Crushing cars, saving parts is wonderful work for junkyard execs

Mark Kalmback worked for 21 years in grocery stores before he met his true loves.

One is his wife, Valerie.

The other is their junkyard, or "salvage emporium," as she describes Southwest Auto Wrecking.

The Kalmbacks sell auto parts, crush cars for scrap metal, obtain car titles for customers and sometimes host motion-picture filming. "Mars Attacks!" the 1996 movie that starred Jack Nicholson, and "St. John of Las Vegas," which stars Steve Buscemi and was filmed earlier this year, both have scenes shot at Southwest Auto Wrecking.

The Kalmbacks pride themselves on friendly, helpful service and a familylike atmosphere for 14 employees, customers and their 14 dogs.

Question: What did you do after high school?

Mark: I started as a box boy at Safeway, and I worked for them 21 years. I've managed about every store in town.

When it turned into Vons in '89, they told us they didn't need us. They had their own guys. I retired.

I was out here (Southwest Auto Wrecking) one day getting parts for my car. It was really busy. So I helped people out. (A manager named Sheila) knew me and knew I'd retired. She said: "Where are you going? You're working for me now." I said: "I hope you're paying well."

Question: What did you do for her?

Mark: Pulled parts. I ran the car crusher five or six years. I worked for them 12 years.

Question: Is this more fun than running a grocery store?

Mark: I never realized how much I hated doing grocery store work. It was just something I had done since I was 16. I love this. Running the wrecking yard is something I was interested in.

Question: How did you and your wife meet?

Mark: Val has a daughter, Misty, and she was running around with my two boys, Mark and Mike. Actually, (Valerie) was teaching my son to drive, and I didn't know it.

Valerie: He said his father wouldn't teach him. So I was teaching him. He was lying to me.

Mark: I checked with the kids to see if she had a boyfriend, and they said no.

Valerie: He asked my daughter to see if I wanted to go out with him. My daughter said: "Would you like to go out with him?" I said: "When hell freezes over." So she went back in and told him yes. The kids were 14, 15 and 16 back then. So they were conniving little children.

By the first date, the kids had picked our first house we were going to live in, how all the rooms were going to be laid out, everything.

Question: How did you come to own the junkyard?

Mark: I came home one night, and I was really disgusted with work. The owners really favored one guy, and I wanted to fire him. I was going to quit.

She said: "Why quit? We'll just buy the place." I looked at her and said: "Can we do that?"

Question: Does that offend you when I call it a junkyard?

Valerie: Oh, heavens no. We call it a salvage emporium.

Mark: Actually, it's a male shopping mall.

Question: Do you have many competitors?

Mark: When I started, there were 39 wrecking yards. Now, we're down to 11. They just sold out the land, because the land was so expensive.

Question: What's it like to own and operate a wrecking yard?

Mark: I run the yard, and she runs the finances. I just pushed paper for 20 years at Safeway and don't want to anymore.

Question: When you were growing up did you tinker with cars?

Mark: I was always building a car. A lot of times out here I have nothing to do. So I keep a project car.

Question: What are you working on now?

Mark: '78 Corvette.

Question: There's a real family feel here, right?

Valerie: All of our employees are our family.

Mark: She's mom to the world. We've got a guy in Holland that comes over and buys all the Mercedes parts, and he calls her mom.

Question: What has the business been like?

Valerie: Every year has been more prosperous, I think, because a lot of people can't afford to buy new cars. We do a lot of shop business where they are fixing people's cars. New front end, new fender, whatever, new motor.

We try to be helpful. All of our customers are just like our kids, like all of our employees are.

Question: What does the future look like for this business?

Valerie: We have two sides -- the crushing side and the parts side. When one goes down, the other goes up and vice versa.

If people are buying more new cars, you sell fewer parts. But the metal business is on a higher note at that time. So you just crush more cars and make more metal. Right now, the metal is down, but the parts are selling a lot more.

Question: Did you buy the land?

Valerie: Of course. That's retirement. What we paid for it in the first two years, it has quadrupled. It just keeps going up. Commercial property is at a premium in Las Vegas. We seem to have a shortage of it.

Question: Are you planning to retire soon?

Valerie: Heavens no. If you're active, you're going to have a longer life span. We'd get bored. We wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

Question: What is the secret of your success?

Valerie: We don't give up ever. We're diehards.

Contact reporter John G. Edwards at jedwards@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0420.