Samantha Taylor: Proudest amigo accomplishment?

Beth Thieme: Proudest amigo accomplishment?

Samantha Taylor: Or personal accomplishment?

Al Thieme: We’re still here! Hallelujah.

Samantha Taylor: Hello and welcome to our first episode of the Amigo CartCast for 2025. I’m Samantha Taylor, your host, along with my co-host, the very talented and charismatic Scott Chappell. How are you, Scott?

Scott Chappell: Oh, my gosh, I’m excited.

Samantha Taylor: It’s 2025, ba new year.

Scott Chappell: Well, new year, new podcast. It’s been a bit, but this is an exciting episode.

Samantha Taylor: This is an exciting episode. Today’s conversation is going to be a fun one, as we have very special guests here with us. Just a little bit of an introduction. We have two very special guests with us today to share a bit of the nostalgic story of Amigo Mobility and where it originated. So for those who don’t know, Amigo has a fascinating story.

Samantha Taylor: And it all started from a gentleman who had a vision back in 1968. And we’re here to hear about that story and how it has evolved. Currently, Amigo has over 140 employees and is trusted by eight of the ten top national grocery stores by providing power shopping carts to their customers. Of course, who better to tell that story?

Samantha Taylor: And the grit and perseverance that it takes to build a company than the dynamic duo of Al and Beth Thieme. Al is the chairman and founder of Amigo, and Beth is our CEO and president. Some say that they are a dynamic duo, very iconic to Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.

Scott Chappell: What a good– that’s a good analogy. Yeah, I like that.

Samantha Taylor: So they are the dynamic duo of Bridgeport and they are here to tell their story today. Welcome, Al and Beth. Thanks for joining.

Beth Thieme: Thank you.

Beth Thieme: That was a great introduction.

Al Thieme: The problem is I don’t know how to throw a football.

Samantha Taylor: Well there’s still time, there’s still time.

Scott Chappell: Oh wow, what an analogy.

Samantha Taylor: You like that? Okay, good. We like to have fun.

Samantha Taylor: Some things I’ll take credit for.

Scott Chappell: There you go.

Samantha Taylor: Okay, so let’s go ahead and we can dive into some of the questions that we have. I would love to hear.

Scott Chappell: Most definitely.

Samantha Taylor: Why don’t you kick off the questions?

Scott Chappell: Oh, okay. I can do that. Well. I will just, I will start with, I guess Al, you know, we’ve known each other a long time.

Al Thieme: Sure have.

Scott Chappell: Long time. Since 1989, when I started at the company. So, you know, I know the story. I’ve read the story phenomenal. I’ve lived it, seems like, because I’ve been here so long. But I guess what made it? What made you decide to do this in the very beginning?

Al Thieme: I didn’t want to build Amigos. I had a plumbing and heating business and I loved it. We did a lot of new construction, but friends of ours asked Marie and I to go to Mexico with them. Never thought I’d go to Mexico. I had kids, I had a business, but I said okay. He said, well, we’re leaving in two weeks, okay.

Al Thieme: So we did. We went to Mexico. Marie, having multiple sclerosis, she’d get very fatigued. We got to Mexico. We had to rent a wheelchair. She’d never sat in a wheelchair before and I never pushed anybody around in a wheelchair. Neither one of us really liked that situation. So after spending a week in Mexico, I realized I had to come up with something where she could be independent.

Al Thieme: I made a few sketches. I’m not much of a drawer, so they were pretty rough. I found an engineer, Gene Fisher, in Saginaw, Michigan. Wonderful person, cared about people. He cared about this concept. So he and I worked together. He did the work. I furnished some money. And pretty soon we had a very rough three-wheeled device with a battery on it.

Al Thieme: And Marie would use that in the end of the day when she got very tired. We had six children. She had to take care of it. I had a plumbing business to run. It worked. It just flat out worked.

Scott Chappell: So in 1968 — and for everybody that’s watching and listening, that was a long time ago. Amazing to think how the world was different then for somebody. You know, we all probably take walking for granted, right? That’s just who we are. We’re human, but just amazing. In 1968. I mean, I can’t imagine there was anything around then.

Scott Chappell: Besides the wheelchair, maybe.

Al Thieme: The wheelchair that was in and there was no motorized wheelchairs at that time either. Right. So it was unique. It was different. It was functional. But people didn’t want to accept it. They didn’t know what it was. Yeah. And especially the medical profession, they just laughed at it, you know. And when I talked to doctors about it, they said, oh, I’ll take it to the golf course.

Al Thieme: No, that’s a golf cart. This was something different.

Scott Chappell: Well there is that’s amazing. Especially, like I say back then, that, that long ago, So I’ve read your book, and if you folks haven’t read the book, you might want to get one and read. It’s phenomenal. But, I guess I’m curious. Give us just a little back history on the young Al Thieme. I mean, how did you do in school?

