27th year anniversary around the corner

Their business started out in a two bay shop and had already been established, owned by Don Hoffman, but it is Roger and Betty Sauder who, on July 14, will celebrate the 27th anniversary of the business that brought their family so much success.

Back in 1986 Roger Sauder was doing as most of us do, working for someone else, when his boss, Hoffman, decided he was ready to pack in the chips.

Sauder seeing his chance to work for himself in an industry he knows well made a very smart move – he jumped in.

“It was kind of a dream I had, so I purchased the business from him,” Sauder said.

The business he bought all those years ago, an automotive repair business that also offered heavy truck and semi-truck work, a business that would expand and boom far quicker than he could have known.

But not surprisingly, with his experience and goals to meet, Sauder would expand the services offered and have to continue increasing the space and number of employees needed to keep up with his rapidly growing business.

“I had a back ground in heavy duty diesels,” Sauder said, “so we started doing more of that and the business grew to where we were able to hire a few more people.”

Hiring new people and a growing need for their services Sauder made the first of two moves, moving the business just south of I-80 in 1991.

“They built the (semi) truck wash out here, and the previous owner (of the truck wash) Don Hoffman, which has passed now, was looking for someone to build next to him,” Sauder explained the reasoning behind the first locational move, “we had done work for him in the past and he thought it might be something I would be interested in, which I was, so we build a facility out there alongside his truck wash.”

The growth for Sauder’s business would not stop and he would expand his building a few times to accommodate the business’ need for more and more space.

“As the business grew it kind of started getting divided up into more of a heavy truck shop, which works on semis, tractors, trailers, that kind of thing and also the automotive and light duty diesels, like in the pick-ups and that, our personnel started getting split up to where we had two departments and the building, even after the third expansion was getting too small for the business we were doing. So that prompted the move to sell the heavy truck shop.”

According to Sauder this reasoning for selling that part of the business in 2009 was due to the ever changing technology and ensuring all his employees kept up to date and trained properly.

“Trying to keep up on training for that broad of a diversification was going to be tough for the future,” Sauder explained. “I wanted streamline and focus on one entity and I decided to go with automotive. We sold the heavy truck shop and the employees went with it.”

The business was bought by a gentleman from Scotts Bluff who owns a freightliner dealership.

During the construction of the new building, on Glover Road, Sauder was able to stay in the old building ensuring no disruption in his business flow.

Learning from past growth and with many years of being a business owner under his belt, Sauder ensured the building’s design was based around the business’s specific needs – automotive and light pick-up truck repair – and in 2010 they were more than ready to move into quite possibly the last home the business will need.

Sauder’s Automotive and Truck Service offers a wide variety of services for people who may need a mechanic’s helping hand and upon his takeover of the business he had a goal to be a “one stop shop” for his customers – something he is proud to say he has accomplished in this new facility.

According to Sauder, these services include, “general repair on all makes and models of cars and light trucks, gas or diesel.”

The main part of his business, according to Sauder is “a lot of preventative maintenance. We start with oil changes that type of thing, fluid changes, tune ups, timing belts things like that; different vehicles have different recommended serviceables.”

Just working on a person’s vehicle isn’t the only customer service Sauder’s offers, keeping customers informed is a key aspect, and very important.

“We try and inform the customer of what their vehicle needs when it does come in for an oil change or full service – what we call it – based off the factory service intervals what the next maintenance item would be. So they have an idea of what they should be doing, if they don’t read their owner’s manual, which is basically all in there (the manual). And then if they so choose they can bring it back and we can do those maintenance items.”

He said they go above and beyond because, “we feel it is our responsibility to keep people informed.”

But Sauder said the services don’t stop on the easier side of things, they also do, “all kinds of major overhauls, transmission and engine repair; both gas and lots of diesel pick-ups.”

Despite the fact he is “more on the technical side of it,” and technically no longer a ‘hands on kind of mechanic’ he has absolute faith in his employeesand their knowledge and skills.

“I have a really good crew that everybody has their own job descriptions and we have guys who are good at diagnostics and trouble shooting, people who are real good on maintenance.”

Part of his crew includes his some Chris Sauder, who has been a part of the mechanical aspect of the business for five years.

“He went through the training programs, the vocational schools and stuff. He is one of my lead techs; we have 5 technicians. He started sweeping floors when he was 12-years-old; he’s been through everything and is now learning everything about the shop side of it. By being exposed to all the different aspects will be beneficial (to him) in the future.”

Sauder admitted that the experience his son is getting right now in the shop, along with the other experience he has gotten while working his way into the position of technician, is grooming him to possibly someday take over the business keeping it in the family.

But that day is pretty far into the future as Roger Sauder is a ways away from retirement.

With his eye on the future Sauder said his goals now are to keep his technicians and employees fully up to date so they can service the community just as efficiently and properly as they have over the past 26 and a half years.

But all in all, up until today, his experience ofbeing a business owner in Sidney, he said has been wonderful.

“We have a lot of longtime customers that I have worked on since I was doing the work myself, as far as in the shop when I was a mechanic, back in 1986. We have customers that have been around for a long, long time.”

And as long as he has anything to say about it Sauder’s Automotive and Truck Service will continue to be around to serve those long time customers for the next 27 years or more.