Spokane Valley-based Inland Pacific Trailer Service & Repair LLC has spun off from Inland Pacific Trailer Sales Inc. to become its own corporation, says Steven Hanning, one of the three owners of the spinoff company.

Inland Pacific Trailer Service & Repair provides maintenance and repairs for “virtually any make of semitrailer manufactured,” and has a fabrication shop for additions to trailers, says Hanning. 

Located at 1414 N. Fancher Road, the business is located along with Mercer Trucking Co. and Inland Pacific Trailer Sales on a yard of about eight acres, says Hanning. 

The business also handles insurance work on semitrailers and provides warrantee work for three manufacturers: Reitnouer Inc., Imco, and Cornhusker aluminum hopper trailers. 

“Our forte and real focus is semitrailers,” says Hanning, but the business will repair other trailer types, including refrigerated, flatbed, belt, chip, and refuse trailers, he says.

Hanning is one of three owners in the venture, along with Ryne Brockway and Bob Lund. 

Hanning and Brockway founded and also own Inland Pacific Trailer Sales. Hanning is its CEO and president, and Brockway is the vice president. 

The business formation follows a year-long test run, which started in June of 2016, in which services and repairs were offered to clients through Inland Pacific Trailer Sales, but not as a separate business, says Hanning. After a year passed, the service and repair side of the business split off to establish itself.

Since Inland Pacific Trailer Sales was formed in 2015, Hanning says Brockway and he “knew we wanted to go to the next level and complement the sales with the service and repair.”

Hanning says Lund contacted them about starting the service and repair business.

 “We said, ‘Let’s do it for a year. See how we do,” says Hanning. After that year, if the three found the arrangement worked well, they would agree to separate the service and repair side of Inland Pacific Trailer Sales and establish it as its own business, he says. 

Including the three spinoff founders, seven employees work for Inland Pacific Trailer Service & Repair, all of whom are full time, he says. 

“I’m excited with the people we have working for us, what a great job they do, and that they really take pride in their work,” says Hanning. 

The company has two bays to work on trailers, but if the bays are full, they work on them outside, where the company has a trailer pad, he says. 

Between receiving the first of its inventory in July 2015 and the end of that year, Inland Pacific Trailer Sales generated more than $4 million in sales, says Hanning. Last year, the company’s sales dropped slightly, and this year, he projects the company to do considerably better than in 2015. 

Inland Pacific Trailer Sales has two employees, Brockway and Hanning, who are both full time, Hanning says.

Inland Pacific Trailer Service & Repair has also done well and is expected to perform better this year, he says. 

In addition to his involvement with the new service and repair business, Brockway has 17 years of experience selling trailers. Lund, who, along with being an owner of the spinoff company, is the estimator for the spinoff company and runs its repair shop. He has spent nearly 35 years manufacturing and repairing trailers, says Hanning. 

Hanning is also president and owner of Mercer Trucking, which his family purchased in 1975. That company has 24 employees and operates 15 trucks in it’s fleet, according to a survey Hanning submitted last month for the Journal of Business’ Spokane-Area Trucking Companies List. Mercer Trucking’s primary type of hauling is long haul truckloads. Primary products the business hauls include building materials, iron and steel, machinery, and agricultural products.