Truck Parts and Service | Heavy Duty Trucking, Aftermarket, Service Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/460576
T he story of Six Robblees' begins with three Robblees. The year was 1913. Jim Robblee, a sheet metal worker and the oldest of a dozen children, opens a small business in Tacoma, Wash. with his brothers Bill, a locksmith, and Herb, a bicycle repairman. Herb's bicycle expertise immediately draws customers, and coupled with the trio's diverse background, the opera- tion quickly expands. By 1920, there's a second location in Seattle. The business is thriving, and the Rob- blees are eager for more. It's around this time the brothers begin receiving customer requests for assistance in a new market, one they've yet to enter. "The Indy Car circuit had worked its way north to Tacoma and that was really what got the company involved [in the automotive industry]," says President Andy Robblee, the third-generation of his family to lead Six Robblees'. "Custom- ers who knew about the bicycle wheel business started coming in and asking 'Can you tune our car wheels?'" The Robblee trio had no automotive experience, but a willingness to help their customers and an interest in the new market motivated them to give it a try. More than a century later, it's safe to say the decision paid off. With 22 locations stretching from Oakland, Calif. to Fairbanks, Alaska, Six Robblees' is one of the largest indepen- dent heavy-duty aftermarket distributors in North America. The business has more than 320 product lines, nearly 200 employees, and an industry-wide reputation as one of the independent aftermarket's strongest operations. It also now has the title of the 2014 Truck Parts & Service Distributor of the Year. Andy Robblee attributes the success of the company today to the attitude of its three founders, and their supreme dedication to customer service. "They all had this kind of mentality of 'What else can we get for you?'" he says. "They wanted to help their customers [in] any way that they could." Today, customers "can buy almost anything" at Six Robblees', says Randy Luthe, heavy duty product manager. 14 T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E | F e b r u a r y 2 0 1 5 From Two Wheels to 18 How a century of growth has shaped Six Robblees'