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“Well, I give you a year and you’ll probably be back too,” said a friend in 1981. Dave Beasley was 25-years-old then; striking out from his hometown of Redwood Falls to buy a dusty, cluttered, hole-in-the-wall electric motor company in Granite Falls. That off-hand comment rang in his ears. Now it’s 30 years later.
He never went back.
“It was a good thing he said that,” says Dave now from the counter of the Dave’s Sales building as he bustles back and forth between customers. “Because that really forced me to stay here and work hard.”
He recalls, that prior to that off-hand comment, he and his friend had been discussing another buddy who had left Redwood Falls, found that things didn’t work out and returned home. It was 1981, the country was in recession. He tells the story with a chuckle and a glint of pride. At this point in the story both he and his wife, Nancy, are quick to point out that their mortgage interest rate was 16.75%.
It’s funny how some of the greatest motivation can be found in the doubts of others: “... I give you a year and you’ll probably be back too.”
It was hard, at the very beginning. Yet, within a year Dave was wholesaling electric motors not just repairing them. He says, in a way he got started at the right time. His business has grown every year since; sprouting side projects like a tree sprouts roots.
But in those first weeks, Dave had to untangle that cluttered shop to find out what exactly he had bought; working 12 hour days and shuttling between Granite Falls and Redwood Falls.
In those first couple of weeks motivation and doubt reversed themselves sometimes: “... You’ll probably be back too.”
Dave’s wife, Nancy, then a girlfriend, remembers those moments as Dave started out. “It was just this hole in the wall that you could only walk through using this little path. He was trying to get things organized in those first weeks and I remember him calling in that first week going ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here’.”
“... You’ll probably be back too.”
Doubt and motivation reversed again.
“The first two weeks I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing,” says Dave. “Until I went back (to Redwood) and heard what that friend had to say.”
Now, beyond Dave’s Electric Motor Company he sells, services and distributes in a litany of trades: boat lifts and docks, trailers, air compressors, Milwaukee Tools, alternators and starters and bottled water distribution. “It takes that to stay in business,” says Dave explaining his list of businesses. That list reads like a chamber of commerce directory on his store front. “You have to diversify into other things,” asserts Dave.
And, oh yeah, he’s been the Granite Falls Fire Chief for the past four years.
He has some rental properties too.
He’s a long way removed from that one year his friend gave him, and a long way from “you’ll be back too”.
“I’m just really proud of him,” says his wife Nancy reflecting on the past 30 years. “He’s worked at this... He started this business with $10,000. He sold his motorcycle and he sold his car and he had this old beater truck, and that’s what he bought the motor shop with.”
$10,000 and motivation can go a long way it seems. It is said that achievement results from work realizing ambition. On August 25 the Beasleys will celebrate that achievement, the past 30 years and all the customers that have helped them in their realization with an open house at the business.
Dave got started in electric motors in 1973. He was busy then too; working at his dad’s gas station and a fast food joint; flippin’ burgers, as he says and delivering papers in Redwood Falls.
The owner of the electric motor company there came to see Dave’s dad about finding someone to strip the copper out of old motors. So, Dave eventually dumped his burger flippin’ gig saying, “His pay was better. It was $2.00 an hour. Everybody else was $1.65.”
That job led to an occupation after the owner of that electric company appealed to Dave’s good sense.
“I always wanted to be a mechanic,” says Dave with a laugh. “But he told me ‘In the winter time would you rather get your hands dirty, or would you rather crawl under a car and have snow and ice dripping over you in the cold winter’. So, I thought ‘well, I think I’ll try this’.”
Then when he was 25; having gone through what he calls the ‘hard knocks’ learning of his trade, it was time to start on his own and he began looking for a business to make his own.
He and Nancy were drawn to Granite Falls, in a way, by Western Fest, as Nancy recalls.
“We came to Western Fest one summer and stayed in the camp ground and bought boots and hats and had a great time,” she says. “Then we went to the street dance and decided this was the ‘fun’ community. So Western Fest was a big draw, that’s what I remember coming to and thinking this was a really fun place.”
Yet no one thinks about the next 30 years when they’re in their twenties. Over 30 years have past since the Beasley made a home here in Granite Falls. In that time they raised a son, Ryan. He’s now 24.
“I didn’t think we’d be here this long, no,” says Dave. “When we first came to town we just thought we’d be here five to 10 years, then we dug our roots in a little deeper and here we still are.”
... I’d give them at least another year.
