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DEL.ICIO.USGrand 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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Comments
By Jack
April 24, 2007 1:10 PM | Link to this
Rick,
Congratulations to the gentleman in your article. It just goes to show that determination, goal setting, desire, hard work and a passion for something will enable a person to achieve anything.
Is what is so good about this article is the fact that the guy is from Central America. So many people are racist when it comes to mexicans or people from other countries coming to the United States. But what they do not realize is that so many of them come to this wonderful land of opportunity to achieve a dream and to become a successful product of society with a helping, loving heart. They often have more desire and a stronger work ethic than those that are born and raised on this soil. They learn not only their language but our language as well. Many of them are more educated than people that were born in the US. I applaud anyone that comes to the United States and achieves with honesty, hard work ethics, good morals and who abides by the laws of this land.
Also I really liked how he said that he prayed with his wife about starting his own business. We can learn something from that, with God as your decision maker anything can be achieved. It’s called being blessed and favored.
By Micahel H. Smith
April 24, 2007 2:59 PM | Link to this
Before the rancor arises, let me first say legal immigration is honorable. Unfortunately our government does not treat legal immigration with the honor it truly deserves by allowing too many into this country for no other reason than to drive down U.S. citizen wages.
Many have a misunderstanding about those of us who bitterly oppose illegal immigration and the wrongful use of legal immigration. For the majority of us who oppose these illegal and wrongful use forms of immigration we not only realize that legal immigration for the purpose of becoming U.S. citizen is constitutional and necessary to keep our nation vibrant, but we also hold that these immigrants should be embraced by all Americans most fervently in good favor as our future fellow countrymen. As Teddy Roosevelt said of this kind of immigration we can never have enough. Unfortunately we will never be able to accommodate everyone who wants to come, or even those who actually should come to this country. We can not make all dreams come true here or even provide the opportunity for all those dreams.
Though our founders did reason and for that purpose did they in declaration layout a road map before the eyes of candid world, an invitation for others to make the great American experiment fulfill their unanswered dreams anywhere in the world.
Yes, (rather illegally or by now surely legally) Mauricio Figueroa is well on his way to prosperity. The question remains why should he or the many others like him living south of our border have to come to this country just to escape the oppression, abuse and a miserable poverty not relative to this country; when with the help of all the Mauricio Figueroas’ and many U.S. citizens, we can bring about the necessary changes in this country and in those countries to make many more dreams a reality and end the many living nightmares?
Best of good fortunes Mr. Figueroa.
By Crystal
April 25, 2007 9:56 AM | Link to this
Hi Michael,
This is completely irrelevant to the article, but one of the last articles you told us how visas are issued. Could you please give me a run down because they removed it from the website before I had a chance to write it down. I want to use it for ammo for those that say that people HAVE to come here illegally because we don’t issue enough visas.
By nel
April 25, 2007 10:56 AM | Link to this
Crystal:
Go to the immigration service website and you’ll be able to see how many visas, what types of visas, etc laid out for each and every country around the world. It’s very easy and much better to go directly to the source for your information.
By Michael H. Smith
April 25, 2007 11:16 AM | Link to this
Crystal, I’m not so sure visas have no relevance in this blog discussion since the issue is an immigrant making good. However we do want only legal immigrants and we certainly do not want to dishonor our future fellow countrymen who play by our rules, work hard and desire to become U.S. citizens by allowing any other form immigration to exist.
While storing up ammo please don’t lose focus of the real target at this point, which should be our government as Congress is again attempting a so-called immigration reform. To save some time with this you can Google: visas or on work visas, and probably get the low down on all the visas this country issues more conveniently than having me relay the info second hand. Just so happens on Lou Dobbs last night something was brought to fore that would be of interest to you about the H series visas, you can find that info in Lou’s archives over on his CNN Website.
But a quick fact about visas is they contribute to at least fifty percent of the illegal immigration in this country via visa overstays, even Mike King wrote that fact into one of his columns. (this might have been what you were after).
Anyhow, something I wish more genuine legal immigration reform advocates would push for, is forcing Congress to fix the broken visas system before it can create any more new worker programs or raise the cap on the numbers of visas it can issue.
And folks of right mind and sincere desire to do real good in the presence of evil, to have any real comprehensive immigration reform we must force our government to stop accommodating the cheap labor interest of business in this country and start to diplomatically changing the desperate socio-economic conditions south of our border, in what can only be seen as an ad infinitum poverty pump in those countries of no or very little opportunity. If we can do this, if we can make good on delivering vastly improved socio-economic conditions south of our border, we will do more to end illegal immigration than all the walls we can build, border patrol officers we can deploy and all the technologies we can engage that are now sought after by many.
I think Mr. Figueroa would agree with those closing remarks.
By James C.McCoy
April 25, 2007 5:04 PM | Link to this
When will the anger and disgust be shown for the White Illegals in this country.Seems like it’s only a problem when the illegals are people of color!
By Michael H. Smith
April 25, 2007 9:18 PM | Link to this
Oh about as soon as 12 million illegal alien Canadian white people of color show up in this country. Put poky dots on them, it will not matter. For the majority of Americans it is better to right the wrongs, than it is to wrong their rights.
By Fair is Fair
April 26, 2007 12:00 PM | Link to this
just hope that his gratitude is shared with others equally and he isn’t like other Latino business owners that only hire Latinos