By Elaine Whitesides
Morgan County Business Leader
On a snowy weekday morning the phone doesn’t quit ringing and there’s a steady stream of customers through the door. In the waiting area is a family with a child playing with toys while his parents watch TV and talk on their cell phones. A woman is tapping at her laptop keyboard in the light of a picture window while yet another woman cracks open a textbook.
Co-owners Jon Brown and Tom Duh tag team as they talk with customers about the problems they have come to share. Many who come in are greeted by name and those who come in as strangers leave having shared not just their names and problems, but a bit about themselves and their lives.
Doesn’t sound much like an auto and tire store, does it? Yet it is. The Mooresville Auto and Tire on Monroe Street not only provides customers with Goodyear tires, owners of just about any variety of motorized vehicle from daycare vans to boom trucks to passenger cars can get service for virtually any automotive situation or problem.
Observing the two owners interact with customers, employees and each other, it is obvious they are both people-centric. Brown says it makes a difference and Duh agrees, saying, “People are the center of our business. Without people we have no business.”
On an average day, the shop will service about 70 vehicles with one part-time and six full-time employees in addition to Brown and Duh. Of the employee roster, all but one has been with the pair since they took ownership in 2006. These owners see value…
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