Originally from Chariton, a small town in Southern Iowa, Long was the fifth of eight children born into a loving and devout Christian home.
From an early age, he was a familiar face on the shop floor, where his father served as traffic manager for the area’s Hy-Vee grocer fleet.
“I thought my dad was the smartest man in the world on one cold, cold Iowa winter day,” Long recalls. “A driver was complaining he couldn’t start his truck. Dad went out, popped the hood on an old White, held a compression lever in and said, ‘Spin it over.’ He let the compression brake go, and she fired off. I thought, ‘Man, that is cool.’ ”
By age 14, charged with steaming out trailers and revarnishing the floors, Long graduated from shop rat to the truck shop and eventually worked his way to apprentice.
“I had good tutelage from the guys in the shop and realized, ‘Hey, this is not too bad of a profession to be in,’ ” he says.
Long mixed punching the clock in the service bay with high school wrestling and playing center on the football team. He also played the tuba in the band, was in the chorus – he played the leading role of Tevye in the school’s production of “Fiddler on the Roof” his senior year – and was active in the local church youth group.
