43
MILES AHEAD | With more plans to grow, Flynn’s Tires makes improvements
With more plans to grow, Flynn’s Tires makes improvements
By Kristine Gill
SHARON,Pa.
Tania Warminski grew up around cars.
The daughter of Joe Flynn, co-founder of Flynn’s Tire & Auto Parts, used to love walking through her father’s shop listening to mechanics at work.
“I just liked it,” she said. “I liked waiting on customers. I liked just meeting different people and things.”
Today, Warminski is the vice president and regional manager for the company. Her brother Joe Flynn III took over after their father’s death in 2002. Their uncle is still active with the company after starting it with her father in 1964.
Its first location in Sharon, Pa., was a far cry from the newest location in Hermitage, which now serves coffee and tea to waiting customers in an inviting cafe atmosphere. The Sharon location didn’t even have an indoor space for mechanics to change tires in the cold.
“I don’t think they ever thought it would really grow the way it did,” Warminski said. “But with the help of the Lord and also the people we have working in the company, it did.”
With 18 retail locations in Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York and a new location set to open in Boardman this summer, the company is miles from the early days.
Without money to purchase from a major supplier, workers picked up orders of tires daily. Now Flynn’s operates four wholesale warehouses that sell supplies to companies such as itself. There are also four commercial locations that mainly service tractor-trailers.
Headquartered in Mercer, Pa., Flynn’s retail locations handle everything except engine repair, including alignments, coolant flushes, brakes, flat tires, batteries, air conditioning, suspension and ball-joint repairs. Tire technicians are trained through the Tire Industry Association.
Warminski said the company plans to grow.
“We want to grow the right way. We don’t want to do it too quickly,” Warminski said.
The company’s mascot, a leprechaun named Flynnie, came on the scene in the 1990s and now waves his greetings from each location’s sign. The Flynn family’s Irish background made the leprechaun choice an obvious one.
The latest Hermitage location also provides coloring books for children while they wait and magazines and newspapers for the adults.
“A lot of people think ‘I have to go there and wait.’ While you’re waiting, we want you to be comfortable,” Warminski said.
The idea for a more inviting waiting area was a collaborative one, like many the family business comes up with.
“It’s just fun. I don’t know what it would be like not working with family,” Warminski said. “That business is always on your mind. You’re always thinking about the future and where you’re going to go. Even at Thanksgiving and Christmas and anything else. We have that in common.”
Flynn’s location at 655 Mahoning Ave. closed in January after President Joe Flynn said he decided to move the commercial trucking services at the Youngstown store to a new location in Hubbard in August. The retail services still offered at the Youngstown site were not enough to keep the store open, he added.
“Hubbard has grown and developed as a truck center. They have three truck stops there, so we put a truck facility just for tractor-trailers in a Hubbard truck stop,” he said. “Boardman is a growing area, and it just made sense to locate in those two areas.”
The employees who worked at the Youngstown location are working at Flynn’s other locations, including the one in Austintown at 4985 Mahoning Ave.
In the meantime, Joe Flynn said he is trying to sell the 13,000-square-foot building at 655 Mahoning. The asking price is $289,000.