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On this episode of All About The Car, join Rob and Bill as they chat with longtime Associates, Doug Eichten and Dennis Adamski, about what it was like in the early days of Schierl Tire & Service. Dennis has been along for the ride since 1966! Doug is celebrating 28 years with us this month.

Schierl Inc. was founded in December 1956 by John "Butch" Schierl and his wife Anne, with the help of his father, Shorty Schierl. The first Schierl Tire & Service location opened on the north side of Stevens Point, WI in 1962. What began as a one-truck oil company has expanded to 63 retail businesses in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, employing over 650 people. Today, Co-CEOs Tim, Fritz & Bill Schierl lead Team Schierl Companies and we continue to grow! Listen here for stories about the old days.
 

 

Rob:

Welcome to our podcast. All about the car brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host, Rob Hoffman, an auto service specialist with over 44 years of industry experience. As I look around the studio today, I see I'm not alone. As a matter of fact, we'll need a bus to fit everybody in on this episode of All About the car. Along for the ride are also Doug Eichten, Dennis Adamski and Bill Schierl. Why so many you ask? Team Schierl Companies is celebrating 65 years this year and we're focusing in on Schierl Tire and Service. And oh, do we have stories to tell! So hop in, buckle up, hang on and let's hit the road. So when did it all begin? Actually back in 1956, Butch Schierl started Schierl Oil with one truck and it was called Central Valley Oil. That's the very beginnings.

Bill:

Then shortly thereafter, it changed to Schierl Oil.

Rob:

And what was next in the timeline Bill?

Bill:

In 1962, our father got involved with Schierl Tire and Service on the north side location. And then we have that opportunity to speak with Denny here who was there right from the beginning and joined the team in 1966 as a very young man at the age of 19,

Rob:

You know, makes my 44 years of industry experience sound really silly. Doesn't it.

Doug:

You're just a child.

Rob:

Denny you've been at it a long time.

Dennis:

All my career.

Bill:

So when you first started at the north side location in Stevens point, what was the building like? I just have very fading memories of a fire pole and something on the north side.

Dennis:

Well, the fire pole was the old fire station that we used for storage. The tire center was actually originally a blacksmith shop, truck garage, car dealership, Cooper Pontiacs first place. And then it was turned into our tire center.

Bill:

Wow.

Rob:

So Dennis, what were you hired on as, what was your job title?

Dennis:

GS broom pusher stock boy for about two days. And then I was changing tires and I've been at it working on cars and trucks and ever since.

Rob:

So back then, when you signed up for this, did you have any idea what you were signing up for?

Dennis:

Well, as to what I am today and that no, it was just basically GS at that time.

Bill:

What was the most popular vehicle or, you know, like your memory of what was the job that you were doing the most often? Like when vehicles broke down or tires?

Dennis:

Well tires, balancing truck tire work, average age of the cars was anywhere from 1955 on up to well, '62 was brand new at that time so...

Rob:

Ooh.

Dennis:

So it was a lot different than it is now. We had no hoist, just floor jacks.

Bill:

Yep.

Dennis:

Nothing for equipment. Right? We were changing tires with tee wrenches, no air wrenches, even.

Bill:

Right.

Dennis:

There was none of this. What we have now.

 

Doug:

All the tires had inner tubes in 'em back then too.

 

Dennis:

Good portion of them. We had tubeless ones, all reverse change at that time. Remember you flip 'em over and have change 'em from the opposite side, fifth Fords and Chevies were notorious for that. At that time had a couple of 'em roll off the cars cause they didn't get tightened all the way.

Bill:

So then on the tires you had mentioned, you like the fact that we actually studded tires.

Dennis:

Oh yes.

Bill:

Nowadays a people don't even have studded tires.

Doug:

Yeah. What is stud tires?

Dennis:

They're they're still there. It's only special applications you're allowed studding tires was which you put a metal stud size of a end of a ball point pen injected into the casing. There was pre-drilled holes from the factory and hundred to 110 studs in each tire.

Bill:

Wow.

Rob:

And you probably remember those very well don't you,

Dennis:

You bet.

Bill:

By hand.