Al Thieme: Oh, oh, dear. That’s a good story!

Al Thieme: Yeah.

Al Thieme: Well, I went to kindergarten about three days. And you had to drink milk and have a blanket and sleep. So I went home after about the third day, and I told mom, I said, this is ridiculous. There’s work to do around the yard. You know, we have chickens and rabbits and that sort of thing. And mom says, fine.

Al Thieme: That’s fine. First grade was different — from first to sixth grade. I went to a one-room school. We had a great teacher and I enjoyed school then. After the sixth grade, then I went into Saginaw. And I did okay, six, seven and eight, seventh, eighth and ninth grades, 10th grade, though, then I went to another school in Saginaw.

Al Thieme: I didn’t care for it. And so I decided there’s no use going to school. Well, I didn’t! No they had truant officers back then. And if you’re not in school, truant officers will come after you. Well, my mom and dad were separated. Dad was in Florida. My brother was there, two years older than I.

Al Thieme: So I went to Florida. They couldn’t catch me there.

Samantha Taylor: Oh. Smart.

Al Thieme: Yeah. Yeah. Oh.

Samantha Taylor: That’s good. I want to back up just a little bit, because I love hearing the story of Amigo, and how the inspiration came to you to create something very unique and something that did not exist at the time. The piece of the story that I have never heard is, was there a defining moment of when you decided to start building and selling Amigos to other people?

Samantha Taylor: Where was the turning point to not only make it something useful for your family, but for others?

Al Thieme: It was probably only 3 or 4 months after I’d built the first one. Marie went to MS Society and she’d use the Amigo. So other MS ladies saw Marie and knew she had six children and how she was functioning. So Marie came from the MS meetings and she’d say, Al, you have to build a few more. No way.

Al Thieme: I love my plumbing and heating business. Well, she convinced me I should build more Amigos. That’s how it started. So just as kind of a hobby, I built a few more.

Samantha Taylor: And look where we’ve grown now.

Al Thieme: Well, that growth is a lot responsible for Beth. She started working with me at Amigo Company when we were just in this little tiny building and had no money. We were always cashflow short. But she was a genius.

Samantha Taylor: She is a genius!

Samantha Taylor: With people and in sales and sales management. And that was a big part. I was kind of rough back in those days.

Al Thieme: And, and.

Al Thieme: Beth would kind of guide me and direct me in the right direction. Yes, yes.

Beth Thieme: I learned PR real quick!

Scott Chappell: Somebody had to, you know, and we kind of forgot to mention the we said dynamic duo and we–

Samantha Taylor: Gotta introduce Taylor Swift!

Scott Chappell: We didn’t mention Taylor that, you know that’s been here almost fifty years.

Samantha Taylor: She’s a shining star, I guess.

Al Thieme: Yes.

Scott Chappell: Yeah. But no. It’s funny. We’re so glad you mentioned Beth in this process Al because, like you said, she from… and we’ll let Beth continue. But, I mean, you started in in sales. Is that right? Oh, no. Well, maybe not quite.

Beth Thieme: First job in 1975 was in purchasing.

Scott Chappell: Oh, okay.

Beth Thieme: I knew nothing. I was going to college to be a nurse, an R.N. and I had two and a half years schoolwork all done. Was accepted into the Hurley School of Nursing. Very hard to get into. Spent a lot of time trying to get in there. Got accepted and actually left my job in purchasing to go down there.

Beth Thieme: Moved in. And the director of nursing left a note that there was a mix up in the transcripts and paperwork. I had to come back the following year.

Samantha Taylor: Oh.

Beth Thieme: So I packed up my room, moved back, asked for my job in purchasing back. And then when I had first left purchasing, I trained somebody for my job. So of course, a week later, when I come back, there’s not a job in purchasing. So that’s when Al looked at me and said, “I always knew you’d be good in sales,” and I did not want a sales job.

Beth Thieme: I did not have a good impression of sales, but, he saw something in me, and I’m glad he did, because it’s been the joy of my career. Has been to be in the sales arena.

Scott Chappell: How ironic it is that you do… you weren’t excited about sales. And correct me if I’m wrong. What was your father’s profession?

Beth Thieme: Sales.

Scott Chappell: Kind of funny how that comes around.

Beth Thieme: Yeah. And both of us in B2B sales.

Scott Chappell: Yeah.

Beth Thieme: Which is interesting because I remember my dad used to sell multimillion-dollar cranes, and he’d worked on them for several years.

Scott Chappell: Right.

Beth Thieme: And then the big deal came in, and I, I just thought, man, that’s tough. But I did the same thing.

Scott Chappell: You’re right.

Beth Thieme: Exact same footsteps.

Scott Chappell: So, back then, 1968, 1975, how were sales from ‘68? And now you kind of mentioned this as well. Became a business. How were sales? How did sales grow between ’68 and ‘75? And then when you jumped on board, how did they grow after that?

