Smithton, Ill.--In 80 years, Meckfessel Tire and Auto has come a long way from trading chickens for tires.
That, of course, was in the middle of the Great Depression, just after Henry Meckfessel opened a small tire shop in Belleville, Ill.
Today, Meckfessel Tire and Auto still operates from that same Belleville location, albeit in a much-expanded and modern facility. In June 2006, the company also opened a store here, in the heart of a small town making the transition from farming village to suburban bedroom community. Both locations are Auto Value Bumper-to-Bumper Service Centers and part of the Independent Tire Dealers (ITD) Buying Group.
"We're the third generation," said Kent Meckfessel, who now owns the business with his brother, Mark, and his sister, Mandy Wuebbels. "Our grandfather--Henry "Mack" Meckfessel--started the business in 1927. He started out, basically, offering tires and retreads, and he and Grandma lived above the shop."
Meckfessel said starting the business meant a lot of hard work for his grandparents, who not only struggled through the Depression but also dealt with the shortages and rationing imposed by World War II.
"We heard lots of stories of him trading chickens for retreads," Mark Meckfessel said.
During World War II, his grandfather had the capacity to retread eight tires a day. That meant he could service just two cars a day, Meckfessel added. "With rationing and everything, that was about it," he said.
Meckfessel said the recapping business faded in the 1960s. About the same time, their father, Bill, took over the business and began offering alignment and brake services. In the 1980s, he expanded the Belleville location from a four-bay shop to its current 10-bay size.
"Dad's retired now, and Mark, Mandy, and I run the business," Kent Meckfessel said. "We've expanded into full service, everything from diagnostics to brakes, alignments, and air-conditioning--the whole nine yards. The main thing we don't do is transmissions."
All three siblings grew up in the business, went to college, and then worked outside the business before returning. Mark has been back with the business 17 years; Kent, 10; and Mandy, 6.
"I guess you could say I started in the business almost 30 years ago, Mark Meckfessel said, laughing. "I believe I started by cleaning used tires and making them marketable."
"The unique thing we always mention is that, growing up, we had a tire warehouse in the basement for a long time, before we got an off-site warehouse," Kent Meckfessel said.
Today, the family's Belleville facility includes that off-site warehouse. "We have a considerable amount of tire storage," Mark Meckfessel said.
Business at the store is about equally divided among its wholesale, retail tire sales, and mechanical-repair components, Meckfessel added. The store's wholesale business has a radius of about 50 miles. "We stay on this side of the [Mississippi] River," he said. "We don't cross the river to the Missouri side.
In Smithton, business breaks down about equally between tires and mechanical repair, Kent Meckfessel said. "We've been pleased with it. A lot of our customers here in Smithton were customers in Belleville, and people have migrated from Belleville to Smithton. So we had a strong customer base here before we opened up."
Meckfessel said his family was thinking about an additional location when the opportunity to acquire the Smithton property presented itself.
"We could have looked a long time, but this location became available," he said. "We did some research and made sure it would meet our needs--that the community was growing the way we wanted it to, and that the potential was there."
Previously, the 3,200-square-foot-facility had been used as a body shop, Meckfessel said. "It's not really set up as a traditional shop with bays, but there's always room for expansion. The building is 40 feet by 80 feet, and that includes the office area. We have three lifts, and there is room for two or three cars. So I would say it's equivalent to a four- or five-bay shop.
While they share some management responsibilities, they try not to overlap one another, Mark Meckfessel said. "I focus on the management and the marketing of the business, Kent focuses on the technical aspects of the business, and Mandy focuses on the financial aspects."
"I am the main operator in Smithton, as far as the counter goes," Kent Meckfessel said. "We have two full-time technicians here and one part-time tire and oil person. In Belleville, we have a wholesale sales person, two full-time salesman on the counter, Mark and Mandy, and about five full-time technicians, so that puts us at about 14 employees, including ourselves."
As with many tire stores today, an ongoing challenge is keeping up with the proliferation of tire sizes, Meckfessel said.
"It's getting harder and harder to have every tire in stock, and for that matter, the same applies to auto parts," he said. "It used to be that a set of brake pads fit a variety of Chevys. Now every make and model has its own part. It just continues to get crazier and crazier, whether it's tires or auto parts."
Regardless of the difficulty, it's important for the business to have the right tire in stock, Mark Meckfessel said. "We try to stay ahead of the curve. People that want to buy tires want to buy them now. With brakes and steering and suspension, we have a bit more leeway, fewer time constraints. We're constantly looking at the new sizes we need to have, where we are missing the mark, and where can we reduce our overage in old stock."
With the wholesale businesses being an important part of the Belleville store's operation, it's one more reason to stay ahead of the curve, he added.
Staying ahead of the curve is also one reason they meet regularly for breakfast on Wednesday mornings, Meckfessel said. It's a practice they began about 10 years ago, when they first began talking about buying the business from their parents. Now they use the meetings to compare notes and discuss issues.
"It gives us a chance to take a breather," Meckfessel said. "When the stores open in the morning, a lot of times it's chaos until they close. At the end of the day, you just don't feel communication is as good as it is the first thing in the morning."
"In this business, you walk into the store and you may know what you want to accomplish that day, but you may not even begin to start on your job by the time the day is over," Mandy Wuebbels said.
The meetings have also helped them avoid "the third-generation curse," Mark Meckfessel said.
"That's what we're most proud of. We've managed to avoid the curse of the third generation running the business into the ground. We're expanding and growing despite the occasional family difference."
Finally, does anyone live above the Belleville store today?
"No," Meckfessel said, smiling. "Where Pop used to live, we use for storing documents and inner tubes and some of our slower moving tires."