main Street loan.

Got a Main Street loan from the federal government.

And that was 4.75, $750,000 loan, and that doesn't need to be paid back until five years.

So, when I got that Main Street loan from the federal government, that allowed me to keep going.

That was huge.

And then I got a second PPP money on January 27th.

So yeah.

- So here's what's interesting about everything that you're saying.

You're a numbers guy.

- Oh yes.

- And you were the right guy at the right time.

- Good point.

- Yeah, I mean, if you had somebody else in there that was a special in what your dad did, as an example, or your grandpa did it, it potentially could be different decision-making.

Not that they weren't smart, they started the company.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

In fact, these five things had to happen at the same time.

My belief in the God of the Bible meant that got me through, and the fact is I understand COVID kills people.

And my heart goes out to those families that had to deal with the health difficulties.

This is purely economic.

So, because of my beliefs, I wasn't afraid to die, so I could focus 100% on saving my business.

So that was one thing.

I had to know my numbers, just like you said, exactly.

I knew how much am I losing.

Cash is king.

- Well, not only is cash king, I'll bet you, you're sitting here going, "I can go three more days, here's what happens at five days, here's at 10, 20."

You were doing that, weren't you?

- (laughing) Oh, well, the bank made sure I was doing it.

- Well, okay, fair enough.

(Bill laughing) - I had to know my resources.

Matt, I was able to, through personal funds, family, my sister, and my in-laws, my parents, and myself, I was able to come up with a million dollars of cash to keep it going until I got this Main Street loan.

And so I had to know my resources.

I was very blessed in there in that way.

Leaning on my suppliers, RLI does my insurance here, locally, and for my coaches, and they gave me great rates in the fact that they didn't charge me any liability.

If my coaches weren't moving, I didn't pay anything.

- [Matt] Oh, wow.

- Yeah, I know.

And then my local bank, Morton Community Bank.

First call I got when the executive order happened, how are you doing?

And that he was on the spot and- - That doesn't happen in a town like Chicago.

- I agree.

- So Central Illinois, I mean, that's a plus.

People always ask about what are the advantages of living in Central Illinois, or Bloomington, Galesburg, whatever it may be, well, there's many, but it's actually what you just named are all relationship-driven businesses because everybody wants to see the next person win.

And that doesn't happen on Main Street in Chicago or Michigan Avenue.

That's interesting.

- Absolutely.

So I leaned on my suppliers, my customers, they were great.

They wrote letters to the legislators saying, "Hey, you need to help them, we want them to keep going, just because without Peoria Charter, our business is done."

And then the employees, just the encouragement I got from them.

The last thing was the hope for a government relief.

And Matt, there's no way I could have made it.

I am so proud to be an American company.

The federal government heard our plea.

And I just can't tell you, that wouldn't happen in other countries.

I don't see how it could other than America.

- Well, I think what's interesting is you were looking at about every angle, including your own personal checkbook, to leverage what's coming.

And because let's be real, there were companies that did go out of business, but they had a good run, let's say.

And the owner of that company, and I know several, they could sit here and say, "You know what, it's just time to start something new, or I need to get out of the business."

But what I'm hearing from you is it's not just legacy towards your family and history of your family, this is what you do, but it's also every one of those employees that relies on you.

I mean, you teared up just now, that's not a bad thing.

- [Bill] No.

- We need to see more of that actually.

And so I applaud you for caring so much about the employees because your team is really what drives your whole company anyway.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I have people who are on call, we're a 24/7 operation.

(sniffles) I don't carry the phone, I have people who do that.

My job is to keep the company going.

I make sure it's profitable, it's sustainable, and then be responsible with how I divvy out the profits.

That's my job.

And I had something going for me in the fact as a drive, 'cause this year, we're 80 years old.

80 years old, a company in Peoria.

And I didn't know if I was gonna be 80 years old in 2020, I had no idea.

That was just a drive to get there.

So we made it, we've celebrated, but I'm still not out of the woods yet.

