12 10-4 Magazine / January 2026 Shoutout to those who had a hand in the truck including TD-Graphics out of Kewaskum for the stripes and Karen at KB Lettering. Karen is responsible for the beautiful pinstriping on not only this truck, but many other trucks the two family companies own. I met TJ for the first time at the 2017 Guilty By Association Truck Show (GBATS) in Joplin, MO where he was awarded a calendar spot for the show’s 2018 calendar with his 1985 Peterbilt 359 daycab. I have always been a fan of cool daycabs, and this truck was no exception, with the top being chopped four inches, a Peterbilt emblem shaped rear window cut in the back wall, a stretched frame with a Peterbilt low air leaf cutoff, and a custom ostrich leather interior. ChrisFiffieofBigRigVideos and I worked together photographing the trucks for the calendar that year, which is how I had the opportunity to meet TJ for thefirsttime. Butbringingcooltrucksto big shows didn’t start or stop there. In 2016, TJ and a few other drivers went to the Mid-America Trucking Show in March where they brought four Blue Leasing trucks including the previously mentioned 359, a 1982 Pete 362 cabover that TJ’s grandpa bought new, a 1987 Peterbilt 359, and a 2017 Peterbilt 389 Pride and Class (I was at MATS that year but did not meet TJ). If you saw photos or videos from that year at MATS, the epic four-wide formation around the Circle of Champions loop was amazing to witness! TJ has taken plenty of trucks to SuperRigs, as well, including Tulsa, OK in 2017 with the 389, and Branson, MO in 2022 with the cabover. Oddly, all these years, including the Waupun Truck-N-Show, TJ and I hadn’t crossed paths anywhere until GBATS 2017. Unfortunately, TJ never had the opportunity to know his grandfather Henry, because he passed away when TJ was only a couple years old. He said he would’ve definitely looked up to him and would’ve been able to learn a lot from him,too. Themostinfluentialpeople in TJ’s life are his parents because he learned about going to work, what it meant to work hard, and working until the work is done. He is grateful for his father to still be around, but due to early onset Alzheimer’s, he lost his mother about three years ago. He said she was one of the nicest ladies ever, and she did all the accounting and computer work for the companies. Something most may not know, unless you’ve been around him, is that TJ has a prosthetic on his left leg. Due to an accident when he was 20, he lost his leg from just below his knee and down. One wouldn’t know by the way he carries himself, but back then, he had a month’s stay in the hospital, 14 surgeries, and had to retake his road test to get his CDL back again. Today, their two companies are based out of West Bend, WI with a shop complete with multiple bays including a wash bay, and a storage building for
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