Crack! A vehicle slams into the side of Ken Perkins' car, pushing it up
against the curb and curling it around a telephone pole. Perkins is lucky
to be alive, but not lucky enough to escape injury.
He suffered severe whiplash in the car accident and because of it, saw
his career dreams vanish. "I was in the middle of training to be a commercial
pilot," he says. "But that was it. They wouldn't let me fly anymore." The
blood flow to his brain was restricted by the injury and at high altitudes,
Perkins got severe headaches and became dizzy -- not the ideal conditions
for a pilot.
Not one to give up easily, Perkins started planning his future again. "I
get bored sitting around so I thought about what I liked doing," he says.
"I've always monkey-wrenched with street bikes and dirt bikes."
The next week, he enrolled in a small engine mechanics course, finished
the eight-month course in seven months, and began searching for a job.
He sent more than 50 resumes to repair shops. "I got a few phone calls,
but they were always looking for someone who had more experience," he says.
"It seems like you have to know somebody." After searching, he got lucky and
landed a job.
He couldn't have been happier. The shop serviced mostly motorbikes and
a few other small engine machines. "It was really cool," says Perkins.
His boss put a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. "I worked on everything,"
he says. "He'd give me stuff I'd never done. He'd expect me to try, and I'd
just do it."
The boss kept adding responsibilities to Perkins' slate. "I was doing everything,"
he says. "I'd even come in in the morning, open up the shop and run the place."
Although glad that his boss had faith in his abilities, Perkins started to
wish he could stay in the back shop repairing engines. "I wanted to be a mechanic.
I didn't want to be doing sales or any of those other things."
Dealing with non-mechanical people explaining engine troubles was exasperating
enough for Perkins without trying to sell them machinery. "That part was horrible,"
he says, laughing. "I'd have some people come in and go on and on about something
that doesn't even exist.
"They'd ask me to change their power band -- just as if it were a fan belt,"
he says. Power band is a term used to describe the point at which an engine
is operating at peak performance, with its quickest response time.
"It's not a real object," he says. "I didn't argue with them about it,
but people still get mad and defensive when you tell them they're wrong."
Other times, customers just feel sheepish.
"I got customers who came in with their four-wheeler that just wouldn't
work." Perkins hopped on the bike and revved up the engine easily.
"What did you do?" the customer asked excitedly.
It's not exactly a miracle. "They'd just forget to turn on
the 'on' switch," Perkins says laughing.
Not all repairs are so easy to solve. On one occasion, Perkins was stumped
for three weeks before figuring out how to repair a motorbike. It wasn't just
any bike -- Perkins' boss had put the vehicle together himself. But no matter
what the boss tried, the bike would idle, sputter and then die. "Finally,
he said to me, 'I can't figure this out. This is going to be your project.'
"Every moment I had on coffee breaks [and] lunch breaks I would work on
that thing," says Perkins. "I did everything. I went back to my books, but
it just blew me away. I couldn't figure it out."
But Perkins wouldn't call it quits. One day, after deciding to pull apart
the engine one more time, he discovered the boss had accidentally put two
condensers in the engine instead of one. That meant the spark plugs couldn't
fire properly, which in turn meant the engine wouldn't run. "It was such a
stupid thing," says Perkins. "But after that it ran perfectly."
Keisha Combes, a small engine mechanic, also enjoys the moments of victory
after finally fixing a problem. "I'm never working on the same thing, so there's
always a challenge," she says.
Sometimes the challenge is getting people to trust a female mechanic. "I
get a comment or two," she says. But the comments end when they see the machine
fixed and ready to go.
At the beginning of her career, Combes was uncomfortable because she was
the only woman in her mechanics class. However, after proving to others she
was just as capable of doing the work, she loved the job.
Perkins believes that all small engine mechanics have to love what they
do, no matter what they are working on. "It's challenging, but you shouldn't
go into it to get rich," he says. "You have to do this because you have a
passion for it."