The Knapheide Manufacturing Company has partnered with the First Response Team of America to provide truck equipment for use on disaster sites. Knapheide will be donating a custom Service Body designed to fulfill disaster relief needs of the First Response Team of America.

The First Response Team of America is a  non-profit organization designed to help communities in the first few hours and days following the aftermath of a natural disaster. The organization travels across the country with a convoy of  disaster response and recovery trucks and equipment from one natural or man-made disaster area to the next. They conduct joint efforts with local first responders to save lives and restore hope across communities nationwide.

“Our company has seen first-hand the devastation of two major floods,” said Bo Knapheide, senior vice president of Distributor and Fleet Operations at Knapheide. “There is a sense of pride that comes with being able to support this great organization. First Response Team works tirelessly to restore hope in countless communities across the nation, communities that are battered and bruised by natural disasters and are in desperate need of assistance.”

The custom Knapheide Service Body that will be proivded to First Response Team of America will be 11 feet long and 60 inches high. The body will have both compartment and external work lights to increase safety and convenience in low-light conditions. An auxiliary compressor and diesel fuel tank mounted to the body will allow the First Response Team to maintain and refuel their hovercraft, cranes, light towers, generator, Peterbilt trucks, CAT backhoe and skid steer, and more. Aluminum mechanics' drawers installed in a compartment will provide storage for tools.

Security features, such as a telescopic sliding roof that will enclose the cargo area and the Masterlocking system, will keep all of the valuable tools and equipment safe and sound on or off the jobsite.

Tad Agoglia, creator of First Response Team of America, said, “We have been to floods, hurricanes, tornadoes and more. We carry a lot of equipment because you can never fully know what you will need until you arrive, different situations call for different equipment. The people that we meet and help have had everything go wrong for them, their home, their community, their life destroyed in a short time, they have lost hope. The last thing we want to happen is a piece of equipment go down. We heavily rely on the equipment to restore hope in the minds of the affected people. To a private contractor down equipment can mean loss of profit, to our organization it can mean loss of life. Reliability is of the upmost importance to us and we knew Knapheide could build us the ideal service truck. This truck will be the lifeline to keep our fleet of vehicles and equipment up and running properly. We are grateful for the employees and executives at Knapheide and their generous contribution.”