Richard Koch, Auto Mechanic

Richard is too modest to describe how he ran a gas station; I will try to explain.  My source is a very entertaining interview Richard gave in 1985, when he was working for American Cities Business Journals. Only Richard can tell us if he embellished his saga for the interviewer. He taught auto mechanics as well as running the gas station.

"For starters, he grew up in New York and graduated from Siena College with a degree in economics.  The Vietnam War was in progress, and he expected to be drafted.  While waiting for the word to come, Koch, age 21, got his driver's license, bought his first car and headed out to see the country.  One of the stops was Nevada, MO, where he dropped off a traveling companion who was going to volunteer his services at the mental hospital.  "I stayed a while there," he remembers, "then went to Padre Island and worked a week there."

He took a volunteer job in Amarillo, Texas [I think he worked in a prison], then headed back to New York.  About this time he was involved in an automobile accident.  "My car was totaled in Kansas City, he says at first.  "No, let's see, I guess it was totaled when I got back to New York."  He ponders the matter a moment, puzzled.  "Wherever, the accident occurred when he was turning left into a 7-11."  The insurance company gave him $250.

"I took a bus back to Kansas City--never do that--" he advises, apparently having decided the wreck occurred in New York.  "Because I had a place to stay here with some people I had met."  He worked as a volunteer librarian at the Jackson County Jail, spending his lunch hours shooting baskets at the St. Vincent's Catholic Grade School located next door to the house where he was staying.

"As it turns out, they needed a coach," he says of the school.  "And I needed a job.  They didn't have much money, and I wasn't a certified teacher, so we cut a deal."  It was room and board and $50 a month.  A great deal.  Until, that is, the Catholic diocese decided to shut down the inner city school.  It was in the early 1970's, and the school had been experimenting with the open education concept.  He and two other teachers chose not to give into the Catholic leadership decision; they incorporated themselves and kept the all-black school open as "Operation Breakthrough."

The school survives today as one of the city's largest day care centers.  [Mom and Dad always contributed generously.]  Back then, it taught children through eighth grade.  Koch taught science.  "We were pretty noisy, but it was fun," he remembers.  "We did a lot of experiments."  (What happens when an egg is dropped from the third-story window?  It doesn't break--he can tell you why.)  He also coached boys' basketball, girls' volleyball and softball, and a track team--"that was my favorite"--on which he had a "no cut" policy.

He also ran a service station, as part of the school's agreement with the government, which helped finance Operation Breakthrough.  "I couldn't  even figure where to put the gas," he says. Along in here somewhere, Koch met his wife--also a New Yorker--who is a nurse.  They were married in 1972. [This is wrong; they were married in 1971.] He decided he was going to need some money.  He started law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, while still teaching.

"In the last year of law school, I had three kids and we were broke," he says.  "We were really desperate."  He got a job teaching at DeLaSalle, a school for children who had been kicked out of other schools.  His teaching assignment: auto mechanics.

Auto mechanics?  "The reason I got the job was I was a state of Missouri vehicle inspector." he says.

Another story.  While managing the service station, Koch had subcontracted out the mechanics business.  One of the mechanics couldn't read, but wanted to be a vehicle inspector.  Koch volunteered to be his reader when he went for the exam.  As it turned out, the examiners wouldn't let Koch be a reader, but encouraged him  to watch the pre-exam film and take the test himself.  He passed; the mechanic failed.  And the experience helped Koch land a job teaching auto mechanics.

"I asked the first kid that came in what he wanted to learn," he says.

He said, "transmissions."

"I said, 'manual transmissions,' that's kind of tough.'"

He said, "Oh, I know how to fix manual transmissions, I want to learn automatic.'"

I made him my assistant instructor.  The relationship worked well.  "He thought I knew everything because I could read and he couldn't."