This month we are pleased to introduce you to URG Member Jason Howell, General Manager of the family-owned All Import Auto Parts in Fort Worth, TX. We asked Jason to share the story of how the business was founded and about his experience in the automotive recycling industry.
“My great-grandpa started scrapping cars back in the day on the side to bring a little extra money to help pay for bills and groceries. Then, as my grandfather got older, he got into the industry and started scrapping cars and opened up a pick and pull scrap operation, he became a mobile car crusher. He’s 89 years old and still does that. I don’t know how he still does all of it, but you know, he’s a worker at heart. Blue collar guy, he just doesn’t want to sit at home,” he said. “He still works as a mobile crusher. Matter of fact, they’re actually here crushing right now!”
His mother started working with his grandfather, then she married Keith Sturgeon in the 90s, who ran All Import Auto Parts at the time and ran it for over 20 years together! Now his mother owns it and Jason himself is the general manager. “I’ve been here since 2013, and you know, I’ve had every hard lesson on the way to 2024.”
“I was actually in college trying to get my degree in radio, television and film. I wanted to be a sports broadcaster. I thought that would be a lot of fun. Took a lot of film classes, audio and radio classes, which was great. I learned a lot, but then realized that my true calling was business. So, I came in (to All Import), and honestly, my job when I started was ‘what needs to be done?’ What needed to be done, that wasn’t getting done, and how can I make it better and improve it. I had to work my way up with the part pullers, to shipping and receiving, to inventory, to working with dismantlers, and then ultimately, I landed managing all of the production and inventory about a year into it. That’s kind of where I stayed for about four or five years.”
When it comes to new owners starting up their own salvage yard business, Jason offered the following advice, “Be extremely open minded. There are so many different ways to be able to run one of these salvage yards. We all have our own thoughts and our own ideas. Things that we want to implement and do, but we know what does and doesn’t work. When you’re new and you’re fresh, you don’t know what will, what won’t work. I’m not saying we do 100%, but we have more of a general idea.”
“So be open minded, network. Meet as many people as you can that are in the associations that do great for our industry because anybody in those associations are going to want to help you out because that’s what we’re there for. We’re there to help make our industry more professional and to advance it further down the line. It’s not one of those industries where everybody holds all their best kept secrets close to their chest. We actually share all of those because we want everybody to succeed and be successful. So you know, if you’re new and you’re coming into our industry, just know that everybody’s willing to help, everybody’s willing to give you advice,” he concluded.
The upcoming URG & TeamPRP conference starting on April 10th, 2025 will offer everyone in attendance unique opportunities to learn from a wide array of industry experts, as well as let vendors and yards connect with one another and pass on knowledge on a wide array of subjects. “I want the staff to truly understand the business as a whole. The more training and the more education your staff has, the more educated decisions they can make and the less I have to be involved in everyday decisions,” Jason said. “I want my people to know all of it. I don’t want them to be just stuck in a niche where all they know how to do is sell parts. I want them to know how to sell parts, inventory a car, dismantle a car, pull apart and dissect the numbers of the performance evaluation of vehicles and inventory. I’m always constantly growing and adapting and being better today than I was yesterday, and I highly encourage that on all of my staff. They’ve really kind of taken that to where now they bring issues to me with solutions. And that’s really great because now I have their input as well.”
