I admit it. I’m a bit of a Germanphile. I’ll save my ramblings about how that came to be for now, but it is partly why I own a VW. If you own a VW or other European car, you may understand the challenge it can be (outside of Europe) to find qualified auto technicians that you can afford – and trust.

A friend of mine had a VW and came across a small repair shop on the east side of Madison, WI that specializes in VW.

It’s basically a one-man shop. I think Tim is his name – I’ll find out for sure when I go back to get my work finished up (it needed a part specific to my vehicle identification number, which meant ordering from Germany).

UPDATE: His name is Dave.

It’s not exactly as convenient to go there as it would be to go to the big auto monopoly in our area, but my friend said this guy was great – and reasonably priced. So, I was prepared to like him before I met him.

When I picked up my car, I asked Tim about his training on VW, and how it came to be that he specialized in VW. It turns out that he has a Computer Science degree. He had worked in another shop in Milwaukee and decided he just really enjoyed working on cars. He said, “it’s all problem solving, so it’s not really different from what I might have done with computers.”

[As a side note, I did find it interesting to see a mechanic all tech-geeked out with a Bluetooth wireless headset, working on his computer when I came to pick up the car.]

As to how he came to specialize in VW? He said that basically it was customer demand. He had started as serving all brands, then imports, and then finally VW. Why? Because the business was steady and reliable and he could really focus work on the things he knew about (from simply having a lot of experience).

There’s two lessons here, I think:

• Even though he was pointed in a specific direction, he chose to simply do what he really enjoyed doing – and more than likely at a loss of potential income.
• Focus – Business books like Jim Collins’ Good to Great talk about focus. I like how Tim specialized and was able to be successful because of that.

I’m reading a book by one of my old bosses – Lawler Kang. Lawler’s book is called Passion at Work. Lawler takes a very methodical view at turning your work into a something that specifically fits who you are and what you are passionate about. I’ll post more on this later as I go, but I think Tim is a good example of that.

And it’s always inspiring to me to see people living life on their own terms as Lawler writes about. Maybe this is somehow inspiring to you, too.

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