Keith Trumble was a car dealer in Grantville. After the Ring of Fire, he realized that his former car business was a lost cause, and donated his offices and small showroom to the government. While his fellow car dealers moaned and groaned, and flocked to John Simpson's campaign rallies against Michael Stearns, Trumble greeted the new reality with good cheer by becoming a business partner with German merchant Georg Kleinschmidt in establishing a nail factory.