Amrep Building Trash-Hauling Units 20 Years

Amrep Inc. builds trash truck bodies for cities and private refuse companies across the western United States.

It was formed in 1976 by brothers Jose and Eduardo Ghibaudo, who moved to Los Angeles from Argentina in 1967.

Amrep’s first contract with Los Angeles was a 1979 deal to build bodies for 75 trucks. Since then, it has supplied a majority of the city’s trash truck bodies.

The city is Amrep’s largest customer, owning about 340 automated trucks, the type involved in December’s fatal accident. Overall, 505 of the city’s 857 trucks have Amrep bodies.

The company recently filed for bankruptcy protection after losing a patent infringement lawsuit.

The city of San Diego and refuse companies in Phoenix and El Paso own a small number of Amrep’s automated trucks but have not experienced the service and design problems documented by Los Angeles officials.

“They do an excellent job for us,” said Don Woosencraft, an equipment engineer with the city of San Diego, which owns nine automated trucks. “I can’t say we’ve never had any problems, but we’ve been able to resolve pretty much everything we came across.”