Small-town Iowa ambulance builder with CR connection reaches milestone vehicle No. 5,000  

During a job-killing pandemic, the ambulances kept coming. That certainly was the case at Life Line Emergency Vehicles, a 35-year-old company that builds emergency vehicles in Sumner, Iowa. Indeed, the pace of production has been steady enough at Life Line that the manufacturer just finished its 5,000th ambulance. The vehicle’s buyer is relatively local, too, with an August delivery scheduled for Fort Dodge, Iowa, Fire Rescue. For Life Line Emergency Vehicles, it’s the culmination of a process that not only contributes to saving a life but also pumps economic vitality into Sumner, a rural community of 2,200 residents about 140 miles northeast of Fort Dodge. Indeed, at a time when the vital signs of small-town economies are wavering, Life Line has reached a key health milestone, said Randy Smith, who came to Life Line in 1989 for summer employment when he was in college, moved into a full-time slot afterward and now serves as company president. “The staff has been great; we have been following CDC guidelines,” he said, describing how Life Line has dealt with the pandemic’s restrictions. “Until recently, we were taking employee temps, wearing masks and practicing social distancing as best as we could in a manufacturing setting.” Life Line had to curtail customer visits to the factory as a concession to the pandemic, Mr. Smith noted. “We miss those opportunities to meet with our customers,” he said. “Hopefully, we can get back to that someday soon.” Sales were “sluggish” early in the pandemic, Mr. Smith said. “We have independent sales distributors around the country, and they work closely with EMS committees designing custom ambulances, so this requires a lot of communication and back and forth; the pandemic brought many of these conversation to a stop, which meant no signed contracts,” he said. Eventually, Life Line and its customers adapted to “find a new way to conduct business,” Mr. Smith noted. “Today, we have production slots scheduled well into 2022,” he said. “Our current limitations are sporadic material delays, specifically chassis availability due to microchip shortages. Fortunately, we have a solid inventory of presold chassis that will help bridge the supply chain gaps.” Life Line, started as a family-owned business in 1985 and purchased in 2017 by Cedar Rapids-based employee-owned holding company Folience Inc., has a history of dealing with Iowa clients. “We have built and delivered over 800 ambulances in Iowa alone,” Mr. Smith said. He noted that the company’s first ambulance went to Sartori Hospital in Cedar Falls in 1986. Life Line, which became fully employee-owned when Folience purchased the company, currently has 180 workers – a number that “has been pretty constant” over the last five years, Mr. Smith said. The COVID-19 pandemic has not mitigated company growth, although there have been challenges, Mr. Smith said. “As we continue to work through material disruptions created by the pandemic, we would like to add additional employee-owners, so we can achieve more milestones in the near future,” he said. Most employees are long-timers, Mr. Smith noted, adding that about one-quarter of them have been with the company for at least 20 years and 12, more than 30 years. The Sumner roots at Life Line continue to run deep, Mr. Smith said. “We have a number of employees-owners working at Life Line that are volunteers for local fire and EMS departments and have the opportunity to actually work out of the same units they helped build,” he said. “They all take great pride, not only in what they do but how they do it. Our Iowa customers are what help establish Life Line as a premier custom ambulance manufacturer recognized across the country. With their feedback, they help hold us accountable to manufacture a high-quality ambulance with first-class customer service.” Terry Evans, EMS supervisor for Fort Dodge Fire Rescue, agreed. “It’s a good company; I could talk a long time about why we chose them,” Mr. Evans said. “They’ve got a good track history, and it’s all about quality.” Fort Dodge has been a customer for more than 30 years, Life Line’s Mr. Smith noted. That means Life Line doesn’t disappear after the sale, Mr. Evans said. “I’ve seen them fix problems,” he said. “Instead of drawing a hard line, they look at every situation seriously. They truly have a very open-minded concept. They always make you feel prioritized. They don’t do lip service. They actually do it in tech work and configure something you want.” Buying “locally” is an important consideration, Mr. Evans said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, and it’s great that we don’t have to travel more than a couple of hours, compared to a day and a half – or even a different time zone –to work a deal for ambulances,” Mr. Evans said. “Them being what we consider local is fantastic.” Life Line’s 5,000th ambulance is the sixth in Fort Dodge Fire Rescue’s fleet, Mr. Evans said. “This one is eventually going to be replacing one of the older ambulances, which Life Line likely will be called on to refurbish, Mr. Evans said. “Life Line has one of the stouter boxes I’ve seen,” he said. The vehicles themselves can run as long at 500,000 miles, although that’s admittedly an “optimistic” estimate, given the nature of their work, Mr. Evans said. “If your maintenance is good, you can get 300,000-500,000, but realistically, if you can get 300,000 out of an ambulance, that’s a good number to shoot for,” he said. The cost of a new ambulance – at its most basic – can be about $200,000, but the final cost for a fully equipped and customized unit typically is higher, Mr. Evans said. “Cost” also is an elusive concept, where ambulances are concerned, Mr. Evans said. “That’s really not the way to look at it,” he said. “You’re basically buying something you’re going to beat the crap out of. You want to look at the quality value of the dollars you’re spending. With Life Line, it’s top-notch. They give a good product and it’s solid.” Life Line was an ideal addition to Folience’s portfolio of properties, which primarily consist of Iowa newspapers, including the Cedar Rapids Gazette, but also includes Chickasha, Okla.-based Cimarron Trailers, said Daniel Goldstein, the holding company’s president and CEO. “In February 2020, I was invited to testify before Congress House Committee on Small Business,” Mr. Goldstein said. “It wasn’t that we were the best and most profitable; it was because of the Life Line story that we keep good paying jobs in rural communities.” Through its Folience’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), all Life Line workers have ownership stakes in the parent firm. “If Life Line would have been bought by private equity, they would have been sold by now,” Mr. Goldstein said.