Al Thieme: Well, they grew 50% a year.

Scott Chappell: Really?

Al Thieme: But when we were only selling ten a year…

Al Thieme: At the point,

Al Thieme: You know, that’s not too much.

Beth Thieme: Easy to be a hero then.

Al Thieme: Yeah.

Al Thieme: So. But… Beth then continued to have our sales grow 50% a year. And when Beth came with me, well, the numbers were a little bigger, so it was that much tougher. But I set the pace and she had to follow.

Scott Chappell: Gotcha.

Beth Thieme: I… you know, he gives me a lot of credit. It was a team effort there. There were great people at Amigo here. We were small but mighty. And I think a lot of people contribute to success like that. But my first year here, I think our sales were around $375,000 for the year. And then it did grow in healthcare.

Beth Thieme: Fun times. Selling to the consumers. You know, people said you’re in Amigo family. When did that start? And I said, It started because our customers… we got very close to, we got to know them. And, you know, coming from the nursing field, I had a desire to care for people and I like to problem solve. And some days it does feel like an ER room around here too.

Beth Thieme: You have to respond pretty quickly and things. But you know, we really kind of grew as a family with the Amigo owners, and that started the whole culture of our company. And those people, when they love the product, saw what it did. They got passionate, family got passionate. They’d tell their friends. And then many of them became salespeople, which I think was more of his idea than mine.

Beth Thieme: And at one time, we probably had 3 to 4 hundred salespeople throughout the country selling our products. And it came from the heart. And, you know, it’s like you, Scott, you know what this product does? Yeah. And it’s life-changing. And when you have that kind of fire, good things happen.

Scott Chappell: But you know, what’s unique about this company is that there are a lot of people that say that same story. We’re a family. We’re like a family. But until, you know, like I say, I started in ‘89 and this is not about me, but really from that day, I mean, it really felt that way. And then it just grows and grows.

Scott Chappell: And when I was on the healthcare side, I made a lot of friends with customers. That’s not a normal business. Having customers as friends is not normal, because then all of a sudden, you know, it’s kind of like family. They kind of maybe want to give you a hard time from time to time. So it’s a pretty tough… it’s a balance.

Scott Chappell: It’s the balance. In ‘75, in that time frame. How many employees did you have then? Because Samantha mentioned, we’ve got 140 today. We got a boatload of square footage. But what do you think? How many people you think it’s ’75.

Beth Thieme: I would say 10 to 12.

Scott Chappell: 10 to 12?

Al Thieme: At the most. Yeah.

Beth Thieme: Yeah, yeah, it was small in this office next to us, which is now our mailroom. I think there were four of us.

Al Thieme: Yeah, I know. Oh.

Scott Chappell: You wish. I wish people could see it. Yeah, because there’s not– it’s like bunk beds.

Al Thieme: Oh, yeah. There were. Yeah. You and I and my sister Emy. Yes. And then the engineer,

Beth Thieme: Don Marquis.

Al Thieme: Don Marquis.

Al Thieme: Yeah. All in that little room.

Beth Thieme: Somebody sneezed and we all shook.

Samantha Taylor: That’s how you get close.

Scott Chappell: So, you know, what’s funny is… let’s fast forward for a second. And, you know, I see we all watched Shark Tank, right? Because you like to see the stories. It’s such a phenomenal series, right? And you know… and you know in Shark Tank I get kind of ticked sometimes when they’re hard, you know, on the people because they go, hey, Al, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby or you have this, you know, they tell people that.

Scott Chappell: So I kind of take that to heart sometimes because you think people are pouring their heart and soul into this. When did you think… I mean, you started in ‘68 and then obviously Beth and you were growing the business, you know, you knew it was a business all the time, but did you ever… Were you ever concerned that it might not be a business or this thing might not take off, or did you just figure we’re going to grow it?

Al Thieme: Well, it was probably I had a feeling—I read the book of Fred Meijer. Meijer Grocery Stores. Fred Meijer said every morning I woke up, I was scared to death. It is. It’s scary, but when I would see and lived with Marie what the Amigo did for her, and then when we sold—and it wasn’t just her.

Al Thieme: Then we sold to other people. And I was involved in almost every sale. And then Beth would be the follow-up to the sales. So you’d see how it changed their lives.

Scott Chappell: Yeah. That’s true.

Al Thieme: And that’s when you realized this is something you had to do. It wasn’t to build a business. It was just something you had to do.

Scott Chappell: So it’s passion.

Al Thieme: Yeah.

Scott Chappell: Passion is what it would be.

Al Thieme: Yes.

Beth Thieme: You know people say would you ever consider selling the business? One banker said, “$50 million. I’ll put in your hand tomorrow. Would you, would you sell?” And I said no, he said 100 million, I said no. I said it’s never been about the money. It has never been. It’s… we love the products and what they do for people.

