Red Hartman was part of a dying breed of businessmen. He put people first.

Commentary

John Segalla

It was a Wednesday about 4:15 p.m. I had just left Tombstone, Arizona, and my next stop was Sierra Vista. I rolled along the twisting back-roads past the barrel cactus and the baked gray earth.

As I approached the city limits, I began to scan the landscape for a place to camp. There were lots of fields with small trees that would easily offer concealment. It was still too early to set up camp, so I decided to go downtown.

I had come to Sierra Vista specifically to find a Ural motorcycle dealership. I have a booklet that lists their addresses in every state, and this one was on my list to visit.

I ride a Russian made motorcycle/sidecar called a Ural, and outside of a few problems, it's been very dependable. For the past six months, my dog and I have been on the road and covered about 22,000 miles.

In every state I visit, I seek out the dealerships and see what they have or don't have. The Ural has been imported into this country for about eight years, but because of its ancient technology, the network of dealerships remains small.

The Ural is not what you'd call a chick magnet. It's not fast, powerful, or sleek in any way. It's fair to say that it's the Yogo of the motorcycle world. It does not have a macho roar when it's kicked to life, like other brands do. In all fairness, it sounds like a sewing machine with an attitude problem, so for these reasons it's not exactly in demand by your average rider. Most shops sell it as a novelty bike to supplement their major brand sales.

I've learned to keep an open mind and a sense of humor when visiting these dealerships because I never know what I'll find. Even though most of the dealerships have had no bikes and very few parts, they have all done their best to help me. So far, I have visited several, and this is what I've found.

At Mr. Moto's in Missoula, Montana, the bikes were sold out of the family room of a house. In Salt Lake City, Utah, the local foreign car repair shop had one collecting dust in the comer. In Spearfish, South Dakota and Spokane, Washington, they had several pictures, but no bikes.

What was I to find in Sierra Vista? I rolled onto the lot of Hartman's Motorcycles, and from a quick glance around the property, I surmised that this was not your average shop. As I got off the bike, I spun in place, absorbing 360 degrees of clutter that was the result of 55 years of accumulation.

Old bike parts were stacked like cords of wood, shopping carts were filled with old exhaust systems, golf carts sat in various stages of disrepair, and lawn mowers, chainsaws, and weed trimmers were mixed in among dozens of engines that lay rusting in the tall grass.

I couldn't tell if the place was open or closed. Maybe this was just a storage yard? Next to an old camper sat a mid nineties Ural. I went over to have a closer look and was amazed at what rough shape it was in. The bike looked like it was used as a chock block for a bulldozer. Later, I found out that it was rolled in an accident.

I saw that the shop door was open, so I made my way inside. I called out, hoping to find someone, and to my surprise, I saw two more Urals insided the showroom. An older gentleman walked out from the backroom. I introduced myself and told him of my journey as we walked over to my bike. He was amazed that I was traveling on a Ural, since not many long distance riders would choose this bike. We talked a while about how it was performing and what I had experienced so far.

Red insisted that I camp at the shop and then showed me around the rest of the place. While he finished up his work, I made some soup atop a stack of old rims. I often write for 2-3 hours a night, so Red ran a droplight out to my tent for me. The next day, he returned at 10 a.m. to find me working on my bike. I needed to change a tiord and catch up with some routine maintenance.

My plan for the day was to just hang out and see what I could learn about Red. I learned right away that Red was part of a dying breed of businessmen. He put people first in a day and age where profit normally dictates actions.

Red was originally from Illinois and at the age of 28, he rode his 1946 Harley Davidson out to Arizona to try and ease the symptoms of his asthma. He arrived in Douglas and went to work as a mechanic while living at the local YMCA. He and a partner started a business of their own after realizing it was 175 miles to the nearest motorcycle shop.

A few years later, after a lot of letter writing, Red got a visit from the Harley Davidson factory representative. I was now 1948, and Red had become the state's third Harley Davidson dealer. Soon after, his partner sold his half of the business to Red, and since then, he's been on his own.

Within a few years time, Red had gotten married, and over the years has had six children. The first few years were tough, and to make ends meet, Red worked construction. It was 20 years before he hired his first full-time employees.
In the early 1950s, Red became active in flat track dirt racing on the local circuit. He was the third owner of a 1948 WR Harley factory racer and admits having more fun than wins.

In 1962, he opened a second shop in Sierra Vista, and in 1967, a third in Safford. Red took on cars to sell as well at the Douglas location. Over the years he's sold Volvo, Subaru, and the short lived German D.K.W.

He recalls going to California with five friends in a car to pick up the new Subarus. The purpose of this was to save on the delivery charge. At the time, the tiny cars had a two stroke motorcycle engine, and they would race them back across the desert for the break-in-treatment. Some of the car companies folded, and some just dropped Red because he wasn't selling large volume. So he refocused on motorcycle sales and again expanded to take on Honda, B.M.W., American Eagle, Simplex, Cushman and Doodlebug. The same thing happened with the motorcycle companies as it did with the car companies. Either they went out of business, or they dropped Red for the larger markets of Tucson and Phoenix.

Eventually, Red consolidated operations to Sierra Vista and continued on with Harley Davidson. In the mid 1980s, Harley Davidson came back strong from slumping sales and less than reliable reputation, due to a new engine design and new marketing strategy. The strategy was to shed the reputation of a product made solely for the hardcore biker and project a more wholesome image to blue collar America. It became a status symbol overnight to own a Harley.

They also focused on converting existing dealerships into clonelike sanitized franchises that sold everything from leather to negligees. The bottom line was that if you didn't have access to a money tree to build one of these bike boutiques, then you were excommunicated from the Harley Davidson family. After 42 years of representing, selling, repairing, and riding their product through good years and bad, Harley disposed of Red.

Today, Red sells Urals, Royal Enfields, Puch, Quads, and even chainsaws. Finally, in 2000, Red opened up a museum in Bisbee, Arizona that features his collection of bikes and memorabilia.

Red has been in business 55 years, has started numerous bike clubs, has been in a movie as a chopper riding hellion, and is old enough to be my grandfather. My experience with him is not one that I will soon forget.

Businesses seldom put their customers' needs ahead of their profits. Businesses that operate like Red's don't become Fortune 500 companies, they become legends. I learned a valuable lesson from Red that day by listening to his story. It's not the bottom line that defines success, it's how often you can help others in the process of doing what you love.

John Segalla is a Weymouth resident on a cross country adventure with his dog. He occasionally writes stories about his journey.