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Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Grand opening of business a payoff for strong work ethic
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He started out as a tire technician.
He spoke some English, though not well.
Mauricio Figueroa had other things going for him, though. Hard work. Dependability. A passion for the job, a hunger to learn, to treat customers right.
The manager of the Tires Plus auto repair shop in Hayward, Calif., saw this in the 20-something from Central America after he’d been on the job about two years.
“One day he asked if I wanted to step up and make more money, and I said, ‘yes,’ ” said Figueroa.
“He told me he could train me on the computer and stuff, the whole system. But he said, ‘Do it on your time, not our time.’ “
For nearly six months at the California shop, Figueroa showed up to learn the computer, to observe how the shop office operated. He did it on his off days, without pay. He moved his talent to Norcross four years ago.
I learn all this as we ride in Figueroa’s black truck. I had dropped my car off for an oil change at the Norcross Tires Plus on Singleton Road. Figueroa, the service manager, offered me a ride to the AJC Gwinnett News office.
Along the way, he talks about his life, where it’s been, what he wants to make of it and his plans to get there.
You gotta have a plan, man.
Figueroa started forming his as a 16-year-old living with his family in El Salvador. He told his mom and dad his plan.
“When I was little, my dream was to have money, to help my parents,” Figueroa, 28, tells me. “I said, ‘You sacrificed for us. I want to go to USA to help you more.’ “
So in the mid-1990s, he came to America, landing in Hayward, birthplace of the Rock, the professional wrestler turned actor. Figueroa never graduated from high school. He could barely string together a sentence of English. It didn’t matter. Drive and ambition overcame shortcomings.
The job mounting, rotating and patching tires with Tires Plus jump-started a career. At the Hayward repair shop, he moved from tire technician to service manager. A district manager took interest. He saw the work ethic and rewarded it with a promotion as manager of a shop in Oakland.
On his very first day, Figueroa had to fire a mechanic and two tire technicians. It was a rough shop. Some employees didn’t care. A few got high at work.
“I see customers like I see my parents,” he tells me. “I wouldn’t want someone on drugs working on their cars.”
He transferred to a company store in Lawrenceville from the Oakland shop in 2003. He worked there for a few years before he joined management at a Tires Plus off Singleton Road in Norcross.
“He’s very reliable and dependent,” says Enrique Valencia, the shop manager. “And he’s really good with customers. He needs to live his America dream.”
And for that to happen, Valencia will lose his right-hand man.
Saturday marked Figueroa’s last day at the shop. His plan is to run his own business. Ochoa Auto Repair, at 2084 Beaver Ruin Road near the Greyhound bus station, opens May 1.
He showed me the location Monday.
“I’m a little stressed,” he admits. He and Paola, his wife of five months, have prayed over the decision to start a business.
“But I am hungry to step out on my own.”
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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The Badie Tour: April 25
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Kimchi, anyone? Rick Badie, your AJC Gwinnett News columnist, knows where to get some of the best. On Wednesday, the Badie Tour stops by “new Korea Town,” a host of retail shops, restaurants and services in an area of Duluth bound by Pleasant Hill Road and Satellite and Steve Reynolds boulevards. Read about it online and in Thursday’s AJC Gwinnett News.
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