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Jack Limbaugh is President of Jack’s OK Tire Service, a family-owned tire service business based in Algona, Iowa. Under his leadership, the company has expanded significantly, now operating multiple locations and providing exceptional customer service to agricultural and commercial customers. Jack is passionate about college football, with a rich family history of involvement in the sport, including his sons and grandsons playing at the university level.
In this episode…
What does it take to transform a small-town tire service into a flourishing multi-location business? How can a commitment to community and a strong family legacy guide success over decades?
According to Jack Limbaugh of Jack’s OK Tire Service, his family’s business, founded in 1952, expanded through strategic growth and strong community ties. Jack describes how his father’s entrepreneurial spirit and innovative approach set the foundation for their success. His father empowered employees to take ownership of new locations, fostering a culture of opportunity and loyalty. Jack highlights how the business has adapted over the years, embracing technology and expanding service offerings to meet the evolving needs of their agricultural and commercial clients.
On this episode of Gain Traction, Mike Edge chats with Jack about the evolution and legacy of a family-owned tire service. He offers insights into navigating growth in a small-town business. Jack shares personal anecdotes, such as his father’s participation in key historical events and strategies for expanding the business while maintaining a family-oriented approach. He discusses the challenges and rewards of running a multi-generational enterprise and the role of faith and community in driving success.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- [01:44] How a chance meeting sparked this podcast episode
- [02:34] The college football legacy within Jack Limbaugh’s family
- [06:02] Jack discusses his father’s entrepreneurial spirit post-World War II
- [11:59] The risk Jack’s father took to start his business
- [20:25] How Jack’s family-oriented approach impacts the business
- [22:25] The mantra guiding Jack’s company ethos every day
- [26:44] Why Jack was a perfect fit for the podcast
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Jack Limbaugh on LinkedIn
- Jack’s OK Tire Service
- Eric Crouch
- Tom Osborne
- Mike Edge on LinkedIn
- Tread Partners
Quotable Moments:
- “My dad’s first sales job was selling the guy into selling him the business.”
- “After you’ve been through World War 2, that’s nothing, right?”
- “Jack’s Tire and Service: Our family cares for your family’s tires.”
- “We’ve been here. God’s blessed us, and we just try to be good stewards of His blessing.”
- “Whatever we do in word or deed, do all to the glory of God.”
Action Steps:
- Foster a family-oriented work environment: Emphasizing a family culture within your business can enhance employee loyalty and satisfaction.
- Adapt and evolve with industry changes: Ensure that your business remains competitive and relevant, addressing challenges like changing technology and market demands.
- Invest in employee growth and opportunities: Providing opportunities for employees to take ownership or grow within the company can foster a motivated and driven team.
- Engage actively in community and networks: Being involved in community organizations and maintaining a strong local presence can enhance your leadership presence and business credibility.
- Maintain resilience and optimism in leadership: This attitude helps leaders navigate difficult times and seize opportunities, fostering a forward-thinking and resilient mindset in their teams.
Transcript
Announcer:
Welcome to the Gain Traction podcast, where we feature top tire and auto repair professionals, shop owners, industry executives, and thought leaders, and share their inspiring stories. Now Let’s get started with the show.
Mike:
Hello folks. Welcome back to the Gain Traction podcast, the exclusive podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host. Today’s guest is Jack Limbaugh, president and owner of Jack’s Okay Tire Service in Algona, Iowa. They have been in business since 1952 and I can’t wait to hear the story.
But before we begin, let me tell you a little bit about our sponsor, Tread Partners, and its customer re-engagement program called ReTread. ReTread is the only marketing program that I know of that comes with a guarantee. As a matter of fact, it is a guarantee of a 10 to one return on your money that you will receive on your marketing investment within 120 days. That’s correct. And so for instance, if you were to invest $4,000, you would receive $40,000 within 120 days, all by going after your best loss customers, customers that are already in your CRM. To learn more, visit Treadpartners.com.
