I grew up with 12 brothers and sisters in a low income family so hard work and having a running car to get away from the madness was a necessity. I loved cars as a kid and studied auto body in high school. I had a passion for rebuilding and painting cars which started my career in body work.
In 1997 I was looking for a body shop to do business in and came across an old salvage yard that had a body shop in the back. I thought I could have the best of both worlds. A body shop and car parts all in the same location! The only problem was out of the few cars that were in the yard, the newest one was a 1987 Escort. The auto parts business had always intrigued me. I thought I could provide really good service because I knew the other side of the industry as the person who ordered parts for cars. As a body man, I was often frustrated with salvage yards saying that they had parts when they didn't and being told I'd have the part the following day and it would come a week later after I had to make several calls.
After careful consideration I decided that I would invest everything I had in buying cars to put at the yard l and would try the approach of providing really good and honest service to my customers. It was a scary because I mortgaged everything I had to try to get a business going. I answered the phones, sold the parts, and pulled the parts. My good service seemed to work because in a short period of time I was able to hire some staff to help. I grew very quickly and realized that I had a new passion.
After 3 years in the business I wanted to grow more and thought one sure fire way was to hire the top salvage yard salesperson in Northwest Ohio. He worked for my largest competitor that I had a lot of respect for so I felt uncomfortable attempting to hire him. I went to see my competitor one day when he told me that he wanted to retire and sell his business. I was so excited because I thought this could be my chance to hire Skip, the top salesman that I'd been waiting for. It then dawned on me to that perhaps I could buy the business. It was a great salvage yard. The owner was an amazing man that had dedicated his whole life to that yard. After several meetings with the owner Dave Truehaft, I purchased my competitor that I had admired for years and finally got to work with the legendary " Skip" (Michael Myers).
My mission remains to provide quality parts, quick delivery, honest service and fair prices. This is accomplished with a great staff that understands the importance of customer service.
