John Nash announced that the Rotary meeting on Friday, May 3rd would be off site at the Fab Lab in Muskegon (388 W. Clay St.).  Please RSVP with John if you plan to attend so he can order the correct number of lunches.  In a separate announcement, John wanted members to know that as an outgoing President gift for Dave S., he had requested a past President pin, and Paul Harris pin.  If you have accrued Paul Harris points, and would like to gift them to Dave for that cause, please let John know and he can coordinate. 

 

                Zack Bisacky, co-owner of Joe’s Auto Parts in Spring Lake, joined us to shed some light on what goes on behind that big brown fence over on Cleveland St.  Joe’s is a family-owned auto parts salvage and sales operation that has been in business since 1938, when Joe Bisacky founded the business.  Joe was a local race-car driver, who was best known back then for winning the Marne Speedway Championship in 1948.  Joe’s son Gary took over the business, and ran it for over 50 years.  He passed away in 2015.  Before he passed, he was able to team up with his sons Caleb and Zack, who have subsequently taken the reins at Joe’s. 

 

                Zack’s background is very interesting.  He graduated from Spring Lake High School in 1990, and went on to college at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).  After graduating from UNC, he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he taught high school briefly.  In the late 1990’s, Zack started working for a little company named Amazon out in Seattle, WA, in their web services division.  He honed his skills there for 10 years or so, and then decided to move back home to West Michigan in 2010 when his father Gary contacted him to get some consulting help in order to improve Joe’s online presence.  After a brief stint working full-time at an internet company in Muskegon, and doing consulting work, Zack joined his brother Caleb and his father Gary at Joe’s Auto Parts as a part owner. 

 

                At that time, Zack set out to completely modernize and upgrade the inventory management and online sales systems for the company.  He helped to set up and add a new inventory management system, which moved their parts records and tracking from paper and memory, to computer and barcode processing.  He also added an online sales platform for the company.  As a result of these efforts, auto parts sales doubled from 2012 to 2015, all from online sales.  They now process over 1,000 vehicles per year, have over 4,000 vehicles on their lot currently, and list the available parts for sale on their site and through ebay.  The vehicles are acquired in a few different ways:  1) Someone can drive their car over to Joe’s and sell it to the store on the spot, or 2)  If the car is not running, Joe’s can tow the vehicle away and pay the owner at pickup, or, most of the time 3) Joe’s acquires vehicles from auction websites IAAI (Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc) or Copart Auto Auctions.

 

                Joe’s now employs 13 people, including the two co-owners, Caleb and Zack Bisacky.  Once vehicles are acquired, the VIN (vehicle identification number) is loaded into their inventory management system, which tells them which parts should be stripped, barcoded and listed for sale.  There are sales staff who answer questions and take orders over the phone or online.  The production staff are in charge of boxing, packaging and getting orders ready for sales people.  Dismantlers take apart any vehicles acquired, load and decode all parts that Joe’s wants to pull off and list for sale.  Parts pullers grab the parts ordered through sales staff or online, and get those to the production staff. 

 

                Tracy S. thanked Zack and Joe’s Auto Parts for sponsoring and donating a vehicle each year for the Bayou Battle game.  The SLHS Interact students paint the car Fruitport colors, then Joe’s tows the car over to either SLHS (away game) or Grabinski Field (home game), where students and fans line up to smash the car as part of the Bayou Battle fundraiser.  It’s a fun event that all Rotarians should attend if possible this fall.  Spring Lake hosts that game on Friday, September 6^th at Grabinski Field.

 

 

50/50 Winner:  Chris Burns