Kendall Towing, LLC

This “Design of the Week” features Kendall Towing, LLC!

With a fleet of 18 trucks and over 30 employees, Kendall Towing is a AAA Road Service Provider and services approximately 3,000 calls a month around the Greater Pittsburgh area.

Kendall Towing owner, Nick Milanovic, is proud of his Pittsburgh roots.

“We’re a Pittsburgh company; I grew up in Pittsburgh. [Lived here] all my life,” says Milanovic. “Pittsburgh Owned, Pittsburgh Grown.” And the Pittsburgh Pride has made its way onto almost every shirt Kendall Towing has ordered from Excel over the years.

This featured shirt, illustrated by Excel artist Dean Dymerski, is no different, with a strong presence of the Pittsburgh skyline in the background. But it is also special for another reason. This shirt features Milanovic’s granddaughter, and the company’s namesake, Kendall.

“That’s my granddaughter!” beams Milanovic. Kendall herself is also excited, not only to have a company named after her but also to be featured on a shirt.

“She loves it! We actually took the truck to her kindergarten. They have what they call a ‘V.I.K. Week,’ a Very Important Kid Week. When it was her week, we took the truck, gave a little demonstration for them. And it was fun, all the little kids they are saying to Kendall ‘Oh you’re famous!’ ‘Look, your name’s on the truck!’ ‘Can I have your autograph?’ “

The fun designs are important for Milanovic, providing an identity for his business despite having a fleet of trucks with identical AAA markings. “Everybody’s kind of always branded the same way with AAA, with all our trucks uniform. The same white with the red and blue stripes and all that, so we’re kind of trying to distinguish ourselves with our shirts a little differently.”

And Milanovic’s intuition is proving to be correct, as his shirts featuring his trucks, the Steel City skyline, and even a Zamboni machine are gaining his company recognition.

“They’re noticed all around different parts [of Pittsburgh],” says Milanovic. “It’s not just the city, the guys wear different ones outside of work, and people come up to them and say ‘Hey, I know them!’ So, you know, they’re a good branding tool.”

Kendall Towing can be reached at 412-709-6675 and KendallTowingPgh.com.

This “Design of the Week” features McHugh Excavating & Plumbing!

Our featured Design of the Week is McHugh Excavating and Plumbing, Inc, a heavy civil construction company from Onalaska, Wisconsin.

The concept of the shirt was to showcase their two primary areas of business, excavation, and trucking. McHugh’s HR Safety Director Steve Olson provided the initial concept and photos, and Excel’s artist Dean Dymerski drew the illustrations.

Founded in 1976 by Daniel McHugh, the company performs a wide variety of projects across Wisconsin and Southeastern Minnesota, including water and sewer utilities, excavating and grading, trucking, lift stations, wastewater treatment plants, tank removal, and helical pile installation.

Growing up with the business, Daniel’s son Dean worked with McHugh Excavating and Plumbing. “I worked my way through high school and college summers here in the 1980s,” says Dean, “washing trucks, minor vehicle maintenance, and as a laborer.”

A few years after college, Dean returned as Controller and Project Manager, eventually taking over the business as President in 2005 before finally becoming the sole owner of the company in 2017.

Since taking over the company, Dean regularly stresses their 13 Core Values and holds an annual Season Kick-Off and Safety Day. This is an all-day event where the company is able to focus their teams for the new year, and also an opportunity for Dean to distribute new company apparel.

“Each year we give the employees some type of company apparel,” writes Dean. “T-shirt, jacket, polo shirt, sweatshirt, quarter zip pullover, etc.” McHugh has also ordered high-visibility safety shirts in the past, colors like Safety Green and Safety Orange that are designed to keep their employees seen while on site.

This year’s shirt features one of their Mack quad axle dump trucks and an excavator at work on a job site. The red of the truck, yellow of the excavator, and the orange of the beautiful Wisconsin sky really make the design stand out on the grey shirts.

“They look AWESOME,” writes McHugh of this year’s shirt. “It was super easy to explain what we wanted, provide some basic photos, and let your team go to work. Excel did a great job of turning our vision into reality.”

“These shirts are nicer,” says Dean, “And I expect the guys will wear these more as an off-hours personal item. We ordered extras, so we will probably give some to customers as well.”