Around midnight on September 25, 2005, Brien Worrell got a phone call from the Milford, Michigan police. The officers had spotted a gate open at his business, Brien’s Services, Inc., a large landscaping and related services provider. Not a great way to start the day. As soon as Mr. Worrell arrived at his office, he determined that two trucks and trailers loaded with expensive commercial landscaping equipment having a total value of $120,000, were missing. He then immediately activated his Teletrac FleetDirector vehicle location and fleet management system to begin locating the missing vehicles. The system first provided real-time location information for the trucks and trailers which was forwarded to the police. Within 30 minutes, the Michigan State Police had surrounded the two units and secured them. Fortunately, the trucks incurred only minor damage from the break-in. Unfortunately though, all of the landscaping equipment was missing from the trailers. Mr. Worrell then activated the FleetDirector vehicle history-reporting feature which provided a detailed map, with exact times, of where the two trucks had been since being started up and stolen from the yard. The FleetDirector History feature pinpointed a location where the trucks had been stopped for a period of 18 minutes. Armed with the FleetDirector location map, the Milford police drove directly to the address on the map where the trucks had stopped. There, in front of the building hidden under a tarp, was one of Mr. Worrell’s commercial mowers. Having a justifiable cause to believe the other stolen merchandise was inside the structure, a search warrant was quickly obtained, since this type of stolen equipment is usually disposed of within a matter of hours. Upon entering the building, all of Mr. Worrell’s equipment was found, along with a substantial amount of other stolen merchandise. It quickly became obvious his theft was part of a large burglary ring. Amazingly, less than 8 hours after the trucks were stolen from the yard, all equipment had been recovered and was back on the job. “Once again, Teletrac has more than paid for itself”, said Mr. Worrell. He continued with, “We have had Teletrac units since the middle 90’s. The first systems were good, and each subsequent enhancement has made it better and better. It has enabled me to have a complete, and always current, picture of my entire operation. I know where my equipment is and how each crew is performing. I can contact customers and keep them informed of changes. I have the hard facts on when crews start and when they stop and where they have been.”
0 Comments