By admin While other people change jobs every few years, Steve McDorman will celebrate his 50th anniversary at Visalia Tire & Wheel on Aug. 16.
Read more Trail Coffee Roasters to open new Stockton location at the Miracle Mile
His work anniversary will be commemorated with a party at Crawdaddy’s on Aug. 15, which he expects about 20 to 25 people to attend, including his family and company employees.
McDorman’s career continues a family tradition. His father worked in a tire shop in Tulare in the ’60s and ’70s.
“When I was 9 or 10 years old, he’d take me down there on Sundays,” he said, adding that even though the younger McDorman enjoyed the visits, he initially had other career plans.
“When I was going to high school, I was taking college prep,” he said. “I thought I wanted to be a lawyer.”
This was until McDorman worked at a Gulf service station in 1972 as part of Tulare Union High School’s work experience program.
“The mechanic there said, ‘I’ll show you some of the ropes,'” he said. “This mechanic was showing me everything he could show me. After I got my hands dirty doing mechanical, I was hooked.
“My dad had already been in the system,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d want to do what he did, but obviously I did.”
Working for ‘a good guy’
McDorman, 70, started his job on Aug. 16, 1976, after first gaining a few years of professional automobile repair experience.
“I actually started doing this in ’72,” he said. “When Sears opened up on Mooney Boulevard in ’75, I was part of the original crew for the automotive section there.”
The following year, McDorman’s father-in-law told him about a job at what would later become Visalia Tire & Wheel, noting that the owner, Dan Helzer, was “a good guy.” He applied for the job and was quickly hired.
“I gave Sears two weeks’ notice,” he said. “They wanted to keep me, but they can’t pay over a certain scale. (Dan) was offering a whole lot more.”
McDorman started out as the lead mechanic. After about 25 years, he started working the counter.
He said he has been “real happy” working where he does and said he has never been tempted by other job opportunities.
“I’ve had other people offer, but I never took them up,” he said, adding that the people at Visalia Tire & Wheel are “like family.”
Even so, retirement is becoming more of a possibility for McDorman, who has a daughter in Texas, as well as three grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
Read more Analysis-FOMO fuels Wall Street’s breakout rally as traders pile in
“In about four to five years, my plans are to maybe move to Texas to be with my daughter,” he said. “(He and his girlfriend, Shirley,) haven’t decided yet for sure whether we will or not, but we might.”
Managing Visalia Tire & Wheel
McDorman begins his workday at 6:30 a.m. every morning except Sunday. The business closes at 4 p.m. on weekdays and at noon on Saturdays.
“Basically, I run the counter,” he said. “I sell, and I pay the bills and do the day-to-day stuff. I check the tires in when they come in and do the returns.”
But McDorman doesn’t work on cars anymore.
“I stopped doing that probably 25 years ago,” he said, before being asked if he misses it.
“No, and I’ll tell you why,” he said. “Vehicles have evolved greatly since the ’70s. There wasn’t any electronics at all in the ’70s, and now everything’s electronic, and they’re getting harder and harder to diagnose.
“Personally, I think mechanics ought to get paid higher than doctors because the vehicles change every year, but bodies don’t change,” McDorman said.
Changes in the tire industry
The automobile tire industry has also been through some major changes in the past 50 years.
“Basically, the tire industry has changed dramatically,” McDorman said. “When I started, there were still retreads for cars. We sold them four for $100. They don’t have retreads for cars anymore. That’s a thing that went out in probably the mid-’70s to early-’80s.”
He also noted that there are no bias tires anymore.
“Bias tires are basically a polyester mix, and there’s no steel belting” he said. “They were safe enough, but they were crude. By that I mean, they rode tough, and they didn’t last very long, maybe 20,000, 25,000 miles max.”
Visalia Tire & Wheel has also been through changes over the past 50 years. When McDorman started there, the business had a different name.
“Firestone had a lot of trouble with their tires,” McDorman explained. “They separated. When I started with Dan, we were Visalia Firestone. When Firestone had all that trouble, Dan said, ‘I’m not putting up with this.’ So, he switched our name to Visalia Tire.”
“It’s just been an interesting ride,” McDorman said as he looked back on his career. “It doesn’t seem like it’s been 50 years, but it has.
“I enjoy what I do,” he added. “If it wasn’t for the fact that I want to see my daughter more, I probably wouldn’t even retire in four or five years.”
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Local mechanic marks 50 years at Visalia Tire & Wheel | Exclusive
Read more July US container imports hit fourth-highest on record, Descartes says
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect
This story was originally published August 10, 2026 at 2:30 AM.