Penticton custom truck body business began 40 years ago from a accidental start with body building

“Community Cornerstones,” is a five-part series highlighting different longstanding local businesses every week throughout Penticton.

A longstanding local company that started with an unexpected business opportunity has evolved into a large-scale truck body specialist operation, with a wide range of custom steel and aluminum truck additions that sell across North America. Castanet took a tour through their multi-building operation to learn more.

“Were probably a best-kept secret hidden up in industrial there. We have a number of buildings so we’re kind of hidden back here, I think over the years, over the 40 years, a lot of Pentictonites know [of us].” Gerry Turchak, the owner and president of Brutus Truck Bodies said.

The company started building its first product in 1981, with a truck body called the “Brutus Box,” which is still created and sold today. In that year one the company's truck dealership, Nor-Mar Industries Ltd, a customer came to the shop with a destroyed pickup box and a new start for the company began.

“We accidentally got into the body-building business through our bodybuilding shop at the time, when a logging customer wanted a heavy-duty pickup box for his business … We did one, and then we did two. That got modified by another logger and that’s how our company started and developed over the course of the last 40 years.”

The company is also a bit of a family-run business, with Turchak’s son, who holds the sales manager role also working there.

“Pretty proud to have him and I have a grandson who’s graduating this year and going into an engineer, so we have a succession plan that we’re looking forward to.”

Brutus employs around 80 people with some of who have been with the company for over 30 years.

“We supply a lot of jobs and our staff consists of salespeople, engineers, welders, body man, painters, electricians, journeyman mechanics, forklift operators. So we have a broad range of a workplace and locations so we are always interested in getting involved in the community through schools and bursaries,” Turchak said.

The truck bodies are also designed for the harsh forestry, construction, mining, and oilfield sectors across Canada and the company has done well despite the pandemic, seeing consistent business with large-scale orders.

“COVID has been extremely good to us that it enabled us to keep working as an essential service provider so we kept working on accounts like BC Hydro and Fortis ... and we’re very thankful for that.”

But their real specialty is creating custom orders.

“Custom is probably our niche in terms of we get called upon by an individual operator, a mechanic or a fleet wanting something special that you couldn’t get elsewhere. We get involved directly with the customer designing it and making the changes he’d like,” Turchak added. “And in the end, making him happy. We like doing that it works well.”

“I’m proud of our staff, I’m proud of our customers because both have helped us develop products to move forward so it’s been a very interesting ride, to say the least.”

To find out more about Brutus Truck Bodies and its products, visit their website here.