August 30, 2013 - MMI-Phoenix Grad Opens Repair Shop with $400 and a Toolbox

The shop at Mike’s ATVs, where Mike Flanary and his crew repair ATVs, dirt bikes, street bikes, UTVs, ATCs and more.

Two years after the recession forced Mike Flanary to shut down the construction business he operated in Detroit for more than seven years, he had two options: to continue taking sporadic, low paying construction jobs while his wife supported the two of them – or, pursue the skills and education required to work in a different industry. After seeing a Motorcycle Mechanics Institute (MMI) commercial and having some mechanical training from earlier years, Flanary began to see a future in motorcycle repair on the horizon.

“Automotive is in my blood,” Flanary said. “I’ve been working on cars since I was able to hold a wrench, but cars just got boring. Bikes are a lot more fun.”

Going into the program, Flanary knew very little about motorcycles and had never repaired one. Before graduating in January 2012, Flanary completed the motorcycle program at MMI, along with the Honda and Yamaha Pro electives. He knew throughout the program that the skills and knowledge he gained would become his career and livelihood, and therefore took full advantage of the courses.

“MMI gave me a great education,” Flanary said. “Not just technical skills, but showed me how to run a business.”

Once he graduated, Flanary and his wife of 22 years moved to Aztec, N.M. and opened Mike’s ATVs with just $400 and a toolbox. With his wife’s income helping to support the business in the beginning, Flanary said they ate a lot of beans and even slept in his first shop. He slowly began to invest in tools and build out the shop, eventually earning enough to move into a 5,000 square-foot space complete with offices, two large bays and a 7.5 acre test track. Not long after, his wife was able to leave her job and work full-time for the shop.

Flanary and his wife credit much of their success to the level of customer service they provide – such as posting updates on the progress of customers’ repairs to their website, and offering services other repair shops won’t. Technicians in the area commonly turn down repair work on older machines, but understanding that many customers want to restore their vehicles rather than buy new ones, Flanary repairs machines dating back to the 1970s. He said that being the only technician in the area that will fix used ATVs has brought in business from California, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma, Texas and Nevada.

Moving forward, Flanary hopes to open a second location close to water so that he can expand the company’s services to include Jet Skis and boats. Beyond that, he would consider his dreams fulfilled if given the opportunity to return to MMI and teach a class, sharing the experiences he’s had in operating his own shop, as he remembers his instructors doing.

“That would bring my career around full-circle,” Flanary said. “To go back and teach where I learned and retire a happy man.”

For more information about MMI, visit www.uti.edu/programs/motorcycle. Follow MMI-Phoenix on Facebook at www.facebook.com/mmiphoenix and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MMItweet.