Roads To Success 6

Ron and Cristy Varela (continued)

A Humble and Busy Beginning

Cristy spent her days caring for their new daughter, Jennifer, while Ron completed his junior year of high school.  He attended classes during the day and worked in a pizza joint at night, bussing tables, performing custodial tasks and washing dishes.

Ron eventually transitioned from the pizza joint to working as a busboy in a restaurant located adjacent to Disneyland.  When he learned from the parking valet that parking cars at the restaurant was more profitable than bussing tables, he made a move into that field.  “I got to work at nights parking cars across the street from Disneyland,” Ron said.

One year later, Ron purchased the parking concession with money he managed to save from his earnings.  The experience he gained running this little business would eventually come in very handy.

“We thought we were rolling in money back in those days,” Cristy laughed.  “We were able to pay all our bills and take care of our family.”

After two years Ron decided that he could probably do better than parking cars and sold his valet concession.  “I ended up getting several different jobs.  For about a year I went through quite a few of them,” Ron explained.

In fact, there were about a dozen jobs for Ron during that period.  He worked in a Pier One Imports warehouse; he drove a forklift working for a yogurt company and then later used his forklift experience working for an orange juice firm.  These jobs, obviously, were just to name a few.

Cristy always had faith in her husband, but she couldn’t help feeling somewhat insecure about Ron leaving so many jobs just to find new ones.  “Cristy was nervous about all the different jobs I had, but they always seemed to be better than the last one.  I was always bettering myself,” Ron stated.

“He would come home with a new job and just say, ‘it’s going to be better money,’ and he’d quit his job and start a new one,” Cristy added.

The job that would prove to be a significant turning point in Ron’s career came about in an unexpected way, through a man living in the same apartment complex as Ron and Cristy.  The neighbor revealed to Ron that he was earning $4.65 an hour working as a driver for a moving van company.  It was an extravagant hourly wage in the mid-sixties and Ron was always on the watch for a more profitable job.  He began working with his neighbor, packing and moving the belongings of the company’s clients.

Ron later heard about another job from his neighbor, a position driving a truck with a dirt hauling company.  He quickly visited the company and managed to set up an interview.  The interview took place while Ron rode with the owner-operator of the company throughout an entire night shift.  Of course, one of the questions the man asked was if Ron knew how to drive a truck.  Ron replied with a confident, “Sure I do.”  The owner told Ron to meet him the next morning for a trial run.

“I met him at seven o’clock the next morning and rode shotgun with him for half of the day,” Ron recalled.  Riding in the passenger seat was a breeze.  The potential job got considerably more interesting when the man slipped out from behind the wheel and told Ron it was his turn to give it a try.

For anyone imagining that Ron and his potential employer were cruising around in a standard pickup truck it is important to note that this particular truck had 16 gears forward and four in reverse.  When Ron started grinding gears it became painfully obvious that he really didn’t know how to drive a truck, at least not a truck that could hall 50,000 pounds of dirt.  Confronted by the owner, Ron admitted that he didn’t know anything about driving a truck but was eager to learn.

“Ron would show that he could do the work.  He was able to learn almost anything he ever tried to do and he did it well,” Cristy explained.

Apparently seeing the confidence Ron brought to the table, the owner agreed to train him.  He taught Ron how to drive hauling trucks and a week later Ron was working for the company.  And then one day, only a short six months after taking on the dirt hauling job, an opportunity presented itself to Ron, one that managed to make Cristy extremely nervous when she heard the details.

© 2011 Philip Kassel