“Well, I give you a year and you’ll probably be back too,” said a friend in 1981. Dave Beasley was 25-years-old then; striking out from his hometown of Redwood Falls to buy a dusty, cluttered, hole-in-the-wall electric motor company in Granite Falls. That off-hand comment rang in his ears. Now it’s 30 years later.
He never went back.
“It was a good thing he said that,” says Dave now from the counter of the Dave’s Sales building as he bustles back and forth between customers. “Because that really forced me to stay here and work hard.”
He recalls, that prior to that off-hand comment, he and his friend had been discussing another buddy who had left Redwood Falls, found that things didn’t work out and returned home. It was 1981, the country was in recession. He tells the story with a chuckle and a glint of pride. At this point in the story both he and his wife, Nancy, are quick to point out that their mortgage interest rate was 16.75%.
It’s funny how some of the greatest motivation can be found in the doubts of others: “... I give you a year and you’ll probably be back too.”
It was hard, at the very beginning. Yet, within a year Dave was wholesaling electric motors not just repairing them. He says, in a way he got started at the right time. His business has grown every year since; sprouting side projects like a tree sprouts roots.
But in those first weeks, Dave had to untangle that cluttered shop to find out what exactly he had bought; working 12 hour days and shuttling between Granite Falls and Redwood Falls.
In those first couple of weeks motivation and doubt reversed themselves sometimes: “... You’ll probably be back too.”
Dave’s wife, Nancy, then a girlfriend, remembers those moments as Dave started out. “It was just this hole in the wall that you could only walk through using this little path. He was trying to get things organized in those first weeks and I remember him calling in that first week going ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here’.”
“... You’ll probably be back too.”
Doubt and motivation reversed again.
“The first two weeks I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing,” says Dave. “Until I went back (to Redwood) and heard what that friend had to say.”
Now, beyond Dave’s Electric Motor Company he sells, services and distributes in a litany of trades: boat lifts and docks, trailers, air compressors, Milwaukee Tools, alternators and starters and bottled water distribution. “It takes that to stay in business,” says Dave explaining his list of businesses. That list reads like a chamber of commerce directory on his store front. “You have to diversify into other things,” asserts Dave.
And, oh yeah, he’s been the Granite Falls Fire Chief for the past four years.
He has some rental properties too.
He’s a long way removed from that one year his friend gave him, and a long way from “you’ll be back too”.
“I’m just really proud of him,” says his wife Nancy reflecting on the past 30 years. “He’s worked at this... He started this business with $10,000. He sold his motorcycle and he sold his car and he had this old beater truck, and that’s what he bought the motor shop with.”
$10,000 and motivation can go a long way it seems. It is said that achievement results from work realizing ambition. On August 25 the Beasleys will celebrate that achievement, the past 30 years and all the customers that have helped them in their realization with an open house at the business.
Dave got started in electric motors in 1973. He was busy then too; working at his dad’s gas station and a fast food joint; flippin’ burgers, as he says and delivering papers in Redwood Falls.
The owner of the electric motor company there came to see Dave’s dad about finding someone to strip the copper out of old motors. So, Dave eventually dumped his burger flippin’ gig saying, “His pay was better. It was $2.00 an hour. Everybody else was $1.65.”
That job led to an occupation after the owner of that electric company appealed to Dave’s good sense.
“I always wanted to be a mechanic,” says Dave with a laugh. “But he told me ‘In the winter time would you rather get your hands dirty, or would you rather crawl under a car and have snow and ice dripping over you in the cold winter’. So, I thought ‘well, I think I’ll try this’.”
Then when he was 25; having gone through what he calls the ‘hard knocks’ learning of his trade, it was time to start on his own and he began looking for a business to make his own.
He and Nancy were drawn to Granite Falls, in a way, by Western Fest, as Nancy recalls.
“We came to Western Fest one summer and stayed in the camp ground and bought boots and hats and had a great time,” she says. “Then we went to the street dance and decided this was the ‘fun’ community. So Western Fest was a big draw, that’s what I remember coming to and thinking this was a really fun place.”
Yet no one thinks about the next 30 years when they’re in their twenties. Over 30 years have past since the Beasley made a home here in Granite Falls. In that time they raised a son, Ryan. He’s now 24.
“I didn’t think we’d be here this long, no,” says Dave. “When we first came to town we just thought we’d be here five to 10 years, then we dug our roots in a little deeper and here we still are.”
... I’d give them at least another year.
