Business entrepreneur and mechanic Carl Epstein may have a rag in his pocket and a wrench in hand, but it is technology he considers to be his main tool.
Epstein and Elizabeth Gravatte's auto repair business The Auto Shop centers on the latest, most tech-savvy computer diagnostic equipment and stores service information on nine digital video disks instead of a 60-foot row of manuals.
"Nowadays, it's tough to run a shop the old school way [when] cars were simpler," Epstein said.
The average car has 23 on-board computers and processors that control its mechanical functions. The functions are checked through a diagnostic computer that controls the car's other computers.
Epstein found the diagnostics and the shop's high-tech equipment to be familiar after working as a network engineer for four years. The equipment includes five computers, a scanner to troubleshoot a car's trouble codes or problem areas with a separate chart to identify what the codes mean, and an oscilloscope to measure the car's electrical frequency.
"Everything in the shop is computerized," Epstein said. "All technicians have to be computer literate to look up information in the database."
Auto technician Danny Sutphin of Leesburg agreed. "We take our time to do it right, check it out and do it thoroughly," he said.
EPSTEIN AND GRAVATTE both left their computer jobs to open The Auto Shop.
"Both my partner and I are refugees from the high-tech industry," said Gravatte. "I worked for Hewlett Packard for 18 years, and Carl worked for Sprint. Those jobs went away in the economy, and we reinvented ourselves as auto shop owner and mechanic."
Gravatte, who co-owns the shop with Epstein, runs the business side of things, providing the accounting, marketing and management for the shop. Epstein takes care of customer service and auto repairs with the help of Sutphin and auto technician Donnie Brooks.
"We do everything other than the internal transmission. We don't do any body work. It's all repair," said Epstein.
The Auto Shop provides tune-ups, factory services, alignments, fluid changes and tire rotations for all makes and models of cars with a target on European-made cars.
"He's got one of the cleanest shops," said Hal Singer of Herndon, a regular customer of the shop. "That tells you a lot. ... I recommend people to him all the time, and I'm very happy I found him."
At 12 years of age, Epstein took up an interest in mechanics. When a friend of his father's came over to fix the family's station wagon and he saw the car's valves moving and the oil pumping, he knew he wanted to be a mechanic. "I was in awe," he said, adding that he also liked seeing cars disassembled in landfills to see how they could be put back together.
Epstein followed through and spent 20 years working as a mechanic before he switched to the technology industry. In 1979, he joined the Marine Corps and served as a mechanic until 1982. He continued working as a mechanic until 1999 and owned a shop in Denver, Colo. from 1996-99.
Epstein realized he wanted to experience working in a cubicle and in an office environment. In 1999, he joined Fluke Networks in Seattle, Wash. as a network support engineer. Two years later, he worked for Sprint in Reston, serving as a network engineer for the company for another two years.
IN 2002, Epstein and Gravatte, who had worked with Epstein's brother at Hewlett Packard (HP), discussed their desires to leave the high-tech field and work in a recession-proof industry. They chose auto repair after talking about their experiences.
At the time, Gravatte was working for a high-tech startup company in marketing and sales from 2000-03. Previously, she had served as HP's marketing manager for its cardiology program from 1981-99. So she had the marketing and business experience to bring to the business and Epstein, the knowledge of mechanics and technology, as Epstein said.
"It's a risk, but I'm not risk-adverse at all," said Gravatte, a Washington, D.C. resident.
In July 2002, Gravatte and Epstein, who lives in Herndon, agreed to conduct a market research to identify the best site to locate their business. By September, they had chosen Loudoun, "a growing community," as Epstein said, and by October, set up a lease for a 4,000-square-foot auto complex site in Sterling in the Dulles corridor.
"I guess it was the entrepreneurial spirit to see if I could do it," Gravatte said. "It's been a good complementary skill set. For the most part, I let him run the shop and he lets me run the finances."
The Auto Shop opened in January 2003.