09/05/2026
Long sappy story...but here’s the story of Ol’ Bessy.
Aka the OG van. Aka Protech’s first official work vehicle.
To tell her story, we have to go all the way back to the beginning of Protech.
We usually like to say Protech started in 2018. Mostly because that’s when the jobs really started coming in, Ana officially jumped onboard, and things started getting documented with pictures for proof. 😂 But technically, it started in December of 2017. Inside an old boot shop in Perryton, Texas, that had absolutely no idea it was about to be transformed into a little technology company.
Matt, his parents, and his brother literally built, primed and painted the walls that would become Matt’s office. The place was scrubbed clean of all leather, rubber soles, and everything else left behind from its former life and slowly replaced with tools, wire, computers, and stacks of research papers covered in words like “cameras,” “recording devices,” and “wire.” Matt wasn’t exactly sure if a camera and IT business was going to work in little old Perryton. Especially considering one of the last Radio Shacks in the country seemed to be hanging on by a wire itself.
But he took the plunge anyway.
He jumped headfirst into something completely new, even though technology itself wasn’t new to him.
Matt will forever be grateful to Brad and Kim at ATech4U for taking a chance years earlier on a tall, lanky 16 year old, who was fascinated with computers and technology. He had always been wired a little differently than his cowboy family but turns out, that worked out pretty well.
When January rolled around the next year, the phone wasn’t exactly ringing off the hook like every new business owner dreams it will. Matt questioned the adventure more than once, but he kept going.
Eventually, a few jobs started coming in. The first installations were mostly residential customers, and like every new business, Protech came with plenty of growing pains. And with growing pains came some very stressful, occasionally nauseating months.
Five months later, in July of 2018, Matt and Ana decided it was time to go all in. Ana quit her job. (Which was an entirely scary situation on its own.)
Then a van came up for sale.
Matt said, “We really need a work van. Something that makes us look official. And something we can keep all the tools in so we don’t have to drive back to the shop every time we forget something.” And so, in August of 2018, the van was signed for, sealed, and picked up.
Ol’ Bessy had officially joined Protech. Two magnetic Protech signs were ordered, slapped on the sides, and somehow… the jobs started rolling in. That old van carried us to Missouri, Ohio, almost all the way to the Mexico border, and everywhere in between.
And she just kept going.
Eventually, the little magnetic signs got replaced with bigger ones for some “serious marketing.” Tools spilled out the side doors more times than we could count and there were days when getting the doors shut required a running start.
There were some very hot summer days where the only refuge was the cold air blowing through those four dashboard vents.
We packed friends who came to help us into the back of that thing. We laughed in it. We argued in it. We took serious business calls in it. We ate plenty of questionable gas station lunches in it, or sometimes no lunch at all.
She even helped after the tornado, as we hooked onto our one small trailer and piled load after load of rubble.
Ol’ Bessy was there when Protech hired its first official employee and she was there when we were finally able to buy a brand new work van.
And in 2025, after seven years of wear and tear, she even got her own glow up with a full Protech wrap, and we thought she looked like a million bucks.
Eventually, she was promoted (or demoted, depending on how you look at it) to backup van. Recently, our newer van had to go to the mechanic, so the guys pulled Ol’ Bessy onto the road and took her out on a job.
The boys had called asking if I wanted to follow them to lunch. So as I pulled behind them I couldn't help but snap a quick picture of her.
It might sound silly to be sentimental about an old work van. But that van has seen almost the entire beginning of Protech. There have been plenty of times when she started making a suspicious noise and we thought, “Well… this might finally be it.”
Nope...give her a pat on the hood and she goes right back to trucking along. Carrying tools that are probably worth more than she is. And, more importantly, still carrying some pretty special people who have helped make Protech what it is today.
Ol’ Bessy might just be an old work van to everybody else, but to us, she’s a little piece of Protech history. Hoo-ah!🥹💪