So my past guest shout out today is a recent podcast I did with Joseph Pahonic, CEO at East Bay Tire. If you get a chance, check out my podcast with Joseph at gaintractionpodcast.com. All right, so let’s get this podcast started. Jack Limbaugh and I were introduced to each other by a mutual friend Mike Burns with ITDG. I’m excited to have him on the podcast. Jack, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.
Jack:
Well, thank you Mike. Glad to be here.
Mike:
Well, it’s exciting. We met, if you remember, I think it was on one of the rooftops at Caesar’s eating well with… It was actually kind of cold that night. I do remember that.
Jack:
It was chilly.
Mike:
It was chilly for Vegas, and we were out there with, I think it was, just give him a shout-out, Sailun Tire invited us and got to see Rondo, and I know a mutual friend, he’s President of Sailun Tire North America. But yeah, it was a good party and I was very happy to have met you. And then Mike was like, “Man, you need to get Jack on the podcast.” And Mike knows I like football and I now know that you like football and you’ve got four reasons to, from what I understand, family members that are playing in college football, that’s right? Or you had two sons do it and now you have two grandsons, yeah.
Jack:
Two of my three sons played football at the university level. One of them was University of Nebraska, for the Cornhuskers, and he was an offense lineman, played center back with Heisman Trophy winner Eric Crouch. Those years when Frank Solich and actually Nebraska played Miami in the national championship game at the Rolls-Royce Bowl that year and were thoroughly trounced by Miami and their team, but it was quite an experience to be able to go and watch your son play.
Mike:
Oh, I can’t imagine. So I’ll tell you an experience I have, it’ll make you feel a little bit better about the Cornhuskers. I still remember in 1998, I think it was ’98, ’97, ’97, ’98, whatever it was, Peyton Manning’s last year at Tennessee, and they got trounced by the Cornhuskers, if you ever remember that game. And they were in the Orange Bowl.
Jack:
Yeah, yeah, I do. It was right before my son went there.
Mike:
Yeah, yeah, that’s what I was thinking it was… And that was when Nebraska still had the famous coach, Tom Osborne.
Jack:
Yeah. Well, he retired right about that time. [inaudible 00:03:50] to say played for Frank Solich following who was assistant coach of Osborne’s. And they famously let him go after a nine and three season. So it hasn’t been real good since.
Mike:
Isn’t it amazing how some of these universities think sometimes. Now listen, I get it. You want national titles, but when you go nine and three, you got to ask yourself at some point, “How much better could we have done?” Well, it’s only three more games. You know what I’m saying? It’s kind of like, I don’t know. It’s always that balancing act. And then it’s weird how they hold on to some of these coaches that sit there at six and six or seven and five, they hold onto them for a long time. But anyway, let’s talk about your career in the tire business. You guys were founded by your dad in 1952, which I think was pretty cool story from what I read online because if I’m not mistaken, he had made a deal with a guy when he was 28 years old. It was a verbal deal, but then when he went to drive to go pay the guy, the guy changed his mind, right?
Jack:
That’s correct. Let me back up just real quickly ’cause I don’t want to slight my other son, my third son played at the University of Northern Iowa, played D1 football for four years. And then we’re fortunate enough to have my grandson has just signed a letter of intent to play in the Big 12 for the Iowa State University Cyclones. He starts in May, he’ll start and he’s on scholarship there on their team. So we’re excited, college football runs in the family and we’re very blessed to have that heritage. Looking forward to that. But back to my Dad.
Mike:
No, no, listen, I’m glad you did that. I didn’t want to leave anybody out and I love college football. And before this podcast ends, just to let the audience know, we’re actually recording this before the ‘final four games of the college playoffs. There’s four teams left and me and you might talk a little bit about our predictions of what’ll happen. But yeah, let’s go back to 52. Your dad started this or he was buying, right? He was going to buy a tire dealer, is that correct?
