Keyed Up

Dave

What is your job title and day-to-day routine?

I'm pretty much the head repo agent at Bear Swamp. Day to day, I make sure our agents do what they're supposed to, usually working with PJ – although most repos go through me. I do both office management and most of the repos.

Tell us about some of the stupidest people you've encountered while on the job?

Too many. Usually, if someone's getting crazy, I just talk my way out of everything.

What's the craziest thing you've had to deal with on a tow?

We had a dump truck repo -- me and a guy who used to work here a long time ago. The repo went fine at first; we towed the dump truck to a parking lot and stopped and got out to examine it, thinking we'd gotten away undetected. But the next thing you know, the former owner pulled up. I jumped into the dump truck and my co-worker took the repo truck and we drove off, with the owner chasing us. We were driving around for a while with him trying to smash into us or drive the trucks off the road. Then, he must've called somebody, because we had four guys in a second car waving baseball bats and trying to drive us off the road. We got to a red light and the guy just kept coming at us. The guy following us smashed into us and drove off the road, crashing through a yard, totaling his car and messing up the repo truck pretty good. You know, now that I think about it, I think that's why my partner quit.

Is that your worst memory of working at Bear Swamp Recovery?

Having to call PJ and tell him the truck was messed up, yeah. But we got the collateral.

What did you do before this?

I had my own towing company before this. I actually picked up a car from PJ and we hit it off. He knew I had a flatbed, so two days later he asked me to repo a car with it. I went, didn't knock on the door to ask for the keys or anything, just hooked it up and towed it to PJ's. He said they were impressed, that they had been looking for that car for a while. You could say I was hooked. Two months later, I sold my company and came to work here. I've been towing since I was 17; a friend of mine started a company at 19 and I went to work towing for him after high school.

Are you a Bear Swamp Recovery lifer?

God, I hope not. I really hope not! But as long as we keep doing the TV show, I'll keep doing it, that's for sure.