Garage owner starts interactive workshops
Andy Dugas, owner of Andy’s Auto Service in Bridgeville, works on an oil change.
Participants in the interactive workshop walk out of Dugas’ garage knowing more about how to troubleshoot car problems.
Andy’s Auto Service, the garage that Andy Dugas has owned on Bower Hill Road in Bridgeville for five years, is made to do its job.
A gray-and-blue painted cement block exterior conveniently allows for enough room on the inside to work on two vehicles simultaneously.
It’s nothing big. It’s nothing elaborate. It gets dirty every single day.
But most importantly, it’s exactly what Dugas wants: a hometown business that cares more about the people that come in on a daily basis rather than the money trickling in.
“I’ll never do it,” he said about raising prices similar to big-time competitors he previously worked for. “I would work my way right out of business if I ever did that. If I stay loyal to people, they stay loyal to me. That’s just the way it works.”
So when his daughter, Nicole, turned 16, Dugas and his wife, Robin, looked to lend a hand once again.
“We were concerned,” Robin Dugas said about seeing their daughter walked out of the local driver license center with permit in hand, ready to get behind the wheel of her 2000 Jeep Cherokee. “I always relax in bed at night on Facebook, and I see all these kids flashing their new license or permit. I think to myself, I’ve known these kids since preschool, and it’s scary. Are they really prepared?”
Asking themselves the same question about their daughter is what sparked an idea to turn Andy’s Auto Service into a classroom.
As Andy ends his workday, he turns from mechanic into teacher, cleaning up the shop to invite new and soon-to-be drivers for an interactive workshop. He trains them how to change a tire, jump start a car, know the fundamentals of an engine, how to check and refill engine fluids and much more.
A Bridgeville police officer also visits to talk about the dangers of texting while driving and what to do in the event of an accident or police interaction.
“The idea was really just sparked with our daughter and starting to think about all the things she needs to know,” Robin Dugas said. “Even though you can’t control your child at all times, our job as adults, as a community and as parents is to give them the tools to make the right decisions. There could be a time when they don’t have cell service or anything could happen, but they should have the ability to get out of a sticky situation. And that’s where this idea was born.”
Typically lasting two hours, the class offers new and future drivers the opportunity to not only learn about the basic maintenance of a car, but to provide a hands-on approach by actively having the students participate.
“We have a set agenda but it’s not by the book,” Andy said. “We just go with the flow but make sure we really hit all the topics. It starts out like someone walking into a dance at a different school, so I just try to make a few jokes to get everybody comfortable. It’s like medical school. You don’t learn how to do heart surgery by looking at a book.”
Robin said the class costs $45 to attend but is the furthest from a revenue-making endeavor for the garage, a value that can’t be put on the importance of the class and her husband’s 26 years of mechanical experience.
The first two installments of the class were filled to capacity, with students attending from as far away as Evans City in Butler County.
“We’ve only done advertising by social media and word-of-mouth,” Robin said. “We’re not doing large classes because we want the kids to be more hands-on rather than having a giant crowd of people. You know something is being done right if you’re engaging enough people to want to be involved. There is a need for this, and we are fulfilling it.”
For Andy, the goal is simple for what he wants the kids to get out of the class, which he plans to run on a monthly basis in 2017.
“We’re giving them the knowledge to be safe if something happens,” he said. “I want them to know there is not a situation they can’t handle. I want them to know they can go across the entire country by themselves.”