An organization chart naming the people who perform dispatch, recovery and repair, a written division of his working time, and primary documents he personally signed: contracts, equipment purchases, insurance placements and rate decisions. Payroll alone proves employment, not capacity.
Prove capacity with what he signed
The strongest evidence in an owner-executive case is documentary and boring. A twelve-month set of the agreements he negotiated with motor clubs and highway authorities, the purchase approvals for recovery units, the insurance and safety-programme decisions, the annual rate schedule he set, board or shareholder resolutions and the financial statements he approved. Beside them, an organization chart with real names and real headcounts showing the dispatch supervisor, the shop foreman and the operators, and a short statement dividing his own week by activity with an honest allowance for the days he still drives.
Where a founder genuinely spends part of his time operationally, saying so and quantifying it is safer than claiming otherwise; the regulations contemplate an executive who performs some non-executive tasks, but they do not contemplate a description that collapses under a single question about last Tuesday. Hypothetical example: a Hope specialty-coffee roaster transfers its director to establish U.S. wholesale accounts.
The first review produces an exhibit list that links each claimed executive duty to a contemporaneous record: supplier contracts, annual plans, approval limits, and reports from managers. A calendar showing cupping sessions does not prove executive work; delegation records and signed decisions may. The practical sequence is to prepare the organization chart first, then select documents that demonstrate who performed the production and sales tasks the director says he delegated.