Following in His Footsteps

Gerald Lalonde, Randy’s father, took ownership of the radiator shop in 1970 and worked steadily in the business up until 1994 when he lost his battle with cancer. “My dad was a second generation class A mechanic,” Randy explained proudly. “His father – my grandfather – owned and operated a Texaco service station in Penetanguishene, Ontario, the town beside Midland. My dad left the family business to become service manager at the local Ford dealer. As his own family grew, he realized it was time to make the move and go out on his own. The local radiator shop, known then as Ross Garage and Radiator, was for sale and my dad made a deal to purchase it. That was back in 1970. At that time it was a full service auto repair shop that also repaired radiators.”

Most of Randy’s brothers and sisters have taken their turn at some task in the radiator shop. Randy’s older brother Paul worked full time in the family business with this dad for many years and Randy worked part time during his last three years of high school, then full time after graduating. Randy took control of the business following his father’s death and he and Paul worked together for a short while until Paul left the business to pursue his passion for building in the construction trade.

Today, there are three principal individuals at Lalonde’s Rad Service – Randy’s sister Denise, his son Aaron and Randy. Denise has been working at the shop for twenty years. As the office manager, she handles customer calls, schedules the work, orders parts to maintain the shop inventory and handles the business bookkeeping.

There are two entrances to the shop and two bays in the shop. One entrance leads to the pit area and the other into the bay used primarily for radiator removal and replacement, the center area of the shop is dedicated to recore and repair work. There are wall racks and overhead storage spaces for radiators, cores, gas tanks and other components. With a shop this size everything has a special place and it’s really critical to keep equipment put away to keep the muddle to a minimum.

 

Getting Down To Business

Lawrence Arbour, a long time, from-the-old-school type of radiator man, has worked at Lalonde’s from the time Randy’s dad ran the business. In fact, he’s been repairing rads for almost 50 years.

Randy spoke as he surveyed the jobs in the shop for the day. “Besides the business, my dad also inherited an employee – Lawrence. He started working at the original shop in 1953 at the age of 15 and has been ever since, retiring in 2003. Lawrence has seen and done everything in the radiator business. He has seen trends, manufacturers and many competitors come and go. His pace and demeanour  never change. He he still vistis the shop every week, to check out the days jobs and lend some advice to Aaron. Lawrence has always been considered a member of our family. After all, he has watched all nine of the Lalonde kids grow up. My oldest brother Gerry was only twelve when my Dad bought the shop.” 
The floor pit has been here from the very beginning. Originally this place was a repair shop and the pit was used for all the undercar work. “Once in a while a customer will pull a car into the bay and put one of the wheels into the pit.” said Lawrence. “What a mess we have then.”

There was the sound of a few air tools and before long the gas tank was out and ready for replacement. Randy removed the filler neck, tinned the opening on the new tank and soldered in the original filler neck. Before too long the Pontiac was out the door.

The entire time we watched the repairs being performed on the various tanks and cores, Lawrence never made any mess, or if he did he cleaned it up before it hit the floor. He was like a surgeon – very clean and very meticulous. “There aren’t many guys like Lawrence around anymore,” says Randy. “The skilled radiator man is fading away.” Actually, the whole shop is a reflection of how Lawrence and Randy operate – small enough to keep clean with a minimal amount of work, but also small enough to become cluttered in a moment.

Even though Randy jokes around about the small size of his shop, he was beaming with pride as he gave the fifty-cent tour. He pointed out the equipment he and his brother-in-law built for the shop, the radiator repair area and the famous pit for doing a considerable amount of gas tank repair and replacement business. Although the shop is small it’s also spotless, uncluttered and laid out in an efficient manner.

Lalonde’s Radiator Service does a fair amount of industrial and heavy-duty radiator repairs as well. Randy gets his share of unusual jobs too because there aren’t’ too many radiator repair shops in his area. People stop by throughout the day to talk about their car problems, wanting to know how much, how long and when can I bring it in?

“The philosophy towards business as well as life around our shop,” said Randy, “is to always treat people the way you would like to be treated. We’re a small business in a small town and we don’t survive for 30 years by taking advantage of a situation – you must treat people fairly.”

The phone rings all day long and Denise quotes prices and checks with her brother before she schedules a job in for the coming days. She knows if the part is in stock and if not, she orders what they need and has it by the next day.