THE JOURNAL RECORDTuesday, July 2, 2013 journalrecord.com $1.00 • Vol. 118, No. 129 • Two Sections

FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESS

Like father, like sonNext generation

branches out fromtrucking business

BY DAVID PAGETHE JOURNAL RECORD

OKLAHOMA CITY – In 1997, WoodKaufman was working for Bear Stearnsin Dallas. It was his first job after gettinga finance degree from the University ofArkansas.

After some discussions with hisfather, Kaufman left the job with theglobal financial industry giant to joinTruckers Bookkeeping Service inOklahoma City.

His father, Dennis Kaufman, pur-chased the compliance company pro-viding permitting and fuel tax reportingservices to the trucking industry in 1991and wanted his son to join him.

So Wood Kaufman left Dallas andBear Stearns in 1997 and joined hisfather at Truckers Bookkeeping Service.The family alliance has expandedTruckers Bookkeeping Services intoother businesses serving the truckingindustry.

The TBS Insurance Agency wasstarted in 1999 and is now licensed in 29states to provide insurance for thetrucking industry.

But it was Wood Kaufman’s idea fora factoring company to serve the truck-ing industry that evolved into thelargest of the three businesses.

Started in 2004, TBS FactoringServices has grown into a company with1,500 clients spread across the 48 con-tiguous states.

All three companies operate fromoffices at 3909 N. Classen Blvd. inOklahoma City. The two-story buildingwas purchased two years ago and reno-vated. The three companies moved inMay 2012.

Of the 73 employees, six work for theinsurance company, six work forTruckers Bookkeeping Service and theremainder work for TBS Factoring, saidWood Kaufman, founder and CEO ofTBS Factoring.

“Factoring is the main part and thelargest of our business,” he said.

Kaufman said he first started consid-ering a factoring business after workingwith clients of Truckers BookkeepingService.

“A lot of the truckers asked us if wedo factoring,” he said. “We would say no

and refer them to another company. So Idecided to look into how it worked.”

Wood Kaufman started attendingfactoring seminars and read a book onfactoring.

“I thought factoring was somethingwe could do,” he said.

So Wood Kaufman decided to start afactoring company, but he neededfinancing.

“I needed some investors,so I talked to my parents intoinvesting with me,” he said.

TBS Factoring started in2004 with Wood Kaufman,his father and his mother,Sherry Wood, all as one-thirdowners. Two-and-a-half yearsago, Wood Kaufman boughthis parents’ interest in the company.

Having the support of family mem-bers has helped TBS Factoring grow,Wood Kaufman said.

“It is nice to be able to bounce ideasoff someone you know,” he said. “We area pretty good family in that we all likeeach other.”

It also helps to work with people youtrust.

“One of my mother’s main functions

is sending out money to people,” WoodKaufman said. “If you cannot trust yourmother, who can you trust?”

Dennis Kaufman still owns themajority of Truckers BookkeepingService.

Other family members are alsoinvolved.

Quincy Kaufman, Wood Kaufman’ssister, runs the credit depart-ment.

His aunt and his mother’ssister, Genie Wood, is market-ing director for TBS Factoring.

When TBS Factoring start-ed in 2004, the companyworked only with the truckingindustry.

“Most of our clients havebetween one and 20 trucks,” WoodKaufman said. “They work all over thecountry and haul off kinds of stuff.”

Many of the customers are new busi-nesses and growing businesses and haveproblems getting bank financing, he said.

When the truckers send an invoice itusually takes 30 to 120 days before theinvoice is paid, Kaufman said. TBSFactoring buys the invoice from thetrucker the moment it is completed and

assumes the collection risk.“We may buy a $1,000 invoice for

$950 and we take the risk,” he said.Much of the work at TBS Factoring

is checking credit – not on the truckingcompany clients but on their customers.

“We make credit decisions all daylong,” Kaufman said.

When a trucker calls with a newclient, TBS Factoring will check thecredit of the company paying the bill. Ifapproved, the trucker can do additionalbusiness with the client and sell theinvoice to TBS Factoring.