Beth Thieme: We love our employees. It is a family. And it would be like selling off one of your children. You know, it’s part of who you are.

Al Thieme: Oh, I thought of doing that once in a while.

Samantha Taylor: Which one?

Beth Thieme: Selling a child! Yeah.

Beth Thieme: No, but I do think we’re going to die on the sword with the business. It’s just who we are. We love what we do.

Scott Chappell: Oh, I agree, and I hate to– I’ve got another question. Sorry. Well, my gosh.

Samantha Taylor: That’s great. But some of them you’re just taking right out of my mouth.

Al Thieme: Oh, quit talking together and ask some questions!

Samantha Taylor: Rapid fire.

Scott Chappell: Oh, no. Go ahead then. I don’t want to, I don’t want to rain on your parade here.

Scott Chappell: So, let’s step back a little bit, because obviously, I mean, I’ve been around a long time, so I know the story. I know, I know you two very, very well. And then reading the book was phenomenal. It was so real. Right. And I will just say this, you in the book owned it.

Scott Chappell: I mean, everything that came at you, you owned. And that is unbelievable.

Beth Thieme: The good, the bad and the ugly.

Scott Chappell: Both of you. Correct. You did. And, so it correct me if I’m wrong. I mean, you were pretty good plumber, right?

Al Thieme: The best in Saginaw County!

Scott Chappell: That’s my point.

Al Thieme: Pretty good!

Scott Chappell: That’s my point. So you were the best plumber.

Al Thieme: Thank you.

Scott Chappell: And I’m sure you could have been a pretty wealthy man after plumbing for 30 years. So my point was that is where I’m trying to go back with that is I mean, this was new stuff.

Scott Chappell: I mean, you could’ve just did what you did as good as you did it for 30 years. 40 years, for you, 50, 60 years.

Al Thieme: Yeah. Yeah, wealth was never important to me. The only thing that was important was to do it better. Whatever I did, I want to find a better way. That’s what was important. Whether it was in plumbing or then when I decided I had to build Amigos for people, I had to continually find a better way to build them.

Al Thieme: And financially, yes, it was tough. If I would have thought about wealth, I would have never started Amigo Company.

Al Thieme: What we went through and the cash flow problems for years. Yeah. And we took off. And when we did quite well, but then we made some mistakes and we dropped big time. We had about 12 years when we had trouble paying our employees, trouble paying our suppliers, and we had a bank loan and the bank put us on a workout program.

Al Thieme: You know what that means? They don’t want you. And that would have shut us down. And they would… no local banks. Well, we worked with one in Detroit and they’d send a couple of guys up from Detroit to talk to us. And they were sent up to close us.

Beth Thieme: But they couldn’t do it!

Al Thieme: They couldn’t do it!

Beth Thieme: And we became the longest company in their workout group because they couldn’t pull it. So, and as the book says, we reached out to Amigo owners to help us.

Al Thieme: Yeah.

Beth Thieme: That one very generous Amigo owner and his two friends.

Al Thieme: And Mike Galer that worked for us in accounting and administration. He and Beth worked so hard talking to those bankers, and he just held on there, and he was so sincere. We’ve had so many good people help us.

Scott Chappell: And that was my point. And the only reason I mentioned that is — like I said, you both own the book, and you’ve owned it — I mean, I got to believe there’s some people that they might not have just been as honest and forthright as you have been. Right? Because you just said it was tough. We made some mistakes.

Scott Chappell: I mean, not everybody… we’re all human. A lot of people don’t think they make mistakes. So that was the reason I kind of mentioned that.

Al Thieme: Mmm hmm.

Samantha Taylor: No, that’s great. One thing that I do want to ask is, you’re definitely the visionary. Like, we see that we feel the passion between both of you and, and you guys working together. I think what really stands out is just the clear message and vision that you’ve been able to say, you know, we’re improving lives through mobility.

Samantha Taylor: And we feel that, I guess early on I’m just wondering or even now, how do you see the future of Amigo and how do you stay up on trends and things that you want to pursue with the company? And this could be to both of you. This is looking to the next 50.

Al Thieme: Well, I hope that things have rubbed off on our children and our people that are working here, that you have to be continually curious.

Samantha Taylor: That’s great.

Al Thieme: And you have to continually know there’s going to be changes and what is good today, within a week or a month or a year isn’t going to be there. So we have to prepare and always be looking out at new avenues and new models of mobility. Where we’re good, and Beth always says that… I say, oh, we’re good at caring about people.

Al Thieme: Beth says, well, we’re good also in wheels and batteries and chargers and moving people and objects. And there’s so much to do in that field, so many areas to grow in.

Samantha Taylor: So you’d mention, obviously passing the legacy on to family and empowering your employees to see the same vision. What is it like to see your own children now growing and running this business alongside you?

