Auto Value

My name is Don Ferris. Back in the 1950s, I had to use car lot in a service station in Long Prairie, Minnesota. And I thought it was kind of fascinating to sell the merchandise instead of installing it. So I went down to St. Cloud here and I met with Jack Bartlett and then in 1961 we formed APA. We worked hard and we worked pretty smart I t My name is Ted Ferris. I have three locations for Little Falls, Long Prairie and Staples. I started right out of We have some good stories and they're well recognized as being the leader of that community. AutoValue means quality parts, parts availability at competitive prices. We really take care of our customers. We've got the merchandise and we got the people and we listen to them. We have a broad range of customers. We're probably 80% wholesale, 20% being retail. We do some industrial. We have what you call service centers too, w That's our bread and butter of our customer. And obviously they get a car broke down on a hoist and they want to part now. So our customers really appreciate us being able to get parts quickly for them. We can usually get something if they have a vehicle broke down and We have a computer system tied into the warehouse. Basically it can With the affiliation of APH, I t Without APH it would be very difficult. They give us a lot of support in many different ways. Between marketing, parts availability is huge. Accounting, they help us a lot there. They offer tools to help train your newer counter people and keep your veterans up to speed so to speak. APH is wonderful to work with. We probably work with them every day on somet They have a great organization and they really react very quickly and very well to us. If we call them on a question or a problem or somet It's not two days later we get answer or somet They'really very concerned from the top management all the way down to the employees and the pickers. They have a great staff. The biggest benefit of working with APH is I they do a lot of t We appreciate it. It's always been