By Kirk

We have had the pleasure of knowing Kirk Higgins from Moto-Tow, Inc. for the past few years. He is a hardworking entrepreneur, that saw a need in Florida for a motorcycle towing company and over ten years has added trucks to cover Daytona, the I4 corridor and the West Coast of Florida. We have seen his crews at many motorcycle events participating as backup and on the road towing trucks all over the state!!! Hard work, long hours and being honest have contributed to his success!!! We let Kirk write his story…hope you don’t need a tow but if you do call 800-TOW-A-BIKE!!

I lived in the suburbs of Chicago my whole life. I worked for a printing company and just didn’t want to work so hard for someone else. I’d go so far as to say I was a “clock watcher” and couldn’t wait to clock out. I used to own rental houses back in the 70’s and 80’s until interest rates got so high the market died. At 29, I decided to try something different and bought a laundromat. Now I ran the store in my spare time and worked a fulltime job. It kind of worked out so I turned around and bought a second one. Soon after buying the second one I got into vending machines for soda and candy, etc. Eventually I quit the day job. I also bought a snowplow and started plowing snow for some of my vending customers. Year after year I kept adding more trucks and more vending accounts. When I sold the laundromats, I bought out a small vending company. Now I was busy a lot. I lost my dad and a few years later my mom. In 1998 I had over 300 machines out on the street and 9 plow trucks then I decided to move to Florida.

I settled in Ft. Myers area and thought about retiring, but I was too restless. I bought a business that was going downhill and I breathed some light into it only to have it all slip away after 9/11. Lost everything. Started over and I’m now 50 years old. I moved to St. Petersburg while I was dating my current wife. She was my boss. I hadn’t worked for anyone since I was 30. I liked what I did but I needed something of my own. I had a 2001 Ultra Classic I rode to work and one day I needed a tow. The truck came out and it was a motorcycle emergency truck. I called my wife and told her I wanted to get into this, and the idea was born. In 2010 I bought a new truck and a new deck that goes into the truck and off I went. My job allowed me to break from it to get a stranded bike from time to time, so the 2 things worked well. Nobody was there to help me. Nobody was there to offer suggestions…I just worked it until I had a system.

In 2014 a friend of mine worked for a motorcycle towing company in Daytona. I found out they were closing the doors on that company. I reached out to the owner and bought him out just a few weeks before Biketoberfest. So now we were running bike calls in two parts of the state. I kept adding trucks here in St. Pete as we grew. I started knowing other motorcycle towing owners and one of them was in Orlando. I reached out to him in late 2016 and bought him out in January of 2017. Now we can cover bikes all across the I-4 corridor. Orlando has grown and an additional truck was needed over there too. We now have 7 motorcycle rescue trucks serving the motorcycle population from St Pete/Tampa, Orlando and Daytona.

Writing this sound like it was so easy, but it is a lot of work. A lot of sleepless night and headaches, but we never give up. We never leave anyone on the side of the road. We are going to be starting our tenth year soon and it is still exciting every day.