Al Thieme: It’s easy.

Samantha Taylor: Oh.

Al Thieme: The greatest gift that God could ever give us is to have our children so involved and taking over.

Beth Thieme: I agree, I think it’s a joy to have the kids. You know, they grew up in the business. Scott remembers. As little kids we’d take them to trade shows. Jen when she was three months old went on a plane with us to Belgium. She went back when she was three years old, and the business was part of their life.

Beth Thieme: Every summer they worked here doing production, emptying waste baskets and things like that. But we never knew they’d come back until after college, because during college they were going down different paths.

Scott Chappell: I’m sure.

Beth Thieme: And, so we didn’t say anything. We didn’t want to sway them. But when they got out of college and both ended up coming here, and I think the first couple of years were a little restless.

Beth Thieme: But then they settled in. The more they were here, the more they felt that this was their career path that they were choosing. And, you know, so many family businesses have to sell if you don’t have that next generation who wants it. So to us, it’s it’s just a blessing.

Samantha Taylor: So I know one of the things, not only obviously being a family owned business, it’s very, very important to you, but also keeping it here not only in the nation but in Michigan. So can you speak to that a little bit and, and why it’s so important? And you mentioned community efforts and but why, why here?

Al Thieme: Well, I was born and raised here just a couple of blocks over here. And then I bought a house right across the road. That house is not here anymore. So we have so many roots in Bridgeport, Frankenmuth, and Saginaw. As we grew, I always wanted to have three plants across the United States and we got started in that, fortunately, I guess fortunately, everything is back here in Bridgeport.

Al Thieme: It’s not exactly what I wanted, but I do feel it happened the right way.

Beth Thieme: So for me, Michigan is home, born and raised in the state of Michigan. But I think more important, there’s two things. One is why Michigan in general? Michigan has great work ethic. The people in Michigan are workers. And having traveled around to different parts of the US, having lived where we did before and having traveled to Europe, we have a great work ethic in this state.

Beth Thieme: The second thing is why this community? This community is probably one of the most powerful networking groups I’ve ever been a part of.

Al Thieme: Sure is.

Beth Thieme: And everybody has generous hearts. I mean, I have called on other businesses for advice. Jordan has called on some prominent people in the community to be a mentor to him. I can’t imagine growing a business in a better place than here.

Scott Chappell: That’s fantastic. That’s wonderful.

Samantha Taylor: I don’t know if you guys know during the interview process, like, why I even looked at Amigo for a job — I may have shared this with you — but one of the reasons was just honestly, your presence and your grace in the in the community, and it was just always very admirable. And I truly believe in surrounding yourself with people who are going to push you to be a better person.

Samantha Taylor: And I just look to you guys as very much like that mentor. So when the job came available, I said, well, this is interesting. I’m going to take a peek at it. But it was just an easy fit for me.

Al Thieme: Well, that’s neat, and likewise, when Beth interviewed you, she found out how involved you are in the community.

Samantha Taylor: It takes a village.

Al Thieme: We realized, yes, that you belong with us.

Samantha Taylor: And I’ve never looked back. Yeah. Side note. So anyway, continue on your script, Scotty!

Scott Chappell: Oh my gosh, I’m going to start bawling! I’m gonna start crying here, and that happens pretty easy nowadays.

Samantha Taylor: Don’t do that.

Scott Chappell: Just kidding. Not to kill the vibe, but, healthcare is where we started, but it’s not where we’re going to finish. So after healthcare, what? Where did we go?

Al Thieme: Well, that story is going to take a long time.

Scott Chappell: We’ve got all kinds of time.

Al Thieme: It was our love and we had blinders on. That’s what we thought. That was the only thing we were going to do is work in healthcare, because that was our love. And then we saw that and we were not looking out into the future, and we put a stumbling block in the way because people came to us and said, why doesn’t Medicare pay for Amigos?

Al Thieme: And we never even thought about that. Well, we listened, and Beth worked with Thomas Tierney, the head of Social Security — was that a struggle — and changed under act of Congress…

Beth Thieme: The Social Security law to include power-operated vehicles such as the Amigo.

Al Thieme: Yeah. So that was a great win. But guess what? All of our… 99% of our people that were selling, they were selling out of their home under the garage. They were Amigo owners. Medicare would not recognize any equipment sold to handicapped people where you were selling it out of the home. So, yes. And so our business just went like that.

Al Thieme: We changed the law and never looked ahead to what might happen. And so then we had to change and start helping set up our people to go into a business so that they were a medical dealer in order for Medicare to pay for Amigos. But we didn’t make that change soon enough and we were going downhill. We had sold a few Amigos to Meijer stores. The first one we sold in 1971, to Meijer stores.

Al Thieme: There was nothing like this in Meijer stores at the time. Who would put a motorized something, vehicle to go shopping within the store? Well, my daughter Jill, my first daughter ever, I said, “You go down to Flint’s Meijer store and do not come back with that Amigo.” And she did. She sold it.

