An interview with Fred Mestrich, owner of Clatsop Power Equipment, Inc., in Miles Crossing.

34912 Highway 105, 325-0792The Clatsop Power Equipment showroom at the Miles Crossing intersection is packed with John Deere green and Stihl orange. There’s walk-behind lawnmowers, riding mowers, chain saws, rototillers, pumps and generators, outboard motors, lawn and garden attachments.

How do you make money at what you do?

“I was born and raised in Astoria. … I went to Oregon Institute of Technology, graduated and taught mechanics out at the area vocational center.

“In order to bring realistic experience into the classroom … I went to work for a local small-engine repair shop after hours.

“By 1985, the (Education Service Districts) were giving pink slips … my wife (Ann) and I saw this particular corner for sale.

“We decided we wouldn’t open up a retail storefront here unless we could secure (yearly dealership agreements) with brands – John Deere, Snapper.

“It was July 1986, we officially opened. We had a line of saws and a couple lines of lawnmowers.

“It was just the wife and I, and I actually taught school full time for two and a half years … which allowed us to put money back into the business, cause we started from scratch, from nothing.

“Our business snowballed to the point in the first couple months where we had to hire our first employee. We’ve brought our sons (Bryan and Gregg) into the business. Part-time high school help, part-time office help and two other full-time mechanics besides.

“During the day, we would operate out of here and at night for the first few months, the shop was still at home.”

What products and services do you offer?

“We do sales, service and rentals.

“All through the years, we’ve tried to select the best product lines. John Deere, Stihl, Honda, Johnson/Evinrude outboard motors.

“We do warranty service work for quite a few product lines that don’t have outlets in the area.

“Some shops will only work on what they sell … We don’t hold to that.

“We’ll service just about any other gas-powered portable power equipment.”

Anything you don’t handle?

“We’re not in the restoration business. We do that as a hobby on the side.”

“We don’t handle a lot of the hand tools – shovels and rakes. I try not to compete with businesses that are successfully taking care of niche markets in the area. In a smaller community you have to be that way.”

What challenges have you faced?

“That’s probably our one biggest problem area is rentals. It’s not the people’s equipment and often they don’t want to be doing the job … the machine doesn’t work quite as well as they thought it would or it breaks down on them or people abuse it and break it.

“For us, it’s quite challenging sometimes to get the most effective advertising.

“There isn’t a week that goes by when someone doesn’t come in to say, ‘We didn’t know you were here.’ We’ve been here 18 years.”

What do you enjoy about this business?

“The satisfaction of having repeat customers. The positive comments you get from customers. When a customer says ‘I’ve never been treated this well.'”

Who are your customers?

“Everybody. We do a lot with the commercial landscape people, commercial timber industry, homeowners. There’s very few niches that we don’t work strongly in. We try not to limit the scope of who we do business with.”

What kind of volume do you do?

“When we first decided to open the store, my expectations were blown out the first month. I’ve always been surprised at our sales volume for the local area.

“The year before last, we sold right at 100 ride-on units and over 150 walk-behinds … saws and trimmers were over 300 units a year. We were down a little bit last year, but the economy was down too.

“This is the best February we’ve ever had.”

– Benjamin Romano