Jack:
Well, my dad went to in the military and in World War II, he enlisted, went to the military, fought in World War II, right at the end of the Battle of the Bulge and made his way, he was in the 2nd Armored division, made their way to Berlin to meet the Russians in Berlin. If you remember at that time, they were having a summit where General Eisenhower and Churchill and Stalin were meeting in Berlin at the end of war.
And American troops were real concentrated about getting there first because they thought the Russians were going to take control and keep it. So anyway, they met there and my dad’s division, the 2nd Armored division actually stood when three world leaders, Eisenhower, Churchill, and Stalin reviewed the troops. Unbeknownst to me until later in my life, until late in my dad’s life, he told me a kind of the story of how they were literally 12 feet away from this three leaders crossing in front of their tanks.
Mike:
Wow, that is very, very cool. I’m glad you told me that about your dad. I had the privilege about five years ago, I didn’t know the man before this, but I had known his daughter and he fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and he was in his nineties at the time. He’d be over a hundred now, but I got to take my boys out there to meet him and just to know that somebody had survived it, that they were there. And he told my boys actually, he had opened up, his daughter told me that later in life he opened up about some stories where he was more freely telling stories and he told some pretty gruesome stories to my boys.
And I told them, I said, “You’re all don’t realize this, but you’re going to remember this when it’s 2042 and it’s the hundredth anniversary one day when we entered that war. And you’re going to be thinking to yourself, ‘Hey, I met a man that was there.’ And I said, you shook the hand of history and you heard some pretty gruesome stories, which I think is pretty important for you to remember. These guys face this stuff.”
I think that’s cool that I’m glad you shared that about your dad. I mean, to be 12 feet away from such a historic moment with three, I mean massive leaders, we’re not talking
Jack:
History makers.
Mike:
History makers massive. And really, if you think about it, I mean Stalin’s one bad guy. Everybody always says, “You don’t want another Hitler.” Well, you don’t want another Stalin’s, really what you don’t want.
Jack:
That’s right. After he got out of the military, he was entitled to GI college education. So he started college education and went through four years and got a degree in general engineering back then, they call it civil engineering now, but he got this degree and always dreamt of going to work then for Caterpillar. It was in 1950, he graduated from Iowa State University and went and tested for Caterpillar. And when he went in and tested, interviewed, there was like 400 engineers setting testing. He came home and told his wife, he said, “I don’t know, I’m just going to be one of the number.”
So during the summertime he’d sold petroleum, sold grease, new Teflon grease, door-to-door, literally back then, because prior to the grease, prior to [inaudible 00:09:42] and sealed bearings, so the farmers used a lot of grease, five gallon buckets, and they’d load their guns. They worked door-to-door in the summer times and after he graduated, he went to work for that company full time. And my mom didn’t like him being gone three or four nights a week and housing was tough to, after the war, all the GIs come down. So they just lived in a 22-foot travel trailer on an acreage.
Mom didn’t like that lifestyle. So he had a customer that had a tire shop that he sold grease to, and a guy went to church with him and he said, “Jack,” he said, “This is a pretty good living.” It was an O.K. Rubber Welders, which later became O.K. Tire Service, but he had some molds and he retreaded some winter tires and things. And so my dad mentioned, “If you ever see one of these for sale or somebody molding one to sell.
So it was about 50 miles away, one here in Algona came for sale a few months later. Dad came up and talked to the guy, investigated it, reached a verbal agreement, shaked hands on it, went home and proceeded to raise money. He had to raise about $3,000. So he cashed in his military life insurance, borrowed money from his in-laws and from actually the owner’s wife for people he was working for, and he came up with enough money to pay the guy down. My dad walked in to pay him his money down and the guy said, “Well, I changed my mind.”
