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BILL JACOB, UPS by Tara Baukus Mello Car enthusiasts get your packages delivered on time I t may seem that UPS has been a fixture at the Street Rod Nationals Plus forever, but the relationship actually evolved out of the NSRA making Louisville the permanent home for the Nationals nearly two decades ago. Louisville happens to be the airline headquarters for UPS and a very large number of its 20,000 employees are car enthusiasts who have attended all the Nationals events, both as participants and as spectators. "At the Nats in the early ‘90s, Bob Reynolds from the NSRA and a couple of the guys who worked at UPS were telling him Louisville is the home of the UPS airline and they brainstormed that it would be cool to have a UPS counter at the show for people who wanted to ship packages home," explains Bill Jacob, vice president of Airline Ground Support Equipment at UPS Air Group. The customer counter appeared the following year, filled with free packing materials and staffed by volunteer UPS employees who boxed up everything that rodders brought in Louisville is the UPS airline headquarters and many of its 20,000 employees are car enthusiasts who have attended the Nationals events, both as participants and as spectators. 82 APRIL 2012 Staffed by UPS volunteers, the shipping counter allows rodders to ship items they buy that they can't easily transport home. Boxes and packaging materials are free and packages are priced at current UPS rates, though a portion of every shipment fee goes to charity. and then slated it to be shipped all over the world. Organizing a customer counter and support for it at the Nationals was easy. (Fellow car enthusiasts surround Bill within his department, the airline automotive group, which primarily focuses on the vehicles that assist the UPS airlines with their loads, including baggage tractors, movers and like.) "Most of the people in my department started out as mechanics and they are car fanatics as a result, so they didn't need to be asked twice if they wanted to help out at an event where they could check out more than 10,000 amazing cars," Bill says. Bill himself is a rodder, owning a '66 Corvette, a '51 Chevy pickup he's currently rodding and a mildly-rodded '55 Chevy pickup he brings to the Nationals. The customer counter has been a fixture at the Nationals every year APRIL 2012 83 since. While the shipping counter is now headed up by the owner of a local UPS store who volunteers her time, it is still staffed by volunteer UPS employees (present and retired), some of whom have worked the Nationals customer counter every year since its inception. Boxes and packaging materials are free and the volunteers supply the labor to make sure the rodders latest treasures are packed securely. Boxes are weighed and priced at current UPS rates, though a portion of every shipment fee goes to a charity that UPS selects. The brainstorming didn't stop at the Nationals customer counter, however. The year after that 84 APRIL 2012 Bill Jacob and the Ground Support Equipment team at UPS coordinate the partnership between UPS and the NSRA, while a team of UPS car enthusiasts volunteers their time at the Street Rod Nationals Plus to ensure everything operates smoothly. was created, the idea to create scales that could weigh rods came about. "We use scales at every airport as part of our shipping process, so in the off-season we took one of our portable scales and modified it with ramps so a car could be driven onto it. Then we brought it to the next Nationals and it's been there ever since," says Bill. UPS uses the scales as a fundraiser for the designated charity, with rodders who get their cars weighed making an on-the-spot donation as they see fit. About the same time, UPS developed a small line of merchandise, including rodding-oriented mugs and T-shirts that it sold as an additional way to raise money for its selected charity. In the late ‘90s, the original hot rod UPS truck arrived at the UPS display at the Nationals. It was a stock brown UPS delivery truck (called a "package car" in UPS-speak) with a flamed nose and chromed wheels. "It was a huge hit," Bill says. "It was so unlike UPS because we are such a conservative company, but this was about the same time we started a NASCAR sponsorship too." The car was displayed at the Nationals for a couple of years and people kept asking to see under the hood and the UPS volunteers in the booth were somewhat embarrassed since it was entirely stock. They even nicknamed the car "the poser." At that point, a UPS employee named Bob Sarges, who had been overseeing the UPS program at the Nationals, advocated to build a "real" UPS hot rod. The necessary corporate approvals were gotten, car enthusiast volunteers stepped up to participate in the build and a variety of rodding companies donated items. A UPS package car that had made deliveries for 20 years and was getting ready to be retired was rescued from the crusher for the project. (Typically, when UPS vehicles have reached the UPS employees Dennis Grant, left, and Doug Feuerhelm, right, volunteered at the UPS merchandise booth at the Nationals, selling T-shirts, posters and other products whose proceeds are all donated to charity. APRIL 2012 85 Affordable Metal Working Equipment end of their life span, the useful parts are removed and the vehicles are sent to be crushed.) The volunteer group spent their free time over one winter building this second UPS rod, which is thoroughly rodded including a 464-cubic-inch Ford built by Roush. The car is not street legal, so it is transported on a flatbed trailer to the Nationals, as well as at other local events where UPS is involved. About five years ago, UPS started talking with the NSRA about how it could be more involved and it became a sponsor company. It now sponsors Commercial Way at the Nationals, selecting three cars to receive trophies, as well as sponsors the pins that are given out to all the NSRA volunteers that work at the Nationals. While UPS may be a conservative company, the No trunk space? UPS gets it home for you T he UPS shipping counter has been a long-time staple at the NSRA Street Rod Nationals Plus in Louisville, but few people realize that this counter offers way more than simply shipping an item. All the packing materials are free and the volunteer staff will box and securely pack anything you bring them— including such oddball items as fenders, bicycles and even a carousel horse with a pole running through it! They also offer an "open box" service, where you can keep a box with them open all weekend dropping off items as you shop. Shippers pay no extra charge for these services and only the standard shipping rates they'd pay at any UPS Store. (UPS donates a portion of the shipping fees to 86 APRIL 2012 charity.) All boxes are held until Monday morning when they are loaded up into the UPS "poser" (see main article for details) and brought to a UPS hub near the Louisville airport to begin their journey. For packages that are going UPS Ground, they are routed onto a series of semitrucks and sometimes railroad cars, depending on their final destination. (UPS is the largest user of the railroad in the U.S.) For packages that are going overseas or a faster method within the U.S., they are routed through the nearby hub and over to the Louisville airport facility, the hub for UPS' airline fleet where over 150 UPS airplanes take off and land daily to transport packages all over the world. The Pearl in Texas: Bill is a rodder who owns a '66 Corvette, a '51 Chevy pickup he's currently rodding and a mildly-rodded '55 Chevy pickup (shown here) he brings to the Nationals. CALL FOR FREE CATALOG • Cut any shape up to 3/16” TRACE-A-PUNCH NIBBLERS A group of UPS employees who are car enthusiasts volunteered their time to build this UPS rod, which is thoroughly tricked out, including a 464ci Ford engine built by Roush. relationship with the NSRA is a natural for the Louisville Airline Headquarters, which has 20,000 employees. "This is where almost all of our airplane engineers and mechanics are. These are closet car guys," says Bill. "We would be out there on the fairgrounds regardless. This just gives us a way to be more involved." 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