Growing up around trucks, 59-year-old Jamie Atkins says he was always destined to follow that career path.
“My dad and uncles were all truck drivers, so it was a rite of passage. I left school at 16 and did my mechanical apprenticeship, then got my licence at 21 and that same day I was in the truck on my way to Sydney,” he explained.
Based in Shepparton, Victoria, Jamie’s driving career has been wide and diverse, from working with his truckie father and grandfather carting bricks – and unloading them by hand – to working for some of the major transport companies and then owning his own trucks.
“Back when I started in the 1980s, I did all the old-school stuff, where you’d stop and have a cuppa together and pull up if you ever saw someone broken down.”
Jamie currently runs two Western Stars, carting pre-cast concrete slabs and beams around Victoria.
With close to 40 years behind the wheel, Jamie understands first-hand what truckies are looking for when it comes to sourcing quality parts – at an affordable price.
A trip to a truck show in California with his son-in-law Hayden, who is also a truck driver, planted the seed for a new business venture. And with that, VIOWAM Industries was born.
“When I go to truck shows overseas and come across a product I’m interested in, I ask a lot of questions until I find the person who created it and hear the backstory. I want to know how and why the product was developed,” explained Jamie.
“I look for products that are unique – parts that we either don’t have in Australia or don’t have at an affordable price.
“All my life I’ve been stung with high prices for truck parts. I had all these old blokes who used to help me out when I was younger, now I’m trying to help people out by sourcing quality parts and selling them at a good price.”
Among VIOWAM’s main products are SIYAM radiators imported from Jordan, Maxxview Mirrors from the USA to help eliminate a truck’s front and side blind spots and the innovative Ez-Crank, also from the USA, which makes light work of raising and lowering a trailer’s landing legs.
A family business through and through, Jamie runs VIOWAM alongside his daughters Natalie and Naomi, who have also been around trucks their entire lives. Together, the family is dedicated to bringing quality products to Australia from across the globe.
While they manage the day to day running of the business, Jamie continues to keep the wheels turning out on the road.
“I could eventually jump out of the truck but it’s a scary thing to think about giving it up, I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said. “A lot of people don’t realise what a truck means to us older fellas, who’ve been in the industry for all these years. Our trucks really do mean a lot to us.”
Jamie’s hope is to create the foundations of a multi-generational business that continues for decades to come – which was also the inspiration for the company’s name, derived from the first two letters of his grandchildren’s names: Vincent, Owen and Amelia.
As Natalie added, “Dad wants to build this business up, and then have something that can be passed on through the generations.”
She continued, “Dad will always do anything he can to help people, so through VIOWAM, he wants to help people find the best solutions with the best products; and he wants them to be affordable too because he knows what it’s like to have to make sacrifices in order to keep your truck moving.”
To find out more about VIOWAM Industries or to view the full range of products, please visit viowam.com.au.