My dad always says his first sales job was selling the guy into selling him the business. And he got that done. So the next morning he came back and this owner of the business, the tire shop, O.K. Rubber Welders, took his $3,000 and took his cash out of the till, took his conscious evil card, pulled in, there was two guys that helped him, pulled him into the office and he said, “Guys, I sold the business. Here’s the new owner, Jack Lindbaugh.” And my dad shook their hand and he said, “Now somebody showed me what we do here to make a living.” And that was his inference and education into the tire business in 1952.
Mike:
That is so gutsy. But you know what? After you’ve been through World War II, that’s nothing, right?
Jack:
Yeah. It was a different day and age. You definitely got into a different.
Mike:
So fast forward a few years, I noticed that when I read about him, he would open up another store, but then he did this several times where he’d open up another store and then maybe sell it to an employee that was running it.
Jack:
He had a vision of opening stores and providing opportunities for local guys that worked for him here and back then it was obviously the bookkeeping and everything was manual, wasn’t computer and things. And he said, “Anybody that can do this for me, can do it for himself.” So he said, “I’ll provide that opportunity.” So he always split the profits with him at the end of the year and until they got, well they owned half of it, once they owned half of it, they had to go to the bank to buy them out to the second half because he never wanted to be a minority owner, so.
Mike:
Yeah.
Jack:
He started three or four other businesses that way.
Mike:
That’s awesome. That is fabulous, and to think of other people that way, but he was making a nice, probably a little nugget along the way. It gave him incentive and kind of kept his wheels probably turning, but at the same time I think of it, he gave somebody incentive to run the place, but he didn’t have to really worry about it because this guy had a real stake in it, right?
Jack:
That’s right.
Mike:
Yeah. So how many bays do you guys have at Argona now, where you’re located?
Jack:
Well, 30 years, or excuse me, 20 years after we started the business, we made a major expansion and built a 30,000 square feet building out along the main highway out, at that time out in the country, out here that were basically 300 by 114 feet, something like that. And they had five tire bays and at that time, and then warehousing and then our [inaudible 00:14:05] retread shop. Since that time, we’ve just punched more holes in the side, made the warehouse smaller, building other warehouses, and we’re out to about nine bays-
Mike:
Nice.
Jack:
… We do automotive and drive through truck service, a lot of commercial work, drive through service. 30 years ago, excuse me, that was seventies, 50 years ago, drive through truck service was just unheard of. And we’ve always had that since then, and we enjoy that. My guys, we work inside 12 months a year, so they’re out of the pool in our climate, out of the stress, the heat in the summertime, so.
Mike:
That’s nice.
Jack:
It’s a nice facility. We used… Had lot of vision, we used.
Mike:
Now do you guys do a lot with, I’m just making a conclusion here, jumping to a conclusion, but I’m going to assume that you’re probably heavy in ag. Is that accurate to say?
Jack:
Yeah, we’re very heavy in ag as well. Yeah. On the farm service, most of that’s done at the dealers and at the farmers at their place. Like every other large ag dealer we’ve had to implement automation. We use the core de-changers because tires are getting literally bigger and bigger and bigger, bigger than what people can handle themselves. So we try to bring as much stuff to the shop and when we change them on the core de-tire changing machines that make a lot less work out of it.
Mike:
So you guys have a field service truck, I’m assuming?
Jack:
Yes, two of them.
Mike:
Two of them? And how far out, what kind of radius do you guys cover?
Jack:
Usually go about a hundred miles.
Mike:
Oh, that’s generous. That’s getting out there. Okay. And it’s such a high demand area. Look, you got to be specialized and know your field, and it seems to me like those farmers, when they need the help, they need the help. It’s immediate. If they’re not running, I mean they’re losing money, right?
Jack:
That’s right. That’s right. It’s high demand.
Mike:
Yeah, and it’s immediate. You can’t just be open when you want to. You got to be open all the time, don’t you?
Jack:
Right. That’s correct.
Mike:
Yeah.
Jack:
When they’re harvesting their combines, if they go down in the field or wheels broken, a lot of wheels break and stuff. You’ve got to be there, take care of them.
Mike:
Absolutely.