Samantha Taylor: How long was she there? Did she have to stay a few weeks?

Scott Chappell: And if you remember, at the beginning of this podcast, he said he was a little rough around the edges. Go ahead. I don’t want to stop.

Al Thieme: So we called every handicapped organization and said, “Send your people into the Meijer store in Flint and tell them how much you love this.” They couldn’t believe it, how much it was used. So they took it out of Flint, put it into Grand Rapids, where their home office is. And so we had to call all over again and get people going in there.

Al Thieme: That’s what started it. But we never focused on that. We never looked at how big that market could be, because we were just thinking about helping, selling to people that were using Amigos. And yeah, so then when healthcare, because of changes to the Social Security law, started dropping, Beth…

Al Thieme: Beth, guess what?

Samantha Taylor: She’s got beauty and brains.

Al Thieme: Yeah. You gotta do something about this.

Scott Chappell: You’re up!

Beth Thieme: Yes, sure.

Al Thieme: So it isn’t how much you know, it’s who you put around you.

Scott Chappell: Yes, this is true.

Al Thieme: And so then Beth really focused on the grocery stores, and that has been a blessing for us, and we have the major grocery stores throughout the United States and in Canada, and in Mexico. Yeah.

Beth Thieme: Yeah.

Al Thieme: But now, while times are going good, now is when we have to find other avenues. We learned the lesson the hard way. And that’s why we’re really pushing on material handling. And that’s just going to be as huge as our grocery store business.

Scott Chappell: Beth tell me or tell us a little bit about… you sold to Meijer, Thrifty Acres back then, but Meijer. You’re kind of the first. So here we are at ‘68, the first powered vehicle. Right? And now all of a sudden in ’71… So how was that to try to I mean, part of me says if you’re in sales, the opportunities are endless.

Scott Chappell: But the other part of me is they don’t want to spend the money. Why would I spend the money? So how was that?

Beth Thieme: You know, by the time I got involved in the sales to the grocery stores, it was a recognized item to have in grocery. However, a competitor in that market had gotten way ahead of us, and they had the majority of the marketplace. So I wasn’t as much introducing the concept as I was trying to get retailers to choose Amigo.

Beth Thieme: And I will say back then in the 2004 timeframe, 2005, our competitor probably had 80% of the market.

Al Thieme:

Beth Thieme: And I’m proud to say we have flipped that. We now have 80% of the market.

Scott Chappell: Fantastic.

Beth Thieme: Or more, and so, it’s also a good reminder somebody is always behind you trying to get past you, and you got to block them and give them reasons why to stay with you. But I really feel like I’m most excited about this industrial market, and I say that not because you guys are working on that.

Beth Thieme: I just see the future. I see it could be much bigger than the grocery market. Industrial places, businesses, warehouses, distribution centers, overuse fork trucks. They do. And they’re big and they’re expensive. I never knew how expensive they were till they had to buy one, and I had to approve it.

Al Thieme: And the maintenance!

Beth Thieme: And the maintenance! And one day it was just about, “We need new batteries” and I’m like, well go get new batteries. But then I saw the price of the batteries.

Al Thieme: Then you see these forklifts in and they’re moving kind of fast. And every once in a while they hit one of our racks. Yes. Oh. That’s dangerous.

Scott Chappell: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Beth Thieme: But I think it’s the prime time for businesses to be looking and evaluating, “How am I using equipment?” And find a better way. Right? And I really believe this lineup of products is going to be even bigger than retail for our company.

Scott Chappell: Well, we’re hoping that, aren’t we, teammate? Partner.

Beth Thieme: Wait a minute. I always tell my people there’s no hope in business. We make it happen. We don’t hope to happen.

Scott Chappell: We’re making it happen, aren’t we?

Samantha Taylor: We’re making it happen. Right here. Yeah. We’ll be the next dynamic duo.

Scott Chappell: It’s funny. So in 2017, when I came back and started with Jen on the material handling line, which was kind of new, everybody. I think it was designed at ‘16, but then we got to kind of get it to market, kind of that same old story. Right? And not that this is the tagline, but, you know, how we say we must find a better way?

Scott Chappell: You know, part of the thing that I always said is we just move people and products differently. And, that’s kind of what we do today, with those products. As long as they can fit in our wheelhouse with our weight capacities and things like that.

Beth Thieme: I think we move them better. You know, it’s interesting. I went back in our plant. We have 130,000 square feet. There’s a lot bigger places than us. Yeah, and I think we use at least 3 or 4 of these carts. A janitorial one. And then, so I went back and I said, one day recently, we’re going to try an experiment.

Beth Thieme: I’m going to take your carts away from you, and I want you to work, do your work for this week without them. And they all looked at me and said, you can’t, you can’t! That’s what you want to create. And that’s the value it points to value. They see value in it. You know, their feet and legs don’t hurt as much.

