Frank and Doris Lanza started their Bainbridge Township business in their garage, just like many other Geauga County entrepreneurs.
Frank and Doris Lanza started their Bainbridge Township business in their garage, just like many other Geauga County entrepreneurs.
The difference is, the Lanzas are still working in their garage — by choice.
Highway Garage and Auto Body Center, a huge multi-bay operation painted a clean white and blue, is a long way from the original garage Lanza opened in 1974, but their nuts-and-bolts philosophy is solid.
“I’m not a smart guy, but I understand cars,” he said during a Geauga Growth Partnership morning meeting in the garage service area.
Other things he understands, like building relationships and having an appetite for hard work, date back to his childhood in Cleveland.
Lanza said his immigrant father worked a lot of hours and his mother was not well, so it was up to the six youngsters to take care of themselves.
Starting at age eight, Lanza earned money stocking the cooler at the local beverage store, shining shoes in the neighborhood bar and, by the age of 10, was setting pins at the bowling alley.
To keep clothes on his back, young Lanza learned to fix, then sell, discarded bicycles until he upgraded to a motorbike when he was 12. He acquired a car and got it running when he was just short of 16, and his future was clear.
Lanza attended a technical school on 113th Street in Cleveland then went on to repair cars at a gas station.
Over the course of his work, he discovered the technical end of the job was important, but treating customers well brought in a lot of repeat business.
For a while Lanza worked regular hours at a Chevrolet service department, but started to get a feel for what the future might hold.
“I thought ‘I’m always going to be a technician unless I do something different,’” he said.
So he told the service manager he wanted to try selling cars.
“I’ll never forget. He said, ‘You’re just a mechanic,’” Lanza said. So he set out to prove him wrong and the owner said he could take the night shift in the lot.
For two months he talked to prospective buyers about their needs and matched them up to the right vehicles.
“I cared about the customer. I could tailor the car to the customer,” Lanza said, adding his experience was short-lived because the other salesmen objected to his methods.
He started looking for a garage, had one deal fall through, and was finally approached to consider a garage in Chagrin Falls. He recalls one person’s initial reaction.
“That’s ridiculous — there’s just a bunch of farmers out here,” he was told.
Nonetheless, he and Doris came to the Chagrin Valley in 1970 and, after moving the business into larger quarters several times, decided to build the “garage-ma-hall” on about 7 acres at 8410 East Washington Street in Bainbridge Township.
“I wanted it to be the nicest building in town,” Lanza said, adding he hired the work done locally in the late 90s.
“The only people allowed to work on this building were from this community,” he said.
The technical end of car repair still interests Lanza more than the business end, but he holds tight to his philosophy of treating customers like they are friends and working with them.
“It’s hard to get people to do that today,” he said.
When asked about getting and keeping employees, Lanza said he has the same problem most businesses have — finding reliable help that knows how to work.
Highway Garage has tried to hire through trade schools and advertising.
“We’re not really hard to work for. We pay very well,” he said, adding, however, he wants workers who realize how important it is vehicles are repaired correctly.
“I’m very particular about how they take care of the cars,” Lanza said.
Training employees to those high standards can be tough and he said he feels long-term employees are the best.
“I tell employees I don’t want them to work hard, I want them to work steady,” he said. “The most important thing is getting the job done. I tell them ‘It’s all about focus. Focus on your job.’”
