Tracbel’s success story begins with any venture that puts dedication, effort, and an honest vision into business development. Its 55 years in the challenging and diverse Brazilian market are proof of its excellence and achievements. 

 

This spirit is embodied by Fábio Henrique Silva, who has worked for 23 years in this company, which was founded in 1967.  

Fábio, now married and with two children, ages 12 and 9, arrived when he was only 19 years old as an intern in one of Tracbel’s four branches.  

He says the professional he is now is very different from the young man who arrived in the early 2000s. In these two decades of work, he has studied, grown, and adapted to all the challenges and trends in various industries and sectors, each one as challenging as the other in this sort of productive “multiverse” that is Brazil.  

Therefore, Fábio has also been a privileged witness to Tracbel’s changes, which have made it a renowned company.  

From four subsidiaries and just over 300 employees, this company from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, has grown to 40 locations and 1,350 workers spread over 13 of the 27 Brazilian states. The mission, however, remains the same: to provide honest and quality service and deliver the best solution to leverage the growth of its customers in sectors such as mining, agro-industry, and logistics.  

“We are a multi-brand company. We work with many lines, among them Kalmar three years ago. I have 23 years in the Tracbel Group, and in the last one, it was my turn to develop this project by taking this new line and working with this product, which is common in the company. For example, I came from the after-sales area of another brand, and with this trajectory, I was invited to develop this new line with Kalmar,” says Fábio.  

About the arrival of this new brand, Fabio has many expectations and projects that, together with Tracbel, there are infinite growth options because “this is a product of extreme quality, which, in addition to the ports, can be placed in the most diverse operations and applications and with our way of serving will make a big difference throughout Brazil.”   

“Working with Kalmar has been an exciting experience because we have had to learn the product’s characteristics, which, in addition, can be placed in very different areas beyond the port or dry ports. We also have the special feature of Brazil that, logistically, it is a multiverse, so we have to study and understand the business of each customer, regardless of whether they are in Amazonas, where to get there you have to travel eight hours by raft and then four hours by car, or if they are in São Paulo, which has traffic and long distances, as well as a diversity of companies. We serve all of them with the same quality; that is the reason for our success”, he says.   

Fábio assures us that this success is also his own. He arrived in his twenties and has grown as a man, a person, and a professional in the company he says he loves.  

With a smile, which throughout the interview has been permanent, but also with a special sparkle in his eyes, like that one you have when happy moments cross your mind, Fabio relates that being at Tracbel “has been a true love story.”  

 “I love working here. I always say that this is my love affair because I don’t get to live outside the company (laughs). What I like most about working here is that the company’s values identify with mine. I am a very fair person, sincere, and clear. I do not like to leave any margin of doubt in whatever I am dealing with, and that is also Tracbel’s DNA. That is why, when I get up, I like to go to the company; I like to be there physically, even though now it is possible to do home office because I need people to be with the team, to look them in the eyes and the truth is that, even though the company has grown and now it is a big company, it kept those values, that family atmosphere, of respect for people, with a code of conduct that all workers have signed and in which we do not enter into any kind of business that is suspicious. Our maxim is to be honest and that their work is honest,” he explains.  

 

Fábio emphasizes that “everything I have today comes from Tracbel because I had nothing when I entered the company. Everything I got, including my family, my children, finishing my studies, and my investments, resulted from my work in partnership with Tracbel”.  

Of course, this stability has not been free. Fábio Since he arrived, Fábio has made an effort to adapt to changes, to study, and to improve, which fits with Tracbel’s own dynamics. 

“We adapt to the changes that occur. We reinvent ourselves every day, and we know, for example, that the Chinese market is very aggressive, but we are not guided by that; we are guided by selling quality. We always need to have good arguments to convince our customers; in this, we emphasize collaborative work. In contrast, as a salesperson, I depend greatly on after-sales because after-sales also sells and represents the product. He explains that our success depends on the customer’s success and that we strive to know the customer’s business,” he explains.  

“My thought, what moves me daily, is to find a solution for my customers. So that’s what we do; we look for a solution and have that commitment. For example, it has happened that some clients have come in looking for a product, but we have noticed that it is not the best solution. We can say it very honestly and very clearly because we would rather lose a business than lose the client, and that is how we help the client grow, and we grow with them; that is what guides me,” he says.      

That orientation has also been the key to his professional success with a solid 23-year track record.  

 

“I started when I was 19 years old in a mechanical workshop here in Belo Horizonte. I came to do my internship, and since then, I made my trajectory in that company that, at that time, had only four subsidiaries. It was a family company; it was a time of a lot of manual processes, nobody had a cell phone, and everybody worked with a landline. There was a computer for everyone, budgets were sent by fax, and then we went from digitalization to globalization, so I feel that I have lived the before, during, and after. This is a process in which we have already reached a gigantic level of excellence, and I participated in it”, he explains. 

Therefore, Fábio emphasizes that my most tremendous success is to complete 23 years in Tracbel and to follow all the company changes. I say this because many people who started with me were left on the way because they were not able to adapt to the changes, so you always have to study a lot, be aware of the news of the day, follow the market, and that requires a bit of study and, therefore, I feel a winner for having gone through these stages of the company and managed to grow with the company. I have gone through several different sectors at different times. What we live in today differs from what it was 15 or 20 years ago. It is not easy to stay in a company for 20 years because the company will continue. It only depends on you if you will accompany it in its history”. 

About the future, Fábio says that he and the Tracbel team are prepared, attentive to trends, and training themselves because it is no longer as it used to be, but it is as it will be.  

“Before, changes were slower. When I entered when I was 20, it took five to seven years for a change to consolidate or a big evolution. The Tracbel of a year ago is very different from today, and even so, we don’t know what it will be like in 2025. We have no idea; it will be a different company because of the innovations, the artificial intelligence that is at the moment, and we will have to adapt and train ourselves in these things to move forward; that is fundamental”, he concludes.