TBS Factoring has about 22,000debtors in its database.

“We spend a lot of time teaching ourpeople how to do credit analysis,”Kaufman said. “We teach them how tomake credit decisions.”

TBS Factoring is expanding from itstrucking industry base into other indus-tries, including energy and telecommu-nications.

“We have clients in the telecommu-nication industry who are doing thingslike putting in phone towers,” he said.

In addition to trucking in the oil andgas industry, there are other clients likemachine shops that make parts.

Wood Kaufman, founder of TBS Factoring Services. PHOTO BY BRENT FUCHS

2004The year TBS

FactoringServices was

founded.

Bob Baker holds up the pieces of a mandolin he is working in hisHaskell, Texas, workshop. AP PHOTO/THE ABILENE REPORTER-NEWS, RONALD W. ER-

DRICH

West Texas luthier healsinstruments in disrepair

BY RONALD W. ERDRICHABILENE REPORTER-NEWS

HASKELL, Texas (AP) – It’s a littletongue-twisty – Bob Baker, Lutheranluthier.

“A luthier is somebody who makesstringed instruments,” Baker said.

If you’re having trouble trying towrap your head around the etymologyof the word, just think of the medievallute, precursor to the guitar, and you’llget it.

“It started out kind of as a hobby,”Baker said. “I wanted to learn how toplay a banjo a few years back, so Istarted taking lessons.”

But it was an old beat-up banjo thatcaught his imagination.

“My son found an old 1920 Gibsonbanjo,” Baker said. “A tenor banjo, it wasjust a four-string and it was a wreck.”

Baker took the instrument in, capti-vated by the idea that maybe he couldbreathe new life into it. Problem was, hewas starting from ground zero. Bakerdidn’t know the first thing about refin-ishing banjos, guitars or anything likethat.

“I do a lot of reading,” he said.Refinishing the banjo turned out to

be more satisfying than actually playingit.

“I play a little bit. I really thought Iwould enjoy it – and I do enjoy plunking– but I really like this other part better,”Baker said.

He and his wife, Lowell Anne,started hunting for broken-down in-struments, poking around at auctions,junk sales and anywhere else theythought something might turn up. Itturned out that as with cars, there’s a lit-tle money to be made restoring guitars.They call their family business LoBoLuthiers.

“One time we bought three Martinguitars that were just wrecked. Martinsare a real-high-quality guitar,” he said.

“I fixed them up, repainted them andwe sold them on eBay.”

He said there’s not exactly a big liv-ing to be made from this.

Restoring a guitar, mandolin, banjoor even hammer dulcimer takes a goodbit of time.

For a while, Baker used to fix guitarsfor locals but that didn’t last very long.

“I do it all pro-bono now, if some-body brings me a broken string or some-thing I won’t charge them for it,” hesaid. “I figured out pleasing people cancause a lot of problems.”

He said that might have been a les-son he learned as city manager from1984 to 1992.

It definitely was something he fig-ured out in the 23 years before his stintat City Hall when he worked in law en-forcement. Restoring guitars is a lot eas-ier and certainly more satisfying. It alsokeeps him busy.

“You know, I worked my whole lifeand I just don’t want to go fishing,”Baker said. “I want to work, do some-thing constructive to satisfy my ownneed.”

He started off with a small work-shop in the back of the garage. But likeall good hobbies, it eventually requiredits own space.

In Baker’s case, it actually takes up atrio of rooms of varying size and pur-pose.

The actual shop sits behind hishouse. Next to it an industrial trailerholds a computerized routing machinehe used to put mother-of-pearl inlay onfret boards or create relief carvings.

A separate room at the back of thegarage serves as a paint booth.

“You can see, I have accumulated alot of tools,” he said, rummagingthrough a set of plastic drawers filledwith small devices used for carving,shaping, tuning and any number ofother purposes.

An electric guitar speckled with col-

FAMILY-OWNED