By: Sheila Crowley
Murray County News Staffwriter
What started out as an on-the-job training class spanned to a 50 years career for Leroy Kalass.
A Slayton native, Kalass has been a part of the alignment and glass business since his senior year of high school. He started working for Bob Dillon in the fall of 1969 helping out in the shop as part of an on-the-job training program. Because of his interest in automobiles, he went on to complete a two-year auto mechanic program at Pipestone Vocational School. Kalass remained an employee for Dillon Alignment and Glass while furthering his education and then began working full time at the same location in the spring of 1972.
Kalass said his interest in the business was partially sparked by the desire to learn more about the mechanics of the automobile. Growing up Kalass explained if he wanted to drive it was necessary to make any repairs to his car that came along. “If the brakes went out in my car, I had to fix them so I had something to drive,” explained Kalass. He didn’t have anyone to show him the ropes in the mechanical field prior to working on his own car, but Kalass said it really didn’t take him long to figure things out.
Dillon was amazed at how Kalass was able to ta pile of parts and put them back together with little to no effort involved.
When Dillon was ready to retire, it seemed like a ‘no brainer’ for Kalass to purchase the business and become sole proprietor. Kalass and his wife, Beth, bought the alignment and glass business May 1st, 1982 – 12 years after Leroy had first started working for Dillon.
At that time, and still today, the business focuses on service work with alignment, balancing, brake work, tires, and auto glass replacement.
Kalass has lived north of Slayton his whole life and starting a business of which he had been a part of kind of just fell in his lap so to speak. He and his wife, Beth, were married in 1977. She also is a Slayton native. They are both very proud to be a part of the community they grew up in.
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