Jack:
It’s a mess quite often.
Mike:
Well, I know one of the things that you guys brag about on your website, and I don’t mean to use the word brag, but it’s important to say it like you’re proud of it, is the way you treat your employees and the business that you guys have had for a long time. And then obviously you’re a family business. So I noticed you guys have a couple generations in there right now, right?
Jack:
Yeah, I have my sons, which are the third generation, and I have three sons. And then fortunate enough that they all work with us in the business, two of them backed here in Algona and one at our second location in Mason City, Iowa. We do commercial work and retail work there as well. A lot of truck workers in Mason City as well.
Mike:
How far is that from you guys?
Jack:
We’ve always tried to instill in our employees, we’ve had long-term employees, feeding the family, so we make them feel not only is it family business, but they’re also treating them like family and try to be family oriented.
Mike:
That’s awesome. How many employees do you guys have?
Jack:
Between the two locations, we’re about a 42.
Mike:
That’s awesome. Now I was asking, how far apart are they? The locations?
Jack:
About 50 miles apart.
Mike:
Okay. So yeah, it’s distinct markets for sure then.
Jack:
Yep.
Mike:
So after your dad expanded and everything and then you took over, how did you guys grow into the business that you are today? You were primarily what, were you always in the retail side and then went in commercial or were you vice versa or did you do a little both all the time?
Jack:
My dad got into the retraining with [inaudible 00:18:22] 65 years ago, so he got into that and we had a [inaudible 00:18:27] shop done for that long. So that puts us in the commercial business and sales. And then basically since its conception, we’ve taken care of farmers and farmers usage has changed a lot. Started off a little small tires, small tractors, gone to bigger tires, bigger tractors, now tracks. We do some track installation and service as well. So you just evolve and grow with the business. My dad was killed in a car accident 22 years ago, 23 years ago, excuse me, 2001. And tragically was going to pick up the tire on a July day, warm day, fell asleep and truck hit, pick-up hit a semi head-to-head, and he was taken instantly.
Mike:
How old was he by then?
Jack:
He was 76.
Mike:
Okay.
Jack:
- And so I was thrust into in the leadership role at that time, was basically doing everything day-to-day. He was still here as a mentor and involved, liked to be around the business. So shortly after that, my first son graduated from college and decided to come back and join us and then sack on and four years later and then 10 years later another one. So the boys had probably been the biggest, gives me us the ability to have their enthusiasm and their energetic and growing wholesale sales and taking care of customers. We’ve tried to be real family-oriented. We have one of our slogans that we advertise is Jack’s Tire and Service, Our Family Care for Your Family’s Lives.
Mike:
I like it.
Jack:
And that’s a family concept. We’re a small town, small city, and so we do enjoy the luxury of people who knowing we’ve been here seemingly forever and we try to remain real active in the community locally, the boys’ assistant coaches for wrestling and football and help volunteer time there. Being involved in the service organizations, the rotary club, the church and things.
Mike:
Well, that’s what makes this country great, but I love having you on this podcast because there’s so many, people don’t realize it, but there’s so many rural dealers and they love to hear about another rural dealer and the experience and what you do. And I know some of them because I come from somewhat of a rural area where they are heavily involved in their communities.
Jack:
We are in a small town, 5,800 people. The next other shops in [a town of about 25,000, but there’s not a lot of other people to take care of problems and meet their needs. So even here, God’s blessed us. We just try to be good stewards so there’s blessing in what He’s given us and just take care of people and do our best.
Mike:
Man, that’s well said. Well, you were talking about something, a quote that you guys or motto or tagline that you guys use in the company, but is there one that you live by, a mantra or anything? I always ask my guests this just because so many of you guys have had a mentor or somebody gives them that one thing and everybody’s got one nugget they kind of, maybe not one, but they have a couple of those things they just live on that, hey, some of them the golden rule, “I’m going to treat my customer way I know I want to be treated,” et cetera. And had some tell me, “I like to be punctual,” which means I like to do everything on time, but do you have something you live by?
