Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson

Owner of Johnson and Johnson Auto Service

Kevin Johnson Spent most of his life here in Springfield, Il except for a four year stint in Davidson, North Carolina. He is happily married to Karen Johnson and have three kids. Johnson Earned his associates degree in furniture design at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory, North Carolina. He enjoys Ice Skating which includes building an ice rink in his back yard last winter. He also enjoys camping and hiking and being a family man. He has worked in the automotive business for over 20 years, he started at Johnson and Johnson with his grandfather when he was at the age of 16.

The nature of Johnson and Johnson is that it is a family owned business and currently in its fourth year generation. “ My grandfather came into the area back in 1935 from southern Illinois, and he had been operating service station for a while,” said johnson. His father and grandfather had the business originally on Outer Park and MacArthur and then in 1975 his father bought the property on Stevenson Drive where the business is currently located. Johnson and Johnson is a full service station such as auto repair, tires, belts,hoses, wipers and oil changes,engine diagnostics valve jobs and other heavier stuff that the other service stations don’t like to do work on. Johnson also has a state of the art alignment machine to align the front and rear of cars.

I asked johnson what are the challenges of owning a small business? he said, “Small businesses are challenging on there own, we have to watch overhead, because fixed costs are not always fixed. Johnson says now becoming an owner this has definitely opened his eyes and made him more of a rounded manager and owner.

Later on in the discussion I asked Johnson what are you most proud of and not necessarily work related? Johnson said, I am most proud of my children and my oldest graduating from college, my middle son is a Marine and my youngest is starting off his freshman year of college, I am also of course proud of my wife being successful and what she does and she has become quite the runner, I would have to say I am pretty proud of myself because I went back to school at 37 and was able to get a degree on furniture design which I do on the side some of my projects are mentioned in the Chicago Home and Garden magazine.

So whats next for Johnson? well the company is currently developing a website as well as changing the marketing strategy a bit. “ we now have a Facebook page which is a new avenue people have to reach, luckily I have my daughter to help me out with this.

“ You have to challenge yourself to learn new things and to be able to like what you are doing, and if you don't like it you should probably not be doing it. - Kevin Johnson