Auto dealer Eddie Yaklin has been in business for himself since he was 20, beginning his career in car sales just after high school and worked part-time nights and weekends. After quickly figured out he had a knack for the business, he made the switch to part-time school and full-time work.

“I thought to myself, ‘What the (heck) do I have to weld for,” he said, laughing. “Before I knew it I was working days and going to school in the evenings.”

Through the years Yaklin, 52, has sacrificed and worked hard to make his auto empire what it is today. The sprawling 400 car dealership on Highway 77 in Kingsville is a far cry from the small lot called Eddie’s Auto World on 14th Street in Corpus Christi w here he began in the late 1970s.

Yaklin, who grew up in Rivera, was attending Del Mar College in Corpus Christi for a certification in welding when he started working for the used car lot. He quit when the opportunity came up to open his own lot.

But even now, with so much to show for, Yaklin doesn’t consider himself successful. To admit success is the equivalent of saying a person is satisfied or has reached every goal they set for themselves.

And a person should never be satisfied, he said.

Were he satisfied he may have died out like many of the other small, locally-owned used car lots when he used to make his living buying trade-in vehicles from dealerships and selling them on local street corners. “Those days are over,” Yaklin said.

Instead he learned business and watched the trends. He knew by the late 1980s the only way he would survive was by purchasing a franchise, he said. As times changed, so did Yaklin, choosing to offer in-house financing as a way to draw customers.

In 2000 Yaklin made the leap and purchased K. Chiles Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Nissan. He is now the proud dealer of the Eddie Yaklin Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and dealership in Kingsville and boasts several national awards for sales and service. Later this year he will break ground on the Eddie Yaklin SuperCenter of Alice.

So how do you turn a small 25 car lot in to a multi-location franchise?

“Anyone can do it,” Yaklin said.

Tim Pollard, general manager and Yaklin’s appointed right-hand man, disagrees. He thinks his boss (and friend) is being too modest. “You got to be willing to put it on the line to do it,” he said, adding that no one works like Yaklin does.

Sun up to sun down has become a way of life for Yaklin who refuses to live more than a few minutes away from any of his businesses. He likes to be able to get up in the middle of the night and head for the office to finish the day’s work or pop in at the crack of dawn to see the front doors open.

“Mind your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves,” he said.

Yaklin puts a great deal of stock in customer service and consistency. Even if a potential buyer is just passing through they deserve the best a company can give them. If not, the numbers begin to add up because that one person has a friend who has a friend who has a friend.

“Two sales lost are two sales you will never get back again,” he said. “You will never again have the opportunity to sell those people a car. You have to be there every day. You have to stay on top of it.”

In the days and months after Sept. 11, 2001 when people were uncertain of the future and more cautious with their money Yaklin thought his business might be over.

“We would go days without seeing a customer,” he said.

As a result of the slowed economy Yaklin postponed building his larger dealership along the highway until 2003. Yaklin said he was able to stay afloat by maintaining focus and providing customers with the best possible deals and service.

In 2008 Yaklin’s dealership was awarded the Ford President’s Award, which requires that all technicians are certified to work on Ford vehicles, as well as above average customer service scores and sales. Only a handful of President’s Awards are given out nationwide each year.

Yaklin said the most challenging part of his job is to stay on top of the trends and know when to evolve with or ahead of the times. It’s also hard to find good people, he said, and part of the reason he hasn’t branched out beyond South Texas.

Expanding would mean spreading his team even further or trusting that people in another town are going to care about your business as much as you do, he said, which is why he values everyone on his 115 person staff.

Yaklin also thinks it is important to live in the community in which you do business. He and wife Charis’ home is built on 40 acres of property in Kingsville where he has planted 350 oak trees and just as many palm trees to remind him of his favorite place – the water. His backyard, some say, is a virtual tropical paradise.

So why not move to a water front property? Because there isn’t a body of water in Kingsville, Yaklin said. So instead, he imports the tropical vibe and spends as much time as he can on his yacht.

An avid fisherman, Yaklin had the catch of his life a few months ago, when he and friends rescued three fishermen lost at sea for eight days. Yaklin described the experience as one of the most rewarding days of his life and one of the few achievements of which he will admit being proud. He had the rare opportunity to see three men – whom authorities had already given up on and assumed dead – be reborn.

Through the years, Yaklin has supported a variety of local organizations such as the Kleberg County Junior Livestock Show and Texas A&M Kingsville’s athletics program.

In turn, the community and his employees continue to support him. Some such as Bobby Burris have been with him nearly 30 years.

The key, Yaklin said, is to show your team respect, make your expectations clear and to remember no business is successful without the support of a good staff. “Your people are the ones who make it happen,” he said. “No one person can do it. It takes all of us.”