Meet Wally Veigel | Business Owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Wally Veigel and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Wally, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
To be succinct I was unhappy working for others for years and although I knew nothing about owning a business I really wanted to own my own. I decided I needed a change and weighed the options of going to CSU for Mechanical Engineering or starting my own business. I decided that with a similar length of time and financial investment I could be more financially successful in owning my own business and be more available to my family in the future…but all of this was hinged on the success of the business. Here we are almost 7 years later with 12 employees and occupying our third building. Its working out so far, but I definitely chose the most demanding pathway.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
My career started in Auto repair, where I found a good living to support my family and met a lot of other hard working people along the way. I had always felt the pull back to classic cars and trucks, muscle cars, and hotrods, but I had a hard time figuring out what that career path looked like. I slowly worked my way into classic car repair and restoration. I took a significant pay cut to follow this passion and have a supportive wife along the way. Miriam helped, encouraged and supported my decisions to follow my dream. This was not an easy path, especially when I started on my own business with three paying customers. Two of these customers took advantage of me and I learned quickly to recognize who was working with me and who wasn’t. I’ve won and lost as a business owner, but so far the wins outweigh the losses and this is where I find my motivation. Financial constraints on a new business are one of the hardest challenges to overcome unless you are independently wealthy before starting your business. The rate at which businesses fail made it my goal to prove our viability in our industry and market area. This allowed banks to lend us the capital needed to grow our business by focusing on the business model instead of constantly worrying about our cash flow. Wally’s Speed Shop is here for the long haul to support our customers through generations of classic and vintage car ownership. We serve the community personally and professionally and as long as someone has a dream we are here to make it a reality.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am an outdoor adventure guy, so we would go on one. RMNP has to be on the itinerary for some views and hikes. Who doesn’t want to see Trail Ridge road in the summer? If it’s winter we are going skiing for a few days in the truck camper at Winter Park and Steamboat. There is so much to do in our area that if you are bored, then you are a boring person. There is 5 lifetimes worth of adventure to the west of us and that makes it impossible to pick an itinerary. Some friends want to relax and others want to adventure. So I guess it depends on the friend. My recommendation is to disappear into the wilderness and see what she has in store for us. When we get back to Loveland then I would say breakfast kolaches from Just a Pinch, a climbing session at Loveland Climbing Collective, lunch at Café Athens, beers at Loveland Aleworks, dinner at Henry’s, followed by cocktails and pinball at The Flipside. Sounds like a good recovery day after a long adventure.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
LoCo Thinktank! My Loveland based group is called Thinktastic and is one of the many LoCo Thinktank groups in northern Colorado. This group is more than just people that I see once a month. They are a “board of directors” that help me make quality, fact based decisions for Wally’s Speed Shop. We all want to see each other’s businesses succeed and at the end of the day those are the business leaders that you want to surround yourself with. I’m not sure where I would be without LoCo, but I know they have helped me immensely in our success!

Website: www.wallysspeed.com

Instagram: wallys_speed_shop

Facebook: WallysSpeedShopLLC