Doug:

It was a pneumatic studder that drove them in. There was a hand one available, but we never were that backward.

Bill:

The advanced technology that we like to retain for today too,

Rob:

Was tire work the only work that that shop did at that time, were you getting mechanically involved or...

Dennis:

No we were totally mechanical. Front end machine ball, joints, brakes, anything you wanted? We'd do it. We tried doing it. Truck tire work got real popular cuz Bill's dad was hooked up with a lot of trucking companies through the oil company and we serviced them through wholesaling tires at that time. And all it was was eight and a quarter to 10 hundred 20 truck tires, all tube type for a good 10, 15 years before the tubeless ones start coming out,

Rob:

Moving to the new location, Denny, that was about 1973,

Dennis:

72 it was built. And then we moved.

Bill:

I remember that came with the car wash, like one of the few car washes in the community that was automatic.

Dennis:

Yep. It was an automatic headache.

Bill:

Yeah exactly. You were the repair guy for that car wash. It's entire expansive life.

Dennis:

That whole tire center, everything where every water pipe is laid out underneath the concrete and that I can go with my finger and point where they are.

 

Bill:

Yeah.

 

Dennis:

And they should be tore up

Rob:

And your resume just keeps growing and growing and growing.

Dennis:

Oh, that's what I did. There was basically three, four of us at that time. And that was it. Besides the manager and assistant manager three techs.

Rob:

How many bays was the new shop, then?

Dennis:

Eight or 10.

Rob:

Oh, it's a good size shop. And you had a state of the art alignment system

Dennis:

In the pit.

Rob:

Explain what a pit is to our listeners.

Dennis:

It's a hole in the ground with ramps about the width of the hoist is right now. And it extended. You drove over that ramp and then there was turntables just like there are for alignments today. And then we used the old John Bean projector type alignment machine.

Rob:

So the automotive technician would actually be working on the underside of the vehicle underground basically.

Dennis:

Yep. Oh, it was actually good for trucks and that, see, we did big trucks. We did two ton and up at that time, we were the only one in town for the longest time to do that. I was stuck with that one too.

Bill:

I just remember like the projection machines were like these really big, like two feet by three feet,

Dennis:

You look at a '52, '53 Chevrolet coop and it looked just like it,

Bill:

It did, you're right!

Dennis:

Only mini.

Bill:

Right? And that those arms that you talked about, like extended out, if you missed the arms driving in, you had a real problem, which I think did happen one time when there was a vehicle that went down into the pit.

Dennis:

More than once.

Bill:

If I remember correctly that that's one evening is when the beer and the coolers went away after a vehicle went in the pit.

Dennis:

Yep.

Bill:

So also at the 73, well, when it moved to the new facility, we were a Goodyear and Goodyear was selling all sorts of things in the showroom that I remember, we had bicycles,

Dennis:

Bicycles, housewares, you know, kitchen sets, dishes, stuff like that for promos. And that, and a lot of stuff came from the gas stations when your dad inherited Erickson's Oil.

Bill:

Yep.

Dennis:

We carried a lot of that over. We used to promote all that kind of stuff. Fixed bicycles.

Bill:

Yeah.

Doug:

So there are appliances?

Bill:

Yeah.

Dennis:

Yeah.

Rob:

I think Goodyear used to do that years ago didn't they?

Dennis:

You could order anything you wanted for your house through Goodyear at that time, basically the general appliances and stuff. Like it was a good deal. I still got some of the original green glasses.

Bill:

Oh my.

Rob:

Wow.

Dennis:

Ashtrays galore.

Bill:

Yes, many, many ashtrays with the tire around it, with the ashtray in the center.

Dennis:

I got four, five of them left too yet.

Bill:

Yep.

Doug:

Yeah.

Bill:

Don't the bicycles were Fuji, which he was a biker.

Rob:

That's a pretty high end bike.

Dennis:

It's a brand that still exists.

Rob:

It's a European bike and yeah, still around today.

Dennis:

That's the one Doug was gonna help take care of, and he all service these bikes in that. Yeah. For two days that last I was stuck with that too.

Rob:

So that's some real out of the box thinking really to sell bicycles in automotive repair and tire shop.

