Vaughn Gobel

Vaughn was born in Youngstown, OH in 1966. In 1972, Vaughn’s dad opened Gobel’s Auto Body in the family’s backyard with his wife and 4 young children by his side. From the start, Vaughn much preferred working in the shop alongside his Dad to going to school! So much that he thought that by hiding in the bushes when he saw the bus coming would allow him to stay home and work…..much to his disappointment his father had to start physically putting Vaughn on the bus!

Once Vaughn got his driver’s license, he insisted that he needed a tow truck to help drum up work for their body shop; Vaughn paid for that first truck through payroll deductions! He solicited his local police department and got his one tow truck on their rotation list.

It didn’t take him long to realize that the rotation was not being run fairly. After doing some research and finding out about the “sunshine law”, he attended a township meeting, got the records opened up and successfully got the rotation back on track. Vaughn didn’t want it all, he just wanted to get his fair share .Vaughn slowly grew his fleet, and today his fleet consists of light, medium and heavy duty trucks. The family business is located in the same community that Vaughn grew up in and community involvement has always been a top priority. Vaughn’s largest community service comes in the form of being there for the aid in training done by all the local law enforcement agencies, fire departments, task forces and the FBI. It is Vaughn that they come to when scheduling training sessions that require the use of motor vehicles. Every year, the FBI requires running vehicles that they use for controlled training sessions for high risk felony car stops; the fire departments require wrecked cars that they can do extrication and vehicle burn training on; the drug task force agency and police departments use cars for K-9/handler training. Vaughn supplies vehicles for the betterment of the public servants year round and numerous times every year. Often times, the departments schedule the training sessions to take place on Gobel’s property

Training is a vital detail that Vaughn does not take any shortcuts on. He is a certified level 6/7

Wreckmaster, was honored in 2004 as one of the Wreckmaster Top 10, and then in 2013 was honored as Wreckmaster of the Year. All of his employees are Wreckmaster certified and continually update their certification; often times Gobel’s Towing is the host of the training classes.

Early on, Vaughn became a member of the Towing and Recovery Association of Ohio, and was

very active on the local level where he held numerous offices and eventually joined the board on the state level where he currently is serving his second term as the president of TRAO.

During his two terms, Vaughn has spent countless days away from his business at the state

Capitol, tirelessly fighting, along with his fellow board members and lobbyist, for the benefit of all Ohio towers. Vaughn and TRAO were highly involved in HB274, which is legislature that deals with (amongst other things) the issues of processing abandoned/unclaimed motor vehicles. For two years, Ohio towers were unable to process these vehicles and with the passage of HB274, it has opened the process back up. Other legislation Vaughn has been involved with deals with towing and storage rate increases, amendments to the affidavits process, private property towing procedures and regulation of non-consent towing. Ohio laws are far from being tower -friendly and will require much more work and perseverance …….it is Vaughn’s plans to be there to see it through.