Meet Blake Roberts, of County Line Auto Parts, in Kingsville, MO. A fourth-generation recycler, Blake took some time out of his day to sit with URG Director of Member Relations, Amanda Morrison and DJ Harrington, the CAR-diologist!
“I’ve pretty much been working at the yard since I was a little kid for all the holiday breaks from school,” Blake recalled. “Whether it was summer break, Christmas break, kind of doing anything, whether it was cleaning the yard, auditing the warehouse, cleaning out the warehouse, and initially didn’t really want to be in the business!”
Blake earned his degree in business and economics from the University of Central Missouri and after spending some time learning from others in the business. He moved back to Kansas City in the summer of 2021 to join the family business.
“When I got here, there were no expectations. It was just kind of like, ‘Hey, just find the lowest hanging fruit and fix it’.” Blake said. “For the first two months, I just spent a little bit of time in each department, understanding, learning the business, and learning car parts.”
“I would say the biggest lesson that I’ve learned is getting the right people in place. One thing we’ve done here, we’ve adapted or adopted the four corners kind thinking like Sean Garber at Grade A. Surround yourself with good people, listen to your customers, check your ego at the door, check your greed at the door.” Blake stated. “The first one is the most important and that’s surrounding yourself with good people. If you don’t surround yourself with good people, you can’t have the other three. Being able to get people that you can trust and being able to get people that have the same vision as you, that’s the most important. You can really waste a lot of time and money training people that don’t end up working out.”
He also stressed the importance of learning from and working with your peers.
“I’m a huge fan of collaborating with other yards. I’ll give you a good example. Shannon Nordstrom (of Nordstrom’s Automotive) is a great, great person to know in the industry. Honestly, one of the nicest facilities I’ve ever been to. We’ve developed a really good relationship with Shannon. We ended up actually doing an expansion here last year, a pretty big one, added about 30,000 square feet. New dismantle area, new warehouse, new shipping and receiving, and Shannon was very welcoming to have us at his facility to tour it, get some ideas, ask him, ‘Hey, what would you have done differently?’”
He concluded, “One thing that’s really cool I think about this business is that everybody that I’ve ever talked to is always willing to help and they’re always willing to share, ‘Hey, this worked for me, this didn’t.’”
For the complete interview, be sure to tune in to the URG On The Go Podcast, available on Spotify, iTunes, Pandora, Skitcher, iHeartmedia, Amazon and wherever you get your podcasts!.