Beth Thieme: And they enjoy their job. And they’re more productive and they feel like they’re contributing. It was a great interaction and really hit home for me how valuable these products are.

Al Thieme: How do we go into this type of a product? How did it happen?

Scott Chappell: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Al Thieme: That’s a good one.

Scott Chappell: Let’s go there.

Al Thieme: I think we should. Yes, yes.

Scott Chappell: So, so.

Beth Thieme: I think we came up with an idea of having a small tug to move things, and it wasn’t quite powerful enough and wasn’t able to accomplish much.

Al Thieme: Then I think Al Bussinger, who is our R&D man, has been with us forever. He loves to get new ideas. He’s very creative in product ideas, and so he got into material handling models.

Beth Thieme: I think he expanded it. And then at the same time, we asked Jen in Business Development to look at this market and look at products, and I think then that started it. And then Scott, you came on board and then Samantha and magic is happening.

Al Thieme: Magic has happened there.

Scott Chappell: It was, so a little bit like you folks back in the early days when I came back in ‘17, it was like a breath of fresh air. It was like we are now promoting something that nobody has any idea what it is. So that’s a challenge because, you know, everybody knows that a forklift, a pallet jack, rack and shelving, a high-speed door.

Scott Chappell: Oh, we all know what that is. So that’s been the challenge, but, I’ll have to agree, Beth, when people use it. We’ve got companies now in Canada, everywhere, that now they use these every day. They rely on these every day. Talk about pressure for us. Right? But, you know, the cool thing about us is we’ve got the service, we’ve got the folks upstairs on the phones.

Scott Chappell: And, you know, we didn’t even dive into how these products are made since 1968, how simple and easy it is to repair and diagnose. I mean, we could have another, we could have another gosh darn, podcast on that because that’s part of it as well. But when it gets these material handling products, the industrial side of the business, I mean, it’s the same simple way we’ve been doing it forever.

Al Thieme: Since ‘68.

Scott Chappell: Since ‘68.

Al Thieme: Having service is so critical because whenever it’s special, when you come with a new concept and a new product, you’re going to have some problems, you’re going to have things that don’t work. But when we have service, which we have always been strong on, and get in there and take care of it right away, that’s what your customer wants to see.

Samantha Taylor: All right. Well, we have a fun little game.

Scott Chappell: Oh, fantastic.

Samantha Taylor: Oh, we’ve heard so much about the Amigos story. Thank you guys for sharing. But we want to hear a little bit more about Al and Beth personally. So it’s a spin on a newlywed game. So we’re going to have to answer questions about each other. All right. Well and then feel free to share. We’ll keep it easy. We’ll start with Beth.

Samantha Taylor: What’s Al’s favorite pizza toppings?

Beth Thieme: Sausage, mushroom, green pepper and pepperoni.

Samantha Taylor: How’d she do?

Al Thieme: Oh, she’s right on. All the time. I saw that when she was 19 years old. Yeah, yeah.

Beth Thieme: He’s just happy I order pizza. He doesn’t care what’s on it.

Al Thieme: I don’t care. Yeah.

Samantha Taylor: So is that Beth’s favorite toppings? And he just eats whatever she likes.

Beth Thieme: No, I’d skip the sausage.

Samantha Taylor: Okay. That’s fair.

Beth Thieme: He wouldn’t have known that either.

Samantha Taylor: Minor details.

Al Thieme: Oh, yeah. Minor details.

Scott Chappell: What’s our next question?

Samantha Taylor: Okay, so this one’s not. Maybe. Well, we’ll just have you both answer your most– Oh, this is a deep one. We’re going to skip to number three. I like this, favorite Amigo tradition?

Al Thieme: Favorite Amigo tradition…

Samantha Taylor: So Amigo has a lot of things that we do to build our culture and morale.

Al Thieme: My favorite thing is when I decided we had to get married.

Samantha Taylor: Oh!

Beth Thieme: That’s not a tradition!

Samantha Taylor: That’s your most memorable!

Scott Chappell: He started a tradition.

Samantha Taylor: No, no.

Al Thieme: That’s the biggest savior to the whole company.

Beth Thieme: It’s not, bless his heart.

Al Thieme: I was able to lock her in and keep her.

Beth Thieme: Employee retention.

Al Thieme: Yes, but she’s so good at business and people and the whole thing. And she’s kind of cute, too.

Scott Chappell: That’s a great answer. Beth, what do you have?

Beth Thieme: So my favorite tradition is when Amigo builds a new building. Before we move anything into that space, we take all our rental Amigos and we have our employees on a polo team, they play each other and we use cardboard sticks that come from the packaging we get in and we have nets at both ends. We have a lunch catered and I get to be the referee.

