Photos by Erin Nelson.
From left, Randall Whitworth, Randy Whitworth, Kimberly Countryman and Amberly Whitworth in the Mr. Transmission/Milex shop owned by Countryman and located off Alabama 119 and U.S. 280 in the Greystone area.
When Randy Whitworth and his three adult children get together, it’s not unusual for them to discuss business.
That’s because all of them are in the same business: transmissions and auto repair.
Whitworth, 60, owns the Mr. Transmission shops in the Riverchase area and in Pelham. His daughter, Amberly Whitworth, is the manager of the Riverchase shop, while his son, Randall Whitworth, manages the one in Pelham.
His oldest daughter, Kimberly Countryman, coordinated the sales, marketing, advertising and administrative responsibilities for both locations for the past 12 years, but in June she opened her own Mr. Transmission/Milex shop on Alabama 119, just off U.S. 280 and across from the new Tattersall Park development.
The Whitworths say automotive work is in their blood. Randy’s father was a diesel mechanic for Ryder in Tennessee. Randy has been in automotive repair for about 42 years and been in business for himself for 33 years.
In the mid-1980s, he opened a Mr. Transmission shop on U.S. 31 in Hoover, not far from Interstate 65. He bought another Mr. Transmission in Pelham in 2007 and owned a third one on Green Springs Highway in Homewood for six or seven years but sold it.
Randy also sold the property on U.S. 31 in Hoover last October and opened a new shop off Old Montgomery Highway in the Riverchase area.
GROWING UP IN THE SHOP
All of his children grew up in his Hoover Mr. Transmission location, pretty literally. They would come there after school and spend time there during the summer.
When Kimberly turned 15, she started helping out with small chores, like cleaning the shop and cleaning windows and doors.
“As you show a little responsibility, you just get a little bit more responsibility,” she said.
One summer, she told her dad she wanted to learn how to help out in the office, so he taught her how to write up customers’ tickets and get prices on parts and supplies. At 16, she was helping out with a variety of administrative responsibilities, such as billing and marketing, allowing her dad more time to focus on helping technicians with vehicles in the shop, she said.
She started a co-op program in high school, where she got out of McAdory High School early and came to work with her dad in the afternoon.
“I would just watch him and listen and learn,” she said. “How he would talk to his customers, his choice of wording. He can say one thing and the next person say the exact same thing, and it’s taken completely differently. It’s just how he presents himself. Just to watch him is amazing. It’s just a gift.”
Randy taught her the importance of finding quality parts and earning the trust of customers by taking care of them with good, educated decisions, she said.
After high school, Kimberly continued working with her dad during the day and took online classes at night through the University of Alabama. In 2007, she helped with the details of purchasing the Pelham location and then took over administrative responsibilities for both shops.
At first, she started in nursing school, thinking she wanted to become a nurse anesthetist or anesthesiologist, but after a year, “it just didn’t feel right,” she said. She enjoyed the work she was doing for her father and ended up earning a bachelor’s degree in business in May 2009.
The next month, she had her first of three children and was back in the office a week later, with a small nursery set up beside the office. However, she wasn’t the manager of either shop.
“I didn’t want to have to open or close,” she said. “I told him [Randy] I would never become a manager, and I’m sitting here running a shop 10 years later. Don’t ever say never because you do not know what the future holds.”
‘I GUESS IT’S IN MY BLOOD’
Amberly, Randy’s second child, and Randall, the youngest, also grew up in the shop.
After high school, Amberly went to school and played softball at Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton for two years and the University of Mobile for one year. She transferred to the University of Alabama at Birmingham after her junior year and started helping out her dad. In 2008, at age 22, she became manager of the Pelham shop, and in 2011, she switched to manage the Hoover location.
She originally had planned to get a business degree and open her own fitness center, but her dad needed help in the shop and “once I started helping, I really liked it and I was really good at it,” she said. “I picked it up real quick.”
Randall got his first real taste of the business at age 15 or 16 when he got a set of tools and started helping in the shop after school and in the summers.
“It’s just something I enjoyed doing. I wasn’t pushed into it,” he said. “When I’m working on cars, it’s just peaceful to me. I guess it’s in my blood.”
At 17, he started the co-op program and came to work more for his dad. He also learned the office part of the business and eventually became manager of the Pelham Mr. Transmission in 2016. He’s now 27.
Randy said all three of his children are really good at what they do, and when they were younger, he always missed them at the shop when they would leave after the summers.
Each one sort of has their own niche. Randall is great with mechanics in the shop and shooting for perfection with the details, he said. Amberly can diagnose problems in vehicles with the best of mechanics and is good at getting parts, and Kimberly is particularly strong with business skills, he said.
Photos by Erin Nelson.
Kimberly Countryman views detailed diagnostics on a tablet at Mr. Transmission/Milex near Greystone.She has tried to design her shop to be more efficient, using new technologies to reduce paperwork and speed up service.
NEW SHOP NEAR GREYSTONE
Kimberly, now 35, said she first looked at buying a Mr. Transmission franchise in Tuscaloosa, where her husband is a firefighter, in 2010, but it wasn’t the right fit. She then eyed a franchise in Atlanta in 2014, but her husband didn’t want to move there.
They moved from Helena to Inverness about a year ago and kept driving by a vacant 8,000-square-foot building that had been a furniture store on Alabama 119, and she thought it would be a good place for a Mr. Transmission.
“It’s right off 280. The traffic here is unbelievable,” Kimberly said. “The car count that passes this road is unbelievable, and there’s not a specialty transmission shop around.”
She asked her dad about starting a franchise there and he was not interested, so she decided to do it herself. She signed a lease in March, renovated the space to include 10 indoor vehicle work bays and opened in June.
It’s just her and two technicians, but business is picking up, and she is starting to need a helper, she said. She hopes within two years to have as much business as her father’s two shops, she said.
She has tried to design her shop to be more efficient, using new technologies to reduce paperwork and speed up service. And her shop can handle larger trucks and equipment vehicles. Randy said, “I think 280’s going to blow everything out of the water to be honest with you.”
Amberly said she’s proud of her sister and would be scared to open her own shop. It’s rare to see women in the auto repair business, and Kimberly said she catches flak every day as a woman. People walk right past her, looking for someone to help them or wanting to speak to the owner or a technician, she said.
While her specialty isn’t being a technician or mechanic, she knows how a transmission works, and most people are fine discussing their problem with her once they realize she knows what she’s talking about, she said.
Amberly said she knows quite a bit about auto mechanics but is still learning. “Each day, you learn something and carry it on with you,” she said.
All three children said they have loved working with their family and appreciate everything their dad has taught them.
“Dad let us make our own choices,” Randall said. “We all chose to get up under his wing and learn from him.”
