Sisters Teresa Barbaglia-Pippin and Melinda Barbaglia-Skaggs lead operations at C&B Lift Truck Services with the same gumption that drove their parents to start the business in High Ridge 50 years ago.
While the business has since moved to St. Louis, Teresa and Melinda both said they have no desire to leave High Ridge. They grew up here, attended Northwest schools and are raising their daughters here, they said.
Charles and Linda Barbaglia began C&B Lift Truck Services in 1976. The company started as a forklift servicing operation, but has since diversified its offerings, Melinda said, to include servicing other heavy machinery such as scissor lifts and aerial lifts, equipment sales and training class offerings.
C&B has contracts with the St. Louis Zoo, city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri, along with more local entities like the Public Water Supply District No. 2 in High Ridge and the Dobbs Tire & Auto Center in Murphy.
Melinda, 56, handles the sales portion of the family business. She said C&B has 12 employees.
“We wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for our great team and for our customers,” Melinda said.
Teresa, 49, takes care of administrative and financial work. She said the company’s anniversary is an exciting time for her.
“It’s a very proud moment to be able to say we’re still in business 50 years later,” Teresa said. “Our dad was tough. He was working for a competitor and thought to himself, ‘I can do this better.’ He had gumption and motivation.
“He asked what was in the bank account, and our mom showed him the checkbook. He withdrew $20, bought a case of beer, and went to our backyard, on Hunning Road, and thought about how he was going to do this.”
Melinda added that C&B really took off from the desk in their parent’s bedroom. Linda oversaw the office work, sending Charles out to service forklifts in his pickup truck.
“He would go to customers and then would call my mom from there and say, ‘Where do I go next?’” Melinda said.
Charles died 10 years ago, at the age of 70. Linda is semi-retired, still helping her daughters with office work from time to time.
Women-owned
Melinda said she and her sister worked to certify C&B as a Woman Business Enterprise (WBE) with the state following their father’s retirement in 2006. The status gives minority and/or women-owned for-profit businesses greater access to various state contracts, according to the Missouri Office of Equal Opportunity.
“We went through all the paperwork in Jefferson City, and with that WBE status, it helps us with city work (contracts),” Melinda said. “But we do not hide behind that WBE certification; that certification is nice because it gets our foot in the door, but our team down here, and what we do in servicing and selling, is forefront from that certification.”
While both Teresa and Melinda acknowledged that they work in a “male-driven atmosphere,” they said the vast majority of the men they work with or deal with are gracious and open-minded.
“Dad used to always say, when you walk into a building, you put your head up high like you own the place,” Teresa said.
“And we tell our daughters that, too,” Melinda added.
Teresa’s daughter, Allie, graduated from Northwest High in 2024 and is attending classes at St. Louis Community College-Meramec. She’ll begin classes at Missouri Baptist University in the fall, Teresa said.
Melinda’s daughter, Abbie, is an eighth grader at Woodridge Middle School.
While both girls help at C&B part-time, especially during their summer breaks, Teresa said it isn’t likely they’ll take over the family business one day.
“I don’t want (Allie) to have the stress that comes along with it,” Teresa said. “This is a stressful, service-based business dealing with a lot of customers.”
“If they want their own business, they need to do it in their own way,” Melinda said. “Our goal is to carry on C&B Lift Truck Service for years, maybe even after we retire, by putting key people in key positions. But for our daughters, they need to find their own passions.”
Jumping in
Teresa has worked at C&B full-time for 25 years. She said she was “set on” working in the family business since high school. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Maryville University before jumping in at C&B.
Melinda said she wasn’t so sure at the start that she wanted to make a career out of C&B. She has worked full-time there for 30 years now.
Melinda holds a master’s degree in business management with an emphasis in marketing from Webster University.
“I was offered a full-time supervisor position doing marketing research, and my dad said, ‘Melinda, you know you would really be an asset to C&B Lift Truck Service,’ and that was the end of that,” she said. “I love what I’m doing now. We’re a team down here. There’s not one of us who knows more or thinks we know more. We have our strengths and weaknesses, but we work together.”
C&B Lift Truck Service is located at 6250 Knox Industrial Drive in St. Louis. For information, visit cbforklift.com.