April is here and it is time for two things! URG’s annual training conference, and another installment of our Get to Know You series! This month we are pleased to bring to you the story of Holbrook Auto Parts of Highland Park Michigan – URG and Team PRP Member.
Jason Holbrook, the current COO of Holbrook Auto Parts, sat down with DJ Harrington, Amanda Morrison and Kristen Alexander (both of URG) during DJs URG On the Go Podcast to learn a little more about his role at Holbrook, how they listen to and serve their customers, and how their business has grown as a result.
“I actually come from the mortgage and title industry. I was in that industry for about 17 years, moved out of that and then joined Holbrook Auto Parts,” Jason stated. “At the beginning of last year, I came in here and really just wanted to take on a logistics role and figure out how we could start delivering our parts a lot better to our customers. We actually had three different people here at our yard that were running logistics, but nobody was actually full time doing logistics here!”
Jason explained that he started locally, with the shops around their locations, optimizing deliveries for them, then slowly expanding that process out to a state level and beyond!
“I took over the shipping department, basically shipping parts out to our customers outside of the state of Michigan. Then kind of jumped into PRP and tried to figure that out as well. We got a process going in our back group we call ‘Hot Shops’,” Jason explained. “So, hot shops are basically shops that are located within a five mile radius from where we’re located right now. We basically do same day deliveries to them if there’s a part that they need. We get that part pulled, we get it cleaned and we get it over to them as soon as possible. So, you know, I came in, I built all these processes and then moved up. I was able to hire a couple people to come in to be a part of this logistics role, and it’s been growing ever since!”
With the future of Holbrook secured thanks to their tremendous growth, we asked Jason to tell us about the history of Holbrook Auto Parts. “The current ownership has owned the business since 2004, but it’s been open for over 75 years. It started as a three acre property, one location. As we got to know our customers here around the city of Detroit, we basically started to listen and find out what their needs were and one of the couple of needs that we really found out was that they were requesting tires or wheels for their cars as well. They’d walk in, they’d be looking for a part of a car, but they would also ask us, ‘Hey, do you guys change tires? Do you guys have tires? Do you guys have glass? Can you change the windshield on my car?’ So we kind of took that away and we started brainstorming how we can make it happen. We ended up buying a building, on our lot, and maybe about a half a mile down and we opened up a tire and glass shop.”
Jason goes on to relate that the expansion of their business is a direct result of one thing: Listening to their customers.
“We listened to our customers to find out what their needs were, we ended up buying another building across the street from the tire and glass warehouse and opened a repair center. It was just a couple of bays, but they were filled up at all times. Constant traffic was happening. They come by their parts over at the salvage yard. If they need tires or glass, they go to the tire glass shop. If they needed a repair done on their vehicle, they would now go to the repair center and because the repair center was so busy, they couldn’t handle the clientele that was coming in. We ended up expanding from three bays to 13 bays. It is state of the art. It’s filled at all times. Constant traffic is still happening. Right now every single bay is filled with repairs that are being done on cars that customers are coming and buying parts from us at one of our locations!”
Jason Holbrook is the COO of Holbrook Auto Parts, in Highland Park, MI, he will be in attendance at the URG+PRP 2024 Conference in St. Louis in April. Holbrook Auto Parts is a member of URG and Team PRP. For more with Jason, check out the full interview on the ‘U-R-G On the Go’ podcast, hosted by DJ Harrington.