Jack:
Well, I guess I’m a person of faith and my faith has been a big part of my life all my life and try to stay active in it and basically whatever we do and do in word or deed, do all of the glory to God.
Mike:
Well said.
Jack:
That’s what we try to be.
Mike:
It’s interesting to me, I’m a guy of faith too, so it’s interesting, but when you get older and it takes time, it seems like, for things to marinate in my brain. So I may like something when I hear it the first time, but when you get older and you say you’re doing it for the glory of God, it’s different than when you’re younger, when you’re, I don’t know why, but when you’re older you realize the significance of it. It actually, it really elevates you. You’re going to be far better than trying to do it for God than you are for yourself or for somebody else. Especially if your faith grows, you know what I mean? You mature in it, et cetera, and not like you get all the answers, but we know He has the answers, so we just kind of turn it over. But it’s kind of a liberating feeling to know that’s what you do and that’s why you do it.
Jack:
That’s correct.
Mike:
Yeah.
Jack:
The standard was set by my dad years ago and for years we always sponsored the church page in the local newspaper. The church was having a social with this meeting or the special service and one of the taglines that dad’s run and ran, and we’ve always continued Bible verse says, “For me and my house, we’ll serve the Lord.”
Mike:
I like that one. It’s just real short, sweet to the point. That’s it. Amen.
Jack:
Mm-hmm.
Mike:
Well, before we got to go, let me ask you something and this thing will publish after the fact, but let’s see if we’re right or not. Who’s going to be in the national… Right, so we’re down to four teams left. We got Notre Dame playing Penn State, and we got Ohio State playing Texas. Who wins those two games in the next two nights?
Jack:
Well, boy, I don’t know. I’m not a huge Notre Dame fan. I guess Penn State looked awful good.
Mike:
Yeah.
Jack:
Tradition says Notre Dame, but I’m going to go with Penn State. They looked awful good.
Mike:
Okay.
Jack:
And Texas, Ohio State. I married a Buckeye, so we root for the Buckeyes.
Mike:
You only got one answer here.
Jack:
Yeah, Texas is awful good program.
Mike:
They are, but I will say I’m an SEC fan, so I would root for Texas, but I believe Ohio State’s going to win this game. They seem to have their stuff together right now. It’s just really gelling and then I’ll agree with you on that one, but I think Notre Dame’s probably going to win the next one.
Notre Dame actually impressed me a little bit more than I expected the last two games they played. I haven’t watched them a lot, but I got to see in particular the last game. And if they bring that same kind of game, I think it’ll end up being a Notre Dame, Ohio State National Championship game, which will be interesting. But yeah, so I guess since I like Notre Dame better than Ohio State, I’ll say Notre Dame’s going to win out, but you’ll probably take Ohio State and we’ll see what happens.
Jack:
Take Ohio State, I think Coach Jay’s got him going.
Mike:
Listen, the poor guys do, right? He’s had this hard time against Michigan.
Jack:
Yeah, I was going to say, it’s puzzling to me how they can choke so badly against Michigan. I’m not a Big 10 fan either. We’re here in the land in the Big 12. Well, Iowa’s got a Big 10 and Big 12 and Iowa State fans and [inaudible 00:26:29] the University of Iowa, the grandson’s going to play there. So I got to go with the Big 10 there, but I think the Ohio State, the Ohio State University.
Mike:
There you go.
Jack:
They’ll win the big one.
Mike:
Well, Jack, I got to tell you, man, and Mike Burns was right. He said you’d be a good podcast and I’m glad I had you on. It’s been a lot of fun. Thank you for joining us.
Jack:
You’re very welcome.
Mike:
So to all our listeners out there, thank you for being part of our podcast. If you want to make a recommendation to me for a guest, I definitely appreciate them. We take them all seriously. Please email me at [email protected]. Till next time, be safe. Have a fantastic day.
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