Dallas -- Angie Strader, CEO of the company 360 Wraps, and her husband, Tom, president of their company, have a history of giving back to the community, and the two disabled veterans wanted to do something special for this year’s 9/11 observance. Their company designs and manufactures customized “wraps” for vehicles: the wraps literally are giant decals that adhere to the bodies of cars and other vehicles.  An opportunity surfaced this fall that is giving them the chance to contribute their expertise for a memorial commemorating the 2001 attacks. 

Strader said she and her husband teamed up with local businesses and organizations to redesign and remodel the 9/11 Memorial Trailer for the town of Prosper, Texas (which is located about 35 miles northeast of Dallas) after a company client – who is also a Prosper firefighter – approached them about contributing a banner for the project. 

“We get requests for donations and support regularly. In this case, because it touched our hearts and it was important to us, we decided to do it gratis,” Angie Strader said.  

The trailer holds a 9-foot, 7,000-pound piece of steel from the World Trade Center that the town’s fire department received after the attacks. Parts of the destroyed buildings were sent to fire departments around the country to commemorate the first responders who died while helping others escape the inferno. 

Tom Strader said Prosper’s fire department put the WTC piece on the trailer so it could be moved from school to school to teach grade-school children about 9/11 because many of them are not aware of what happened that day. 

Angie Strader, an alumna of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, which helps small companies grow, said 360 Wraps partnered with Gas Monkey Garage to redesign the trailer using metal panels, which gave them more surface space that they could use to attach the wraps. The remodeled trailer will be unveiled on Fri., Sept. 11, at Frontier Park in Prosper during a ceremony that starts at 9 a.m. 

360 Wraps, which Tom Strader launched in 2007, employs 15 workers in Dallas and uses 85 independent contractors nationally. After a long career in the corporate world, Angie Strader joined her husband’s company in 2009. She said her husband is creative and loves networking, but her background is in business. “We decided to divide and conquer. I took the business side of the company and then took over as CEO in 2010,” she said. 

Strader said she’s always looking for ways to expand her knowledge and wants to “always be learning.” She had plans to grow the company, so she looked into the 10,000 Small Businesses program offered by the Dallas County Community College District after someone referred her. “It was perfect timing,” she said, adding that the skills she learned with the program will help her expand the company nationally. 

The 10,000 Small Businesses program is offered by DCCCD in partnership with Goldman Sachs. Program participants learn how to grow their companies and gain financing, marketing, negotiating and leadership skills. The program is now accepting applications for the spring cohort, which starts in January. The deadline to apply is Oct. 8.  Get more information and apply here. 

To contact Angie Strader about the 9/11 Memorial Trailer, please email her at Angie@360wraps.com or call her at 214-432-9029. For more information about the 10,000 Small Businesses program at DCCCD, please contact Sheryl Hardin by phone at 214-457-8597 or by email at sheryl.hardin@dcccd.edu.