An Inspiring Story of Business Survival
Editorial
There are many positive aspects to the story (on page 4) about how Rick’s Auto Body will live on after the death of its founder and inspiration, Rick Recor, and remain part of the local landscape.
Indeed, the passing of a company’s founder often means the passing of a company because that founder was the business, and there was not a plan in place for succession. In this case, there was.
And that plan entailed the very best aspect of this story — that Rick’s will not only live on, but it will be local, and it will be independent — still family-owned and operated, to be more specific.
This, at a time when so many businesses, many of them small to mid-sized, are being snatched up by venture capital-backed companies and private equity firms as part of comprehensive roll-up strategies that are changing the face of business communities across the country.
We’ve seen it with a wide range of sectors, from insurance agencies to IT; from legal services to, yes, auto body repair shops. The strategy is simple: buy up as many of these companies as you can, take full advantage of the economies of scale, make a lot of money, and then, when the time is right, cash out.
These companies are throwing what some would call ‘stupid money’ at small business owners, many of them nearing retirement age, making it very difficult for them to say no.
But they when they say yes — and who can blame them, really — they’re doing more than selling their business to an interested party. They’re changing the dynamic of the local business community by taking more local businesses out of the equation.
And, as we all know, locally owned businesses usually … care more.
They care more about the customer, and they care more about the community than regional and national interests who are out to maximize profits by becoming ever larger.
We’ve seen this across the broad spectrum of business, from funeral home operators to banks (generally, the larger, more national they are, the less they are involved with area causes and nonprofits) to convenience store chains; indeed, the Pride chain was a powerful force in the region when it was locally owned. Now, it’s much less so.
All of this brings us back to Rick’s.
Recor’s widow, Mari Tarpinian, told BusinessWest that, over the years, the company received countless calls from larger entities making super attractive offers to make Rick’s part of their fold.
Had Recor or Tarpinian said yes to any these offers, there’s a good chance the ‘Rick’s’ name would have stayed over the door, but it would not have been the same company. It would have been part of a larger entity that, in all likelihood, would have cared less about local customers and local causes than the company Recor started more than 50 years ago.
Rick’s will remain local because there was a plan in place. And there’s a lesson there. Area businesses, especially smaller entities, need to have similar succession plans in place. Creating such a plan isn’t easy — it involves sometimes difficult discussions and hard decisions — but the lack of a plan often leads to more chaotic endings when founders retire or pass away, and this often leads to more … let’s call it panic selling.
That didn’t happen with Rick’s, and we’re glad it didn’t. This region needs more stories of succession, stories of survival, like this one.