I mean, I'm about 40% of 2019 revenue.

And 40% means no profitability.

I do believe that this September, because of the vaccine, the vaccine opened up, social distancing had to go and the vaccine made sure that has gone away.

So, (sniffles) yeah, it's- - It's huge because I think after mid-June, into June, you're gonna really start seeing people, I'm already starting to see people at ball games, and I know that's not the main driver, there's other trips and things like that, but it helps.

- But it helps.

- I know a guy in the police department that pushed together something with Peoria Charter and they put together this trip.

- [Bill] Absolutely.

I know exactly what goes into it, I know the cost of it, I probably could figure out if I ran some numbers, figured out what your take on it is, but it's irrelevant because the bottom line is you've weathered the big part.

That 40%, now you still have work to do, but again, it goes back to being a businessman.

- Right, and I do believe in the fall, last week in August, all the colleges will be coming back and we'll be probably 70 to 80%, then we'll be okay.

- When you say colleges coming back, does that mean like football game?

- Oh, that means- - Bradley?

- University of Illinois, we do all their coaching.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, ISU, Illinois State University, Bradley, yeah, all those schools coming back.

And we have a schedule that we run, and I think you're familiar with it, four times out of Peoria to Chicago O'Hare- - Yeah, you're coming to- - We used to go four times, and then, yeah, and we used to go to midway.

- [Matt] Used to?

- And then out of Champaign-Urbana, we used to go 10 times up to the Chicago area.

- [Matt] Wow.

- Now, we only have one out of Peoria, and it only goes to O'Hare, but the end of this month, we're gonna go to Midway.

We're gonna add Midway on to it.

But in Champaign, we only have two runs a day.

I'm a numbers guy, and in 2019, 61,000 passengers use that service in Peoria.

And out of Champaign, 218,000.

- Wow.

- All the University of Illinois students.

There are many students from overseas, and they come into O'Hare and they have to- - They gotta fly out, yeah.

- Yeah, they do.

In a typical year, we'll transport 550,000 people.

550,000 people will be on our coaches.

- What's the next one to three years look like for you?

- Next one, we are opening up in Chicago.

I was able to make an investment into a limo company that has 10 coaches, and that's where our next market is, I believe.

And Chicago, it's gonna be tough going, but it's gonna be, that's where all the people are.

In Peoria, there's not as many people.

And normal is it's stable.

Champaign, you always have the college kids.

But Peoria is, just a grow in Peoria, I just don't see it.

It's just a tough thing.

- Yeah.

Well, I mean, expansion.

But you're based here, you grew up here, expansion is not a bad thing.

- No, no, not at all.

So we are moving into the Chicago market.

We were doing that at March of 2020.

So I don't have to tell you what happened after that.

(laughing) Yeah, you wouldn't believe how many businesses that I've talked to that said it just exactly the way you did.

And what's interesting is, is to find all the different pivots that each business made, some good, some bad.

But it did give you an opportunity to actually open up your books, so to speak, and think about how to be creative.

Because that's what you did, you got creative.

Let's be real.

- Yeah.

COVID-19 has humbled me.

Humbled me, it's made me a better listener to my employees, I believe.

And it also, I think I've suffered well through it as well.

We've all suffered through COVID-19, and the goal is to suffer well through it.

I mean, there isn't anybody who did not suffer.

- That's a good way of putting it, is I suffered well through it.

I actually think I had...

I think we all had our ups and downs, but I do think I'm stronger, personally.

- Same here.

- I mean, I think I run a nonprofit, I think I run the nonprofit better than I did a year ago, and it made you look at things.

You saw people, here's what I saw.

I saw people that were paid to be leaders not leading.

And I saw people that weren't in that same pay bracket leading.

And it makes you actually rethink how you're looking at a business, going, "Wait a minute, frontline, this is important, cooks are important."

And I've always felt that way, and this leads me to my question about are drivers the hardest thing for you to hire?

- Yeah, drivers are a frontline.