Beth Thieme: So if anybody runs into anybody on an Amigo, they have to go to the penalty box for a few minutes and it’s just fun. And so we’ve done it three times in the last five years. And it’s just a prize that people have asked, would you rent those out and let us do it at other companies? No, no, it’s Amigo’s tradition and we’re going to keep that going.

Samantha Taylor: I have had people ask me, they think it’s like an annual thing. No, no, no, no, that’s very unique, very special. That’s not an annual Amigo polo. Okay. How about proudest Amigo accomplishment? Maybe this is when you locked Beth in?

Beth Thieme: Proudest Amigo accomplishment.

Samantha Taylor: Or personal accomplishment…

Al Thieme: We’re still here!

Samantha Taylor: Yes!

Al Thieme: Hallelujah! Yeah.

Samantha Taylor: The lights are on!

Beth Thieme: Yes, the bills are paid!

Al Thieme: I don’t know.

Beth Thieme: Yeah, I don’t know.

Al Thieme: Oh. Probably the greatest accomplishment is when we were profitable for one year, five years, ten years in a row. Getting to that point, we were there… We were there for a while and then boom, down we went. So that… when you have a business, running a business and you can’t pay employees on time, you can’t pay suppliers, that is difficult.

Al Thieme: Yeah. So when you get to that level of profitability, and profitability… and you need that to grow and you need that to keep your whole family happy.

Beth Thieme: I cannot think of one because honestly there’s no award or accolade we’ve gotten that stands out for me. I just, I think probably for me, it’s that we have two children who really want this business because what that does is it’s continuity, it’s longevity, and that is what we want to create. We don’t want to someday leave the company and have it end.

Beth Thieme: We want the story to continue.

Samantha Taylor: Best advice that you’ve ever received from a mentor, colleague, or coworker?

Beth Thieme: From a mentor, colleague, or coworker?

Al Thieme: Oh, well, probably the best advice I got was from my dear friend Bob Zelle, the Case dealer here in Bridgeport. He said, Al, you can sell a lot and you can be profitable, but if you don’t watch your receivables, you’ll go broke. So he really drilled that into me. And then the other advice is for, Beth would tell me, “Be a little more careful.”

Al Thieme: Now, this is back in the early days because I would get kind of tough and challenging on people. I probably was on you, Scott, a few times, and Beth then would come along and talk to the people and say, “Al was under a lot of pressure. Please excuse him.”

Beth Thieme: Yeah, I remember getting the advice: watch your credit with a jealous eye.

Al Thieme:

Beth Thieme: And so the same message, always be careful with your money and watch that. And then I told Al this the other day that he has been a great mentor in my life, and he doesn’t take credit for that. But he has been… truly taught me business.

Scott Chappell: Oh, that’s nice.

Samantha Taylor: I know.

Scott Chappell: That’s beautiful.

Beth Thieme: You gotta take that out!

Samantha Taylor: No, that’s fantastic!

Al Thieme: Well, when we were interviewed with our book and some of the stories that we relived and we talked to Henry and we’d…

Samantha Taylor: You’d been through it together.

Al Thieme: We’d get a little glassy-eyed.

Beth Thieme: The book became painful.

Scott Chappell: Yeah.

Beth Thieme: Because remembering stories.

Samantha Taylor: It is such a beautiful story though.

Scott Chappell: That is nice. And was that your deep one? The deep question? Because if that’s not the one, I don’t want to go there!

Samantha Taylor: I think that’s honestly a great, great place to probably wrap it up, though. It just goes to show the passion that you guys have for each other and for this business.

Scott Chappell: This is probably our best podcast.

Samantha Taylor: This is absolutely our best podcast.

Samantha Taylor: This was phenomenal. I will say I was a little cautious going into this just because, Jen had mentioned six months ago, four months ago.

Samantha Taylor: A year ago.

Scott Chappell: A year ago that we should do this. And, you know, you’re always intimidated by the owners, right? That’s just the way businesses are. That’s the way business is, right? All the people at the top. But you two, I mean, as we just saw a few minutes ago, you don’t have to be intimidated. You’re real people.

Al Thieme: Well guess what? We might be invited to their next podcast! How about that?

Scott Chappell: The recycling one for sure.

Beth Thieme: And maybe they’ll pay us for that one!

Samantha Taylor: Wow,

Beth Thieme: We gotta start charging speaking fees.

Al Thieme: You gotta take that up with your agents.

Beth Thieme: First we gotta get an agent.

Scott Chappell: No, this is phenomenal. I’m just thinking that’s the way to start it off. And I’m so happy.

Samantha Taylor: Yeah. Absolutely.

Scott Chappell: Fantastic.

Samantha Taylor: Well, I think that wraps up another episode of our Amigo CartCast, thank you guys again for joining us today to kick off our 2025 CartCast podcast. You will definitely be invited back. We appreciate it. And until next time…

Beth Thieme: Keep it rolling!