
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 14, 1993                   TAG: 9308140206
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PAT BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BUENA VISTA                                LENGTH: Medium

FINDING HAPPINESS AFTER BLUE BIRD'S FLOWN

Larry Tolley and members of his family have been reshaping their lives. After Blue Bird Body Co. closed its school bus factory, Tolley went to work for a competitor. His wife and son also lost jobs when the community's largest employer shut its doors in December.

Tolley was the first person interviewed by Blue Bird in 1972 when the Georgia company was building its plant in Buena Vista. After he was hired, Tolley was in charge of constructing the first bus the plant made. Last year, he was responsible for making sure that the last bus was assembled on time.

Blue Bird, based in Fort Valley, Ga., announced a year ago it would shut the factory, blaming a weak economy and overcapacity in the school bus industry. The action cost more than 200 jobs.

Tolley transferred his two decades of experience in the bus business by grabbing up a dealership for AmTran, an Arkansas-based bus maker. His actual employer is Mountain International of West Virginia, a company that supplied him with bus bodies when he was scheduling production for Blue Bird.

"If you know it, why not use it?" he said, explaining how he decided to look for a bus sales franchise rather than training for a new career.

Over his modest office door is the name AmTran-Virginia. His dealership is one of only three bus sales firms in the state. From his work with Blue Bird, Tolley knew how to get on the bid lists for every school district so that purchasing agents, transportation directors and superintendents would send him bid specifications.

But by opening his business in February, Tolley missed most of the busy months for school bus sales.

"Buying for the year was just about complete," he said, but he still managed to win 25 percent of the bids he submitted. He said he hopes he is as successful this year, when he has the whole school year to pursue bids.

"Of course, ideally, since there are three dealers, I will be looking for 33 percent," he added, smiling.

Tolley has already found something positive to say about his new job.

"This is less stressful," he said. In charge of customer relations, warranties and production for Blue Bird, he was often on the spot.

"If I didn't give them what they wanted to hear, they chewed on me," he said of Blue Bird clients, who called from all over the nation and other countries.

Now Tolley focuses strictly on sales. He has no employees to direct and has arranged for service and warranty work to be done by a truck manufacturer with service centers around Virginia.

He says he is keeping overhead low until he can visit and get his name on more of the bid lists of the state's 135 public school districts and 75 private schools using buses.

But he is confident.

"When you're working in a factory, you have other responsibilities," Tolley said. Now that he is strictly a dealer, he says he'll be better focused. "A dealer's responsibility is to his customer."

Tolley's wife, Brenda, also worked for Blue Bird. Once he had overseen construction of a bus, she might be asked to drive the finished product to its new home.

Asked what his wife is doing now, Tolley jokes, "She's at home making a list of things for me to do and putting it up on the refrigerator."

Actually, Brenda Tolley is enrolled in school. Last semester she took computer, business and banking classes. Because she is a displaced worker, her community college classes are paid for by the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration through the Virginia Employment Commission.

Brenda Tolley plans to help her husband with computer work until he gets firmly established. The business telephone already rings at their home when Larry Tolley is on the road. She's not sure what work she will seek after that.

The Tolleys' son, Rusty, was also hit hard by the factory's closing. Instead of working summers cleaning buses, the college student is "working at Burger King for half the money," the father said.

Still, Larry Tolley is relieved.

"I haven't missed the summer in the bus [manufacturing] business," he said, recalling 14-hour days in July heat to get orders completed and delivered. Nowadays, he said, "I have my own schedule, set up my own trips."

And, there aren't any appointments on his calendar; Tolley gets to wear shorts to the office.

by CNB