Driven to Succeed

A decade and a half ago, in February 1990, 14 million tires were ablaze in Hagersville, Ont. Firefighter Rob Simington’s pile was not among them.

Still a member of Hagersville’s volunteer squad, Simington says that it was just luck that kept his post in the 20-acre tire farm flame free. His modesty is belied by wife Jane. He doesn’t take enough of the credit for what he does, she says.

He counters by saying that he just keeps things moving along, even if things sometimes don’t turn out like you planned. It’s about being agile and reacting to the situation at hand–whether that’s keeping a high-pressure stream of water trained on a fire, or keeping a high-service auto parts business trained on customer needs.

“You know, it’s not always clear what it is that you do that makes you successful,” says Simington, whose Simington Automotive and Industrial Supply has just celebrated its 20th year in operation and the official opening of its new location at the south end of Hagersville, a town of 3,200 located south and west of Hamilton, Ont.

The business has only had its current name for the past few years; it was known as Partner Automotive for most of its two decades in operation. The name change came when Simington’s partnership, struck in 1985 with Larry Hornibrook, now retired Bob Baumgart and Wayne Baldwin was dissolved (it was always part of the business plan), who still own and operate stores under the Partner name in Waterford and Delhi.

But the Simington family connection to the automotive industry goes back much further to the 1920s, when Roy Simington, his grandfather, opened a service station and garage in Hagersville.

A small, simple operation customary for the time, it grew to the point where the elder Simington was able to attract General Motors, becoming the only Pontiac Buick GMC dealership in town in 1938.

“I’m not sure when, but he also got into selling International farm equipment. My father and two uncles were very active in the business. I never worked there much except for after school and summer and the like. I went elsewhere.”

He didn’t go far though, ending up at the Canadian Tire in Hamilton. His father passed away in 1970, and that fall Rob Simington began his aftermarket apprenticeship in earnest, at the McKerlie-Millen store in Hagersville run by Ralph Smith. When Smith passed away two years later, Bernie Barron, whose family continues to be involved in the aftermarket industry, gave him the opportunity to manage the store.

“If there is one person who was significant in my life it was Bernie Barron. He was just like a father figure to me. He gave me the reins of the business, and we ran it quite well. Bernie taught me an awful lot.”

In fact, says Simington, he learned from a lot of people. Some were good at their jobs, some less so, but he says he learned something from all of them and many of those lessons have stayed with him to this day. They can be distilled down to the simple truths of taking care of your staff, your customers, your bottom line, and of course yourself.

Simington takes some pride in the fact that he has been able to do a pretty good job at those things. He takes his vacations and lets his staff run the shop while he’s away; no phone calls home, not even a watch on his wrist while he’s away. And he takes care of himself, too. He’s still on the volunteer firefighting squad at 57, and his slim, taut frame is testament to an active approach to his life and his health.

“But we’re all getting older, so we have to take care of ourselves. Four years ago a blood test showed that I had the early stages of prostate cancer. Everything is okay now, but it’s a good message for everybody over 40 to get tested.”

The staff at Simington exude a very positive attitude to each other and to customers. It is clear that they enjoy their work environment. Of the seven full-time and eight part-time staffers, many have been there for a number of years.

While they take much of the load for the front end responsibilities, Simington focuses on ensuring that they have the support in terms of coverage, pricing, and brands to give their sales efforts the best tools to succeed.

Probably the best example of this is that despite his longstanding association with McKerlie-Millen and Carquest, he has sought additional supply relationships.

“I had a very good customer who needed a different brake rotor option than what I could get through Carquest. I saw the RPDL ad in Jobber News and thought I would give them a try.”

That was about three years ago, and that relationship has blossomed, alongside buying relationships with Canusa, Base Automotive Warehousing, and Keystone Automotive Operations for performance parts.

He emphasizes that he values his relationship with Carquest. He’s grateful for the efforts that the dozen or so members of the Carquest organization made to help him move to his new location earlier this year.

“I probably should have gone after the partners [to take full ownership of the Hagersville branch] earlier, but I didn’t. I’m glad. It’s just water under that bridge. We’re very successful now and we’re headed in the right direction.”

He’s learned patience over the years, and to let bygones be bygones.

“There’s no sense dwelling on the past. Move on ahead to the future.

“I have been let down so many times being in a hurry. You have to take your time and realize that there are going to be speed bumps along the road, and you just have to slow down a bit. You might have to adjust the way you are going, but eventually you are going to get there, even if it might not be on the path you thought.”

A perfect example is the effort he had to expend to get the new location up and running. There were the usual headaches with outfitting what had been a cabinet design and construction centre (still housed in the north end of the building), but there were other difficulties with the town council.

“They wanted to limit my retail space. The fella in the other section has a five-year lease and in five years I plan on moving into that area, so my retail space is going to double.

“The town council didn’t want me to draw business from the downtown core. The thing that makes me so angry was that at that time the No Frills [grocery] store was going in,” a couple of hundred metres to the south, “and it was going to be drawing from the downtown core, and yet they saddle me with the problem.” The whole process took about six months longer than expected before he was in.

Just another bump in the road, though. He’s moved on.

The new location is twice as large as the previous one, about 6,900 square feet in all. At the old location, inventory needs put him into three outbuildings and a mezzanine. They were literally tripping over their inventory. A move was necessary.

The new location is very visible, located on Main Street at the southernmost fringe of town. Workers in Caledonia, the Nanticoke generating station, a Stelco facility, and Imperial Oil pass by daily, so walk-in trade is solid. So is overall growth. Simington estimates that growth this year–the move was made in February–has topped 20% over last year at this time. He’s aware of concerns some have regarding retail sales, “but you can’t be losing the walk-in trade to Canadian Tire and the like.”

That attitude extends to competing bannered stores in neighbouring towns. Everybody helps each other out.

He says it with a laid-back tone, but there is determination in there too. While the rest of the auto parts business, Canadian Tire included, has headed to the larger centres nearby, Simington has remained steadfastly committed to Hagersville.

“We work hard. We listen to what our customers have to say. And if our customers want a certain product line, we go after it.

“I’m very focused on what I want to get done. Service is our most important product. It’s on our notepads and I try to live by that every day. I feel that is what has built our business.

“You have to look into the corners. Stuff is out there to sell. Most of the time, when our customers want an oddball thing, they put their trust in us.” It’s all about finding new parts to sell, and new customers to sell to. Ever sold a hoist for use in a mine? He has.

“I feel sorry for the jobbers who are finding business slow. I’m lucky.”

Considering his character, experience and attitude, it’s hard to give all the credit to good fortune.