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Roemer’s: flat-out successful

Tire and auto business has served western Montanans for 50 years

There’s a wealth of history steeped in the memory bank of John Roemer.

By MICK HOLIEN of the Missoulian

http://missoulian.com/articles/2004/01/20/business/bus01.txt

Nestled in the midst of downtown now for 50 years, customers of the tire and car repair business have come from every corner of the city’s social spectrum.

Roemer, 51, has been president of the business since he bought it from his father in 1986. But he’s been working in the business since the summer of his sixth-grade year. So he has decades of memories from the business, including how the ashtray of Norman Maclean’s Buick was jammed with ashes when the writer brought his car in for service. Noted author and former University of Montana journalism professor Dorothy Johnson was another customer.

John Roemer’s first job at Roemer’s came when his father, Jack, gave him a job tidying up the sidewalls of used tires to ready them for resale.

"My buddies were all floating Rattlesnake Creek and having a ball and I had to come down here," he said.

He was instructed to put each tire on a single 55-gallon drum behind his dad’s business in order to ready one side at a time. But he decided, since he was being paid 25 cents a tire, he’d start an assembly line of sorts.

He placed six drums in a row, which allowed him to work on a half dozen at a time.

"In a short side of a week, I painted myself out of business," he said, and laughed.

The business was located at Main and Pattee streets in 1953 when Jack Roemer, then 21, and his wife, Pat, bought it from Vince Bakke for $10,000 after Bakke decided to strike out on his own.

Roemer’s moved to its current location a couple of blocks away when the government decided to move Highway 10 through town from Main Street to Broadway in the early 1960s.

Since the business is located at the former location of the First Christian Church where Jack and Pat were married, John has always joked about his presence there.

"I really came with the building," he said. "If those aren’t roots, I don’t know what."

With the recent sale of Bakke Tire to Tire-Rama, Roemer said his business is Missoula’s sole remaining locally owned tire and auto repair business.

"We’re very proud of that," said John, who graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in German in 1977 and had no intention of working in the family business.

But when few foreign language teaching positions were readily available – there was one job in Froid – his father offered him a sales position, he accepted.

Roemer’s Car Clinic was then a Conoco "concept store" featuring, among other things, a dynamometer, a then-rare device used to diagnose a vehicle’s ailments.

The business was selling as much fuel as anyone around but self-service convenience stores were increasingly tapping into the gasoline market. Eventually, the decision was made to pull out the pumps and focus on the tire and auto-repair business.

"We knew we had a strong automotive-repair business and were selling a fair amount of tires, so we just changed the business over," said Roemer. "We never looked back."

At one time, the company actually operated four different stores including one in Coeur d’Alene, but when Jack retired, John decided that a single location was the best option.

"I had enough exposure to multi-store operations to know that maybe you made a little bit more money but you had a hell of a lot more headaches," he said. "I went the other direction deliberately. It was a great decision, one I don’t regret at all."

It was as much of a personal decision as it was a business direction.

"There’s a lot to be said for lifestyle and when you live in a community where there’s so much to be had, it’s nice to have enough time for yourself to go enjoy it," he said.

The vehicle-repair side of Roemer’s has long been a staple, producing more than half of the revenue but being someone’s mechanic is not an easy proposition.

"I think trust tends to be the largest feature that people are looking for when they’re talking about a mechanic," he said. "Trust is a very difficult thing to keep."

He said service writers, who take in a vehicle and talk with the customer about its repair, work hard to communicate at a level all customers can understand.

"It’s extremely important that women are not talked down to," said Roemer.

Customer loyalty is vitally important to the business but it’s not easy to maintain.

"It’s a very tenuous position that you hold," he said. "The dollar isn’t as important as the customer’s good will."

About three years ago, Roemer’s joined Tire Factory, a 10-western state network of 170 independent stores. The network gives Roemer’s the buying power to compete with bigger dealers.

"We buy at the lowest price that the manufacturer sells at," he said. "As a buying group we’ve proven ourselves an entity. It’s a huge benefit to us in that regard."

Roemer said he can see running the business for another 10 years. Asked about the challenges the business will face over that decade, he quickly identifies two: Being able to have the right tire in stock to meet a customer’s needs (he has about 650 in stock) and the continued need for training of his staff.

"The ability to keep up with the technology, that’s a huge challenge for us," he said.

There is another issue as well:

"We’ve grown this business to the point where we’re not running out of space but oftentimes we find ourselves running into each other," said Roemer, who has 11 employees. "That’s a good problem to have."

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