Dennis:

Sure.

Bill:

Right.

Dennis:

So you were actually working on 'em too. Denny. Wow. Putting 'em together Or repairing 'em.

Dennis:

Yes. Right out of the box.

Bill:

Yep. They came in boxes

Dennis:

Right out of the box.

Rob:

What would you say Denny was the most common service to a car back in those days, most common repair or service. What did you see most often?

Dennis:

Four tires in alignment, as quick as you could get 'em out, we would do 10, 12 alignments a day. What we do for alignments today is really nothing. What was pushed out them days

Bill:

Is that because the mechanical difference between how the vehicles were made now versus then?

Dennis:

I think so Ford, Chevrolets, the middle line type car were notorious for suspension parts. You go back far enough. You know that a good alignment man could keep two techs, busy putting parts in. It was no problem. That's why we did so many alignments.

Bill:

The roads probably weren't as good either on the vehicles.

Dennis:

I don't think the cars were built as good. They had better metal in them, but suspension in that was nowhere near as good as what it is today. You know, you know, you got a hundred thousand miles out of a car in the seventies and 80's versus what you get today. You had a damn good vehicle.

Doug:

Yeah. I'm just thinking on those cars back then. You'd put in points and condensers.

 

Dennis:

Tuneups

Doug:

Half the time. Everything. Right.

Dennis:

Well you change spark plugs every 20,000 miles.

Doug:

Yeah.

Dennis:

It was spark plugs. Wires constantly.

Doug:

Yeah. When It got cold out, you know the cars wouldn't start. Whereas you see that today to speak of.

Dennis:

Oh, there was so many that we went out with just jumper cables or no tow trucks. Just take that old 52 international service truck in a chain and pull 'em in

Rob:

Change the spark plugs. Change the oil and start it up.

Dennis:

Get 'em going.

Doug:

Yeah. New new points. Gotta put new points in too. They're gonna be out grow.

Dennis:

Oh yeah. Gotta do the routine. You gotta get it all.

Doug:

Yep. Yep. Points, condenser plugs set the timing.

Dennis:

Yep.

Rob:

So if you look at the Stevens Point, Schierl Tire and Service today, it faces the north, the front of the building faces the north Northeast kind of sort of. But that was always the case.

Dennis:

The one back then?

Bill:

No,

Rob:

No, no. That's today.

Dennis:

Okay.

Rob:

But back in your day in the beginnings, it faced the opposite direction. Why was that?

Dennis:

The old tire center or this one?

Rob:

The current location. But the first time it was built,

Dennis:

The first showroom faced

Bill:

The south.

Rob:

South.

Dennis:

South. Well actually Southeast the corner was.

Bill:

Yeah.

Rob:

Okay. Yep.

Dennis:

Right where the nail place is now.

Rob:

And that was facing the Copps Food Market.

Dennis:

Yep.

Dennis:

Okay.

Bill:

Which is hilarious that it, that Copps store closed down then was rebuilt as another grocery store.

Dennis:

When we were building where the Napa store is. That was the second Copps grocery store.

Bill:

Right.

Dennis:

There was an older one before that. And then there was the one that's south of the tire center laundromat right now. And then this new one is even farther south.

Bill:

Yes. The middle one there.

Dennis:

Yes.

Bill:

But it was in the south.

Dennis:

Yeah. It kinda in a, in a corner towards Dudas there.

Bill:

That property was all along by.

Dennis:

Yeah. There's actually five of 'em, there's four there and the one that was way on the east side, they moved it there for a while and then they brought it back here.

Bill:

Crazy and Napa was the Napa and Pineries Bank was just the garden. Like they called it the park that you only drove by. And that the Copps family was very specific about what they wanted.

Dennis:

Where the strip mall is. That was a gas station.

Bill:

Union 76.

Dennis:

In between was the original UPS truck shop. John Bannach house and barn back there along with his still below the barn.

Rob:

Allegedly.

Dennis:

It was there.

Dennis:

I know it. Ducks walking around. Cuz he raised them. We had ducks come in the tire center once in a while.

Rob:

Wow.

Dennis:

Robbie’s remember Robbie’s?

