GEN-Y Hitch of Nappanee, Indiana, specializes in innovative towing hitches and excellent customer service. The firm’s steel hitches are used for numerous equipment-towing applications by clients in the construction, agricultural, recreational, and industrial sectors, among others.
In recent years, the company has garnered a slew of celebrity endorsements, awards, and new hires. Marketing Director Donna Schmucker explains the company’s success: “Our products are made here in the U.S.A., so that’s a big feature our customers love,” she tells us. “We also have our own patented technology called TORSION-FLEX that creates a smoother ride and a more enjoyable towing experience.”
A world of hitches
TORSION-FLEX Technology uses rubber torsion bars as a suspension system while towing. This clever—and beautifully simple—solution absorbs inertia between the trailer and tow vehicle, enhances safety, and reduces jerking, creating a gentler ride.
While GEN-Y also sells hitch pins, tow hooks, flag poles, steps, running boards, ball mounts, and other components, trailer hitches remain the firm’s flagship offering. “Our hitches are what we’re most known for,” says Schmucker.
GEN-Y hitches include the MEGA-DUTY (with 10,000 to 32,000 pounds of towing capacity with multiple drop options) and The BOSS (which uses TORSION-FLEX technology and also offers 10,000 to 32,000 pounds of towing capacity). Other popular company wares include the SPARTAN Gooseneck hitch (another TORSION-Flex-equipped product with up to 30,000 pounds of towing capacity) and a bumper coupler called The Admiral.
Although 98 percent of GEN-Y’s product stock is made in-house, a few items come from outside suppliers. Almost all manufacturing, other than “various small parts and pieces that we’ve outsourced in the past,” is self-performed.
Indeed, the company recently consolidated its manufacturing and office staff into a single building in Nappanee and last year, management decided to bring the powder coating process in-house as well. “We’re in the process of finalizing a powder coating addition to our facility and we hope to have that up and running with new equipment in the next few months,” Schmucker says. A facility at another location manages the aluminum manufacturing operations.
As befits a company that makes a wide array of hitches, GEN-Y sells its products through multiple channels. “We go to market in several different ways,” says Schmucker. “We sell directly to wholesale distributors across America and Canada; we sell directly to consumers from our retail website; we sell through Amazon; and we also have a large international market. Australia is the fastest growing international market for us. We sell through Canada, Mexico, Chile, and the UK and are expanding every year in international markets.”
Creating opportunity
The company owes its existence to founder Carl Borkholder’s dissatisfaction with existing hitches during his previous career running a tree-trimming business. Borkholder wanted a towing hitch that was “adjustable, heavy-duty, and able to get the job done,” but was unimpressed with what was available on the market.
He began tinkering and experimenting in a quest for a stronger, better towing hitch. He welded and stacked receiver tubes, made further refinements, and developed a hitch named MEGA-DUTY that met his needs. Borkholder fitted his homemade hitch on his fleet of trucks, and it worked so well that, very quickly, requests for the product from friends, family, and colleagues began to pour in.
Sensing a business opportunity, Borkholder and a partner launched a hitch-making business in 2012. Initially based in Borkholder’s garage, the new firm was named GEN-Y as a reflection of the ages of the founders (Generation Y: people born from the early 1980s through to the late 1990s). Despite its excellent product line, the company was not an instant success. GEN-Y struggled for a time but began to take off thanks in part to Borkholder’s energetic promotional efforts on social media.
“He put the pedal to the metal with social media—sharing our products, taking videos, posting them,” recalls Schmucker. “He was passionate about posting on social media, and that’s what has led to a big part of our success today,”
Another canny strategy was to send products to influencers and businesspeople in the trucking world. This mission was a success, and now the GEN-Y website has an entire page of celebrities and firms who use and endorse its products. Their ranks include the Diesel Brothers from the acclaimed reality TV show about a truck restoration business; TFL Truck (videos and commentary about trucks and cars); Goonzquad (vehicle-related products); and Mr. Truck (truck and trailer reviews).
Other pro-GEN-Y influencers include the Cummins Cowgirl (Chloe Yonker, a high-profile female mechanic); SMG (CJ Dunlap, a social media star who often posts images of customized trucks); Truck Guru (truck builder Cris Payne); Wild RV Life (recreational vehicle lifestyle by Craig and Victoria Shelton); and Big Truck Big RV (YouTube truck reviews by “JD”).
Personal touch and tech
This marketing outreach, which can only be called infectious, was matched with friendly service and a personal touch. “One thing with the retail world in this day and age, much of it is automated and robotic. We shy away from that in our interaction with customers,” says Schmucker.
Instead, GEN-Y employs a team of sales representatives who personally answer calls and emails, help customers, and educate people on company products. Clients are routinely amazed at such courteous treatment, says Schmucker, and this ‘lend-a-hand’ ethos applies to staff as well. GEN-Y employees frequently collaborate and assist on projects and in helping customers.
Clearly, people appreciate this approach, as employment at GEN-Y has gone from a staff of 51 in 2021 to 83 at present. Job applicants should demonstrate a helpful attitude, strong work ethic, and a high degree of flexibility, says Schmucker: “We’re looking for people who can quickly pivot and adjust. We try to make products that fulfill the customer’s needs or, if they have frustrations, we want to be able to create products that help them.” Day to day, this may mean tweaking an existing product based on customer input or even developing a whole new product.
All GEN-Y staff work in an environment where safety is paramount. Safety glasses and other PPE are mandatory in manufacturing areas, and workers are given extensive training in everything from using forklifts to performing CPR.
“We’re making sure we’re prepared for anything that could happen in a manufacturing facility. We have a lot of heavy machinery, equipment, and robotics, so all the team members in charge of those machines are trained on the safety aspects,” says Schmucker.
Alongside safety, innovation is at the heart of GEN-Y’s mission. “The goal of our engineering team is to come out with at least one new product every quarter. So, this year, when I counted, there were seven, maybe eight products we came out with,” shares Schmucker.
Ironically, GEN-Y’s recent rise has brought about a few challenges, she says. “One of our biggest challenges was getting our suppliers to keep up with the growth we’ve experienced. We’re on track to hit 40 percent growth this year over last.” But it’s a good problem to have.
Winning recognition
The company’s hard work and emphasis on quality is paying off in another area; as of late, GEN-Y has been showered with industry kudos, including a New Product of the Year award bestowed at the 2022 North American Trailer Dealers Association (NATDA) trade show in Nashville, Tennessee. The award (one of several GEN-Y has earned from NATDA) was in recognition of a product called the GoosePuck Offset Ball Puck System.
“The GoosePuck is the first, factory OEM offset gooseneck ball on the market. It offers an additional five-inch offset and connects directly to the OEM puck system in the bed of a truck,” said a September 7, 2022 NATDA press release. GEN-Y was also a finalist in the Manufacturer of the Year category at last fall’s Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) trade show in Las Vegas.
A believer in giving back to the community, GEN-Y actively supports charities such as the Family Christian Development Center (FCDC—a faith-based nonprofit group based in Nappanee that provides aid to individuals and families) and the local Boys and Girls Club. GEN-Y also supports Cultivate Food Rescue, an organization in South Bend, Indiana that provides meals to school children in need.
As for what the future holds, Schmucker offers a highly optimistic forecast: “We have a new product list that’s a mile long,” she says. “In five years, I envision us with many new products out in the market, getting our toes wet in a couple of new markets, gaining more market share, and becoming a much more common name.”
