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Alex Severinghaus wears a lot of hats as Regional Store Manager for Zolman’s Best One Tire and Auto Care’s three Michigan retail locations in Niles, Kalamazoo and Portage.

At 30, and 10 years after completing the Southwestern Michigan College automotive program, Severinghaus, of Niles, oversees 25 people.

In October he marked a decade with Zolman, which has 14 locations in all — nine retail and five fleet services.

He came full circle last Oct. 3 at SMC’s Automotive Day, climbing up on stage to address students seated where he was in 2014 as a Brandywine High School senior listening to Nate Zolman.

“I was so nervous,” he said. “I’m just an everyday person trying my best, so it was an honor.”

A man of many hats

He started with Zolman in 2016 like so many others, slinging tires and changing oil on Monroe Street in downtown South Bend.

“Not only are we managers, we’re therapists because we’re there to listen, if we need to,” he said. “We’re financial guidance people. We are plumbers if we’ve got to fix something. We’re janitors if we have to clean up after everything. We just wear multiple hats throughout the day to help our team be everything they want to be and that we need them to be.”

“On a personal level,” Severinghaus continued, “we’re all human. We understand that there are problems at home. We understand that you might be having a bad week. We want to help. You have to have that personal side, show empathy and be human.”

“There’s that aspect, too, you’re dealing with the public on a daily basis. You’re telling them good news throughout the day, hopefully,” he said, “but it could be bad news, that their second-greatest investment, their vehicle, needs work. No one wants to hear that. No one wants to spend the money to fix that, but, unfortunately, they have to.

“It’s not always an easy conversation to have, and you don’t know how they’re going to react. You have to answer their questions with educated answers, and if they don’t understand, you have to break it down in more layman terms and create analogies they can relate to. It takes tons of trust in the people you’re working with.”

Service writing opened the door

“For whatever reason I wanted to try service writing,” he said. “They did hybrid positions where you worked out back in the morning, then in the afternoon you put on a polo, looked presentable and came up front.”

“It was an opportunity to learn something new,” Severinghaus said. “I knew I could make more money if I was a service writer, and with (cystic fibrosis), I knew it was a better long-term decision because the shop was full of fumes and exhaust — especially in the winter.”

Service writing “is your first line of defense,” he said, making it sound like a nurse or medical intermediary who gets you ready to see a doctor or, in his case, the mechanic or technician.

“The consumer drops their vehicle off and explains what’s going on and they’re here for a tire rotation or an oil change. You check them in, create a work order, look up fluid capacities, parts, everything that vehicle needs and get it out to the technician. You create a quote, find parts as needed and look up mileage and maintenance recommendations. Be responsible for the appearance of the facility, time management for appointments. It’s kind of like a puzzle every day.”

“Then I got more into the management side,” Severinghaus said. “Taking on more responsibility for the store and the employees, dealing with more than customers — complaints, hiring, firing.”

‘I like helping people’

“I like helping people,” he said, “watching people grow, finding out their wants and needs, whether it’s personally or professionally, and being able to help them achieve those goals. People helped me reach my ambitions, and I wanted to be that person for someone else — paying it forward.”

While at SMC, “I worked part-time at Rural King in the feed department — chickens, rabbits, pallets for horses. Driving the forklift to unload the trucks was a cool experience. I did that for a while until after graduation.

“One part-time job wasn’t paying for gas, so I picked up a second job. I’d start there, go to class, have a little time in between, then go to the second job. Then I had an opportunity to work at Pro Muffler, which got my feet wet in the real world outside of shop time at SMC. I was there three or four months and they let me go, but it gave me the real-life aspect of what day-to-day shop life would be.”

Severinghaus also worked for the former Shelton’s Farm Market. “I was a meat clerk. They worked with high school and college students with flexible scheduling. I could work part of the morning, go to class, then come back and work in the afternoon. It definitely helped that they were willing to work with me.”

“I couch-surfed a lot” in his student days, he said. “I spent a lot of time at the gym because they had showers and a microwave so I could warm up food.”

‘There had to be something more’

He never gave up, though.

“I knew there had to be something more,” Severinghaus said. “I refused to live in a mindset where I was going to give up. I would have nothing without perseverance. I wanted better for myself, and I knew I had to make it happen. Nobody was going to do it for me.”

Severinghaus was born with cystic fibrosis, an inherited, incurable chronic disease causing thick, sticky mucus to clog the lungs and obstruct the pancreas, leading to severe breathing problems, persistent lung infections and malabsorption of nutrients. Caused by a mutated gene, it primarily impacts the respiratory and digestive systems.

“Growing up with a single parent, my mom faced medical challenges with me, and still provided a roof over our heads,” he said. “But she never gave up, though I know she wanted to multiple times. Piggyback that with nobody owes you anything. If you want something, you have to go get it. My grandfather instilled that in me. Nothing for free. You’ve got to go work for it.”

It took a month to complete this interview with Severinghaus as he navigated a rough patch in his personal life — the loss of his grandfather, then serving as executor of his estate.

“He was practically my dad, so it’s a big life change,” he said. “He had been fighting leukemia for the last two years. He lived in Big Rapids, so I moved him down to live with me in Niles. I lost one of my best friends.”

His other best friend, Tiaira, he married Oct. 18, a couple of weeks after speaking at SMC.

“We went to high school together,” he said. “We were always part of the same friend group.”

His wife has done accounts receivable for Zolman for three years.