Springfield business owner to retire after 50 years
May 21, 2017
William Harrison is retiring from his Springfield transmission shop after a fire, some bat poop and forty years of repairing cars for customers in Clark County.
Harrison, an early franchisee for the AAMCO transmission chain, grew up on a farm in grew up in southern Illinois but moved to Columbus while working as an engineer in the oil and gas industry. What he really loved was working on cars though, so he used his savings and a loan to buy one of the few AAMCO franchises on North High Street in the city in in 1967. The chain had just started working with franchisees three years earlier.
He ran that business for a decade until he was asked to look into a Springfield business when the previous owner became ill. One of his employees at the time asked about buying the Columbus store, and Harrison never looked back.
"I quoted him a price and the next thing I knew, he had a partner and bought it,” Harrison said. “I bought a boat.”
Although it’s part of a national chain, Harrison said the business has been successful partly because he was active in his church and numerous community events. And he said his employees have been able to adapt well to changes in the industry, particularly as vehicles have become more complex. Now, employees have to be both computer technicians and mechanics, he said.