Page 27 - MidJersey Business - November/December 2014

were gaining a foothold in the market. That year, the Smock

family bought PL Custom Body, which was based in a
5,000-square-foot facility and produced only three ambu-

lances per year.

“People looked at us like we were crazy,” Deborah Thom-
son, Smock’s daughter and the company’s executive vice

president, says. “Back then, it was very radical.”
Four years later, just as Smock predicted, the modular

ambulance became the norm and the company was of and
running. He moved the business to Wall Township in 1974,

where it is currently housed in a 110,000-square-foot facil-
ity and produces more than 175 custom-built ambulances

and rescue vehicles each year, according to Thomson, who PL Emergency Vehicles builds
is set to run the company in 2015.
reliable vehicles that must stand
up to the harshest conditions.
Ambulances and life-saving equipment have to be built to
last. When it comes to the vehicles that PL produces, there them for granted. Through the years, the functionality of ambulances has

is an expectation of 100 percent reliability or people can evolved from simply a delivery vehicle to one that features equipment and
die. This is not lost on the company. “When someone has a technology that’s turned it into a mobile emergency room. The importance

medical emergency,” Thomson says, “an ambulance has to of these vehicles is most evident when tragedy strikes: from car accidents to
get there.”
house ires to their role in rescuing people during Hurricane Sandy.

PL Emergency Vehicles purchases trucks from larger On 9/11, several rescue trucks PL built for the Port Authority were dam-

manufacturers like Ford and Chevy and builds the entire aged when the towers came down. The company has replaced them, while
ambulance body here in New Jersey, including the frame- many of its vehicles, including some that were uninished, were stationed in

work, skins, electrical, cabinets, paint, and lettering.
the Meadowlands on standby in the aftermath of the attack.
We see ambulances and emergency vehicles every day on “We were right in the middle of that,” Thomson says.

the road and until your life depends on one, it’s easy to take
Which is precisely where its vehicles are designed to be.

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