Our Texas Service Shops
San Antonio, TEXAS – Where Lone Star Service is Deep in the Heart
In June of 2024, the warm and lively city of San Antonio became a new acquisition and addition to Safe Industries. In under a year and a half, they have more than doubled their staff and have been growing into a larger, stronger, and more dynamic facility. Their team works tirelessly to build their own in-house fire apparatus, provide exceptional services from preventative maintenance to heavy collision repairs, and stays ready to answer every customer’s questions 24/7/365 by giving their tech and management’s cell numbers to all clientele. Their team certainly strives to meet the high bar of our company motto “Finest Service” every day.
San Antonio sees everything under the sombrero: from DOD and volunteer departments, to their most requested apparatus bids of late: brush trucks and tenders. When TFS grants were awarded in October of 2024, Mission Valley VFD, one of Safe’s customers, received a grant award for a Large Brush truck, and “in no time, our San Antonio team was able to get a retail unit upfitted for immediate delivery so that [VFD] did not have to wait for one to be built,” Scott Young, our General Manager in San Antonio commented. Talk about ‘Staying Ready!’
Safe San Antonio has a unique ‘family’ shop culture. If you went to visit them, they would most likely wine and dine you at some good ol’ Texas BBQ like Texas Pride, or offer you authentic Mexican food at Chile Verde. Their ‘family’ consists of Scott Young, Janena Young, Joe Dominguez, Zach Bortel, Shane Bortel, Catrina Bortel, Elijah Bortel, Darrly Kallio, Paul Switzer, Ryan Andrade, Felipe Limon, Brittany Minjarez, Joshua Steelman, and Reginald Drake.
San Antonio stays motivated by what they’ve seen. They know the effort required to keep the first responders on the road, and they know that these trucks, and their staff, may be coming to their own homes one day. “Our customers are like our family and we treat them as family,” Young remarks. We are thankful for all the ways our team in San Antonio is serving.
Houston, TEXAS – If You’re Gonna Serve in Texas (You Gotta Have Bickle in the Shop)
One of the largest and most diverse cities in America, with traffic that exceeds even Atlanta’s reputation, is the home of our coastal Texas location: Houston. Acquired in only February of last year, our Houston shop is a full-service emergency vehicle facility designed to support fire and police departments with comprehensive maintenance, repair, and upfitting solutions, and they are a top-notch team others can trust.
Safe Industries Houston often works in highly industrialized areas, where emergencies can escalate quickly; emergencies such as when major sulfuric acid spilled on the Houston Ship Channel. The Highlands Fire Department acted quickly to loan a truck to Channelview Fire Department, but that vehicle ended up going down. The Houston team was ready to send a technician to respond immediately. After unsuccessful efforts to fix the truck, the Houston team switched gears. Their team quickly problem-solved, quickly finishing repairs on an out-of-service apparatus to provide the department with lightning speed, ensuring the first responders could continue responding to emergencies without interruption. Safe Industries makes it their mission to say ‘yes’ to serving others, knowing they’ll find a way. This is consistently demonstrated at our Houston location and this is why our customers can trust Safe Industries.
Houston General Manager Josh Bickle tells us Houston’s technicians come from many backgrounds, bringing wide ranges of skills and experiences. “We handle this by matching jobs to the right strengths while emphasizing a strong willingness to learn and master their craft every day. Ongoing training and collaboration help our team continue to grow, reduce issues, and maintain the high quality of our work,” Bickle states. “We operate with honesty and integrity, making sure customers can trust our recommendations and our work. By doing the job right the first time, we have little to no comebacks and build long-term relationships based on reliability and trust,” Bickle tells us. Their outstanding team is highly praised by Bickle, being made up of: Bradley Freeman, Michael Williams, Marlin Graham, Joe Priddy, Antonio Jackson, Thomas Chambers, and Maddox Silva.
Safe Industries in Houston, Texas, has become a shining example of our core values, orienting themselves to be service first, built for others, to own the outcome, and to always stay ready. We are proud of our team in the coastland of Texas and look forward to sharing more from them.
Wilmer, TEXAS - Don’t Mess with Texas’ Finest Service
Out near the Stockyards in Wilmer, TX, they’re not only roundin’ in the cattle, they’re roundin’ in the finest service. Safe Industries Wilmer was acquired in February of 2024 and offers an impressive line-up of services. With Dewane Farmer as Service Manager and having 3 Master Level EVTs, they’re team is bringing nearly 70 years of experience working on fire trucks to this location and passing that knowledge down daily to other technicians that work in the shop. Their team is built with two EVT certified road technicians, Barry Dixon and Micheal Lynn, and 7 shop technicians: Tim Layman, Kyle Dillard, Manny Tangle, Julian Cano, Kenneth Douglas, Joe Olverde, and Eduardo Tapia. This crew has experience working on every major engine platform out there and are all working towards being level one EVT certified by the end of Q2 2026.
In the last two decades, Wilmer has not had a reliable or dependable service representing its major firetruck brands. When Safe Industries came to town, they became determined to be the most affordable, honest, and dependable shop in the greater city area. An example of their service and efforts to be the #1 turnkey shop in the area is when their team was contacted by the City of Hillsboro, Texas. Hillsboro had been using another service center for years, but it was costing them $30-45k for every preventive service completed with a 6-8 month equipment turnaround. When they called Safe Industries,they gave us the opportunity to prove our service to them. And we were ready for that. Hillsboro came and dropped off an engine, and shortly thereafter informed the other shop that from then on, Safe Industries would be doing all of their maintenance. The following day, the higher-ups from that company went to the fire station to ask what they did wrong, and while they were having that conversation, Dewane Farmer texted the fire commander to let him know the engine was done and they could pick it up anytime. Farmer tell us “the fire commander flipped the phone around and said ‘nothing personal, but this is one of many reasons why we made the change to Safe Industries.’” Our team was able to take in their engine for its annual service and pump test, and turn it back around to them in less than 24 hours from the time they dropped it off. Not only were they ready and efficient, but our team in Wilmer is thorough. In the last year, Safe Industries Wilmer has picked up 7 cities to be their primary preventive maintenance and repair workshop – and they’re not done recruiting more. At Safe Industries, and at our Wilmer location, we are committed to giving honest work with diligence and readiness.