Bill:

Oh yeah. That was on the far east side though. Wasn't that?

Dennis:

That was right in back Robbie’s hamburger stand between us and Dudas.

Doug:

Oh. Was Hot & Now I think Hot & Now.

Dennis:

I'm sorry. Hot. I'm sorry. Hot & Now. Yeah.

Doug:

When I first joined the company, that was a Hot & Now out there.

Dennis:

That was it. Robbie’s was on the north side.

Rob:

Hot & Now hamburgers, right?

Dennis:

Yeah.

Rob:

Hamburgers. Absolutely.

Dennis:

Quarter hamburgers.

 

Doug:

Yeah.

Dennis:

Robbie’s was 15 cent hamburgers.

Bill:

Yes. Great.

Dennis:

When I started working for Schierl, if you spent a buck for lunch, you were splurging.

Dennis:

The first day I started for Schierl, it was supposed to be part-time and lo and behold, the guy that was gonna train me, ended up being your dad. He was gonna show me how to change a tire. And I don't know if any of you two guys remember the old double eagle.

Doug:

Oh yeah.

Dennis:

With the liner inside the tire within a tire,

Doug:

Oh, the original double eagle. No, I don't remember that.

Dennis:

With the tire inside of a tire was one of the first run flats ever built. It was about a $300 tire back in the sixties and seventies. Oh, Butch was gonna show me how to do it. And he was like a Cub duck in a mud pond trying to change tires. So we promptly ruined the first one.

Doug:

Sure.

Dennis:

And I kind of, he was showing me, I was kind of watching in that and I could see this was not gonna work. I really didn't know totally how to do it, but could get the, the principal of it. So I said, Mr. Schierl, can I take over? And he said, go ahead. I said, this one's ruined. There's nothing we can do about it. We ripped the bead on it. He says, if you can put this second one on, you got a job. I put it on, got it going and everything for him. And he said, this was your last part-time day. And that was ever since.

Bill:

That's awesome

Dennis:

He was good to me that way. He'd throw a lot of things out at me to first transport that Schierl company ever bought. He called me up one day. He says, we're going to Abbotsford. I said, what are we going for? He says, I'll tell you when we get there, I never drove semi before that. He said, take it back to Point. We own it. I was driving transport for how many years 25?

Bill:

Oh my God. Yeah.

Dennis:

25, 28 years. Part-Time.

Bill:

After your full-time.

Dennis:

After working all day, I'd leave Friday night drive all night long till Saturday morning and go back to work without going home. Carrie Lutz. And I go to Green Bay twice at night. Pound them trucks.

Bill:

What changed between the old north side tire and service center. And now you move into this modern new facility. What transitioned the most?

Dennis:

The business atmosphere. It got more business like. It was basically the old place was a family orientated, started out type thing. And it started out with nothing. There was nothing. Your dad was very brave, venturing into a lot of that stuff. Cause he had no idea what he was getting into either. I don't think.

Bill:

No.

Dennis:

Not to what it is today. If he'd look around what it is today, he'd look at you boys and say, I'm proud of you.

Bill:

Thanks for that.

Dennis:

I remember your brother coming up to me. And he said, Dennis, he said, we're in deep trouble. I told him, I says a flat out. I says, your dad promised he'd take care of us if we stuck around. So Dave and I, we backed him up. We waited for a while. I told him I'd stick around. We had overtime coming. One time he came and talked to us in between the three of us guys. We had almost 3000, some dollars coming. We gave it back to 'em and they both broke down in tears. Cause we were in deep **** at that time. And then it happened again in the eighties at the new tire center. You remember that one?

Bill:

Oh yeah.

Dennis:

That's just when you guys kind of came on board right after that, it was not pretty.

Bill:

Ups and downs of business for sure.

Rob:

Well, it's been quite the ride today. I thank you very much. Doug, Bill and Denny for all the stories about the early days of Schierl Tire and Service. This is just one episode of a three part series of Schierl Tire and Schierl Companies 65th anniversary specials. So we hope to have you ride along next time on all about the car. To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources or to simply send us a message head to all about the car podcast dot com. We'll see you next time.