Growing Up in the Carnival Business
I’m Gary Thacker, the owner of Brothers Easy Moving of Tampa, and this is a little bit about my story.
I grew up in the carnival business. I was born in Moline, Illinois but only stayed there for about 3 days. My dad was playing at little fairs around Chicago and little festivals. We pretty much traveled in the business my whole life growing up. I learned a lot about business and a lot about people. I learned how to work hard from an early age.
An Early Entrepreneur
I guess I’ve been in my own business my whole life. Growing up, I used to walk around from game to game basically asking people if they were hungry or thirsty. I would run for them and grab something from a commissary or a concession stand and return. They would give me a couple dollars for tips. I used to do that when I was probably 10 years old. I also worked in a lot of my dad’s games.
One of my favorite parts of it was tearing down and setting up. It was always a lot of fun moving things like that. I’ve always enjoyed working hard with my hands ever since I was young. One of the first jobs I had at the carnival besides running around was as a waterboy. I used to work for the show owner and I had jugs of water that I used to have to fill in the morning and distribute to all the games. I’d then go around and collect $3 per game. One dollar went to me, a dollar went to the show, and a dollar went to my boss. It was a lot of responsibility for a young kid, getting up early, making sure that the delivery was on time, and also making sure that everybody collected the money at the end of the day.
Learning to Sell
After the waterboy position, I used to work state fair games. It was long hours where I used to have to call people in and try to convince them to play a game and win a teddy bear for their children or their date. It wasn’t very easy, but I learned how to sell teddy bears to people that didn’t want teddy bears.
Family Life and Hard Times
I learned a lot from my dad. He came into the carnival business poor. He had nothing when he came and in time he had a thriving carnival business. We had a nice house, nice things, and a beautiful family. When my mom and dad split up, we basically lost everything. We went from living on top of the world to living in our car. My mom was in Texas and me and dad and my brother were traveling in the carnival.
Out on My Own
I left home when I was sixteen. I went to different carnivals and worked for different people. I got into moving rides, and I liked to work hard and to prove myself. I was very competitive and always trying to be the best at what I did. I always wanted to prove everybody wrong, and show them that our family was more than what they said. Seeing how we lost everything, it was kind of a joke to everybody, and I felt like they thought we were a joke. All I tried to do my whole life is get my family back together.
The Turning Point
At 17 years old, I made one of the biggest steps in my life and I went from believing in God to knowing God. I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior and that made me the man that I am today. It made me unstoppable, it made me absolutely relentless and I want to be the best at whatever I did. Then I went to work for some friends of mine in the carnival business. I basically came in as a fry cook and ended up running a state fair operation within a couple years. I got my class A CDL when I was 21 and I got out of the carnival business.
The Next Chapter
I went to work for a company and I worked there for 3 years. I was one of their best drivers. I got a bunch of awards and my aspiration has always been to own my own business. There were times where I worked for moving companies. I didn’t really think much of it but I did see a business that had huge potential, and also companies that just really weren’t trying to do the right thing by the customers. The way they looked at it was that people are only going to move once or twice and they’re not going to remember who moved them, so it didn’t really matter. I thought, this would be a great business if someone came along and tried to do it right.
Getting Into the Moving Business
I saved all my money, got my credit built up, and I was 24 years old when I started my first business. I went to the carnival with just a pickup truck and a trailer and for 8 years I was out there and every year I almost doubled my business in size. I would set up rides and tear down rides and that gave me a lot of leverage with the show to give me a good position with good locations. I’ve always been a workaholic so it went right along with what I was used to doing. For a long time I couldn’t figure out how to get out of the carnival business, because I had kids and I wanted to be there for them. I prayed real hard for a long time and the last year in the carnival business I grossed over $400,000.
Starting Over
Getting off the road was very hard. I started my life over again and started with nothing. It got so bad that I was living in my truck for a little while. I went back to the same church that I was going to when I found God and I told God that I was here to do whatever he wanted.
Brothers Easy Moving of Tampa Today and in the Future
I’ve never had a month that was worse than the previous year’s month. We’ve had over 80 months of straight growth largely due to online reputation and word-of-mouth advertising, so this business has far exceeded where we were when I first started. Where I want to go with this business is franchising. I don’t care if I’m the largest but I want to be the best well-known moving company that does moves the right way, hires the right people, and promotes the right way. March 2nd 2018 will be our eighth year.
