Tony Stroncheck - Class of 1988

Tony Stroncheck, co-owner of ProMiles Software Development Corp., graduated from Bridge City High School in 1988.  While in high school, he enjoyed woodshop and drafting classes, winning awards his senior year.  Tony especially liked his teachers, Jack Pharries and Ronald Boehm.  Tony attributes his love of wood-crafting to his father, Don.  His father died in 2016 and his mother, Judy Stroncheck, passed away in 2019.

After graduating from Bridge City High School, he worked as a pipe fitter in the Port Arthur area then enrolled in Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, where his dad worked.  Before the college term began, Tony worked at a loan-by-phone company, and then his life changed forever on St. Patrick’s Day in 1989.  He fell out a window of a four-story building, breaking 38 bones in his body.  He was told he’d never walk again, but after only 1 ½ weeks in the hospital, he returned to Bridge City to recoup at his mother’s home.  Within three months of self-rehabilitation and determination to prove the doctors wrong, he was walking and began selling Amway Products door-to-door.  He attributes all that walking to his quick recovery.  At that time, he met Doyle Owens, who owned Owens & Associates in Bridge City, which was a trucking transportation licensing business.  After Owens and his wife divorced, Tony had the opportunity to purchase the business and changed the name to Road Legal, which is a regulatory compliance business that helps trucks get state-to-state permits. Road Legal began with four employees.  Tony married Owens’ stepdaughter, Lydia Ann Phillips, formally of Vinton, Louisiana.  

A few years later in 1991, Tony met Tim Tilcher from Las Cruces, New Mexico, who had developed a software program for truckers to manage their fuel taxes, tracking mileage and a mapping program.  Tony came up with a business plan and received funding from Bridge City Bank to start ProMiles Software Development Corp.  He purchased the former US post office building from Stan Matthews and Windell Hebert.  ProMiles began with two employees and now has 85 employees, and Road Legal employs four.  There are 65 ProMiles employees at the Bridge City location on Texas Avenue, with 20 who work from remote locations, including Tony, who works out of his home in New Castle, Colorado.  Tony has recently leased the old police station on Texas Avenue due to his increase in employees and a need for more parking.  His two sisters, Michelle Pilcher,  is the Director of Finance and Special Projects and has worked for the company since 1998, and his sister Brandy Stroncheck Lucas, a 1994 graduate of BCHS, is the Project Lead along with his niece, Kristi Hudson Eccles, a 2005 graduate of BCHS, is the Accounting Administrator for ProMiles. 

When the business first began, Tony’s father, Don, met with every state trucking auditor in the United States and Canada and convinced them to use the ProMiles software.  The truckers use their mileage guide to audit fuel taxes, using GPS systems that show state-to-state where they have driven and make sure they are compliant with all state rules.  Today, 98% of all US and Canada trucks use their software.  They serve 15 states with oversize/overweight routing and permit issuances, with some 3.5 million permits issued per year.  ProMiles developed the first trucking mileage guide to have geographically accurate maps.  Tony considers himself “blessed to have such a great business partner to run a family-style business and doesn’t know what he would have done without the help of his father, Don, who worked so hard to acquire the trust of each state trucking auditor.” 

ProMiles sponsors Project Graduation, is a member of the Bridge City Chamber of Commerce, helps sponsor their golf tournament, and participates in the Adopt a Senior Citizen program with a local pharmacy at Christmas time.

After Hurricane Rita hit Bridge City in 2005, Tony and his wife, Lydia, took their family camping in New Castle, Colorado, to get away from the storm.  They loved the campsite so much that they moved to New Castle.  They even ran into Jack Pharries and Ronnie Boehmn, former teachers at BCHS, who own property adjacent to their land.  The Stronchecks have been married since 1991 and have three children: Chase Wilfer, 29, Meghan Stroncheck, 25, and Tory Stroncheck, 19.   Three years ago, they adopted their niece and nephew, Tanner Phillips, 7, and Logan Doucet, 17.  They live in a log cabin on a beautiful lake with three horses and 15 dogs.  Their log home is next to the Burning Mountains, which are part of the Hogback Mountain Range about 30 miles from Aspen, Colorado, at an elevation of 6,600 feet.  The coal mine inside the mountain has been burning for over 100 years.

Written by Charlotte Schexnider Chiasson (Class of 1970)