11/09/2025
In November 1995 I took on a new journey of opening my own business. I waited until May of 1996 to do the grand opening as I wanted to be sure I could do this. Growing up I was always taking stuff apart. Rarely could I put it back together. I remember pulling the lawn mower apart and couldn’t get it to run. I had it together enough that dad didnt notice I had it apart.Dad spent hours trying to get it to go and eventually bought a new one. I obviouly didnt put back something important. Lol I told dad the truth maybe 5 years ago. My 1st experience with automotive was about 16 years old. I had a nissan truck that needed a head gasket. I was at the point of putting the timing belt on. I didnt know how to put in it time properly . Dad was going to work and I asked how do I know where the belt goes on the pullys. He said “ Suck, Squeeze, Bang, Blow” and went to work saying your smart, figure it out. So that day I learned how a 4 stroke engine worked. Anyway, Im rambling. Let’s move onto the business. I started with Heavy truck Repair and tires as that’s what I was familiar with. Within a year or so, I wanted to move to creating a diagnostic shop for automotive repair. I knew nothing about cars. I remember investing in a snap on scanner and buying two salvage vehicles to learn. I closed for a month and took those cars apart , created problems to learn how it affected the scan tool data. I needed to figure out 5-10 tests that gave me a guaranteed result to move to the next step. I still use them today. Over the next 20 years I Hired another tech to help and eventually 1 Service advisor. I needed a service advisor as I have so much on my mind trying to diagnose cars that I had the personality of a gold fish dealing with clients. lol. In the last 10 years we have grown to myself, 5 techs and 3 service advisors. Two of the team are my children. With all this, none was possible without everyone around me. The biggest growth of Anderson Automotive happened in the last 10 years and I credit my wife with that. She believed in me, took on all responsibilities at home raising the kids day to day while balancing her own career while I focused on growing the shop. Well that’s my story folks. Thank you everyone for the years of support and allowing me to make mistakes. I truly believe I will always do it better today than I did yesterday. Tomorrow will be better than today.