If I'm gonna talk about Peoria Charter and our employees, our drivers are in the front line, they love doing what they do.

No doubt about it.

I can't tell you how many men and women come into my office and say, "Bill, I just love what I'm doing."

I say, "I know you do because I see what the customers say about you."

But drivers right now, with only 40%, where we still have a few drivers that are laying off and we haven't been able to hire them back, but come fall, we're gonna need some drivers.

It's gonna be tough, but we need to plan it now.

Yeah.

- I was just gonna bring that up.

You're planning right now for September, October, November, December, you have to?

- Absolutely.

- And there's probably gonna be a time in there where you're going to have to bring them in, pay a little more upfront to get them to make sure that you have it because you could leaving money on the table, right?

- Absolutely.

And I could lose a good driver somewhere else into truck driving.

- [Matt] And they're paying right now.

- They're paying well.

But truck drivers don't make good motor coach drivers.

And so, we're always looking for good drivers.

To train a driver from scratch, it's a four-week process.

- [Matt] Okay.

- It's a four-week process, Matt.

- And is it costly?

- We do pay to be trained, half pay, but we do pay.

And two weeks paperwork, compliance, training outside the coach, two weeks inside the coach driving.

I have four driver trainers and- - Oh, you do your own training?

- We do, absolutely.

We have our own training program.

We're in control.

We're in control.

And so we pay for uniforms, we try to do everything except pay for the socks and the shoes.

- How much does it cost to fill one of those up with fuel?

- It costs us- - Not today's prices, but typically.

- Yeah, $250, $3, probably $700.

- Wow.

How many gallons is that?

Is that two- - I'm glad you asked that.

In 2019, 560,000 gallons of fuel.

- [Matt] Oh, my goodness.

- So think about this one.

When Governor Pritzker upped fuel tax at 19 cents, but it was for us 21 cents because diesel fuel, sales tax, they put sales tax on diesel fuel.

Can you believe that?

- [Matt] (laughing) Yes.

- That was 20- - (laughing) In the State of Illinois, yes, I can.

- 21 cents times 560,000 gallon, that's a hundred and some thousand dollars of expense our governor just put on our industry.

And then he tells me I'm not essential.

One of his executive order, I'm a non-essential businesses.

- [Matt] Yeah.

- Oh, man, it's been rough.

- What license do you have to have to drive one?

- Your CDL.

You pass air brakes and passenger endorsement.

Matt, I have to admit, I do not have my CDL.

My dad told me, if you're going to run Peoria Charter Coach, you don't wanna get your CDL because you'll be there out driving and you won't be able to take care of the business the way you're supposed to.

- Well, that's probably good advice.

- But I know what makes a good driver, and I know, and we have the best.

They're professionals.

Look, they have to be drug test, I mean, there's so many things, a physical every two years, drug test, alcohol, random alcohol testing.

Here's a crazy thing about a drug test, marijuana is one of the drugs that- - [Matt] Oh, right.

- But listen to this.

If one of my drivers would you see CBD oils, and they could show up as marijuana on the drug test, and they're out of a job because we have a no... You do drugs, you don't drive for me anymore, you're done.

- Well, I mean, safe, that's a whole different debate, but safety is, probably, if you think about it in your business, number one across the board, isn't it?

- Right, exactly.

It has to be.

- It has to be.

- We can't open the doors unless we're a safe company.

But marijuana, alcohol, there's a certain level of alcohol you have without being impaired, marijuana, it's just in your system.

And it could be two weeks, I mean...

I don't wanna talk about the governor anymore.

- Yeah.

'Cause this was a good conversation.

I think this was a very, very cool interview.

You've got a unbelievable business, you're a true testament to your employees, especially, that you worked your way out of it and you're still working your way out of it, but- - We're local.

- You're local.

- Peoria is a great place.

- Keep doing what you're doing for the community, keep doing what you're doing for nonprofits, we appreciate it.

Bill Winkler, Peoria Charter Coach.

I'm Matt George.

And this is another episode of "Business Forward."

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