Company makes sure longtime mechanic's loyalty is rewarded, displayed
When Lauren Karnes no longer used his Snap-on tools, he wondered if the company might like to have them back. The longtime mechanic knew that the company had a museum at its headquarters in Kenosha.
"I went out to the Snap-on plant - I was born and raised in Kenosha," said Karnes, now 89. He brought along some of the manuals for his tools, just to show what he had. The receptionist called museum manager Terri Wruck.
"And she looked at what I had," he said, "and she was astounded. She was flabbergasted."
We'll let Karnes keep telling the story.
"What are you planning to do with all this?" she asked.
"I'm looking to donate it to the museum," he said.
That's when Wruck really looked surprised, Karnes said.
Wruck and others learned that Karnes had a veritable time capsule of vintage Snap-on tools, including equipment from the late 1950s and 1960s.
"I had tools to do complete motor overhaul, auto transmission repair, rebuilding carburetors and alternators," he said. "I did a lot of wheel alignment and balancing, brake work, turning drums and grinding brake shoes to fit the drums. Specialty equipment that's now obsolete."
Earlier a machinist at the Falk Co., he decided to open his own garage in 1966. He called it Karnes Texaco, located at S. 13th St. and W. Layton Ave. on Milwaukee's south side.
Later he moved his business to other locations, last running a service station at S. 124th St. and W. Oklahoma Ave. Fast forward to the mid-1970s. When the gasoline shortages made it problematic to keep the pumps going, Karnes closed up shop and moved his equipment to his home garage.
Someone at Falk invited him to come back to work there, so Karnes returned to work as an inspector at his old employer. He also kept doing tuneups and repairs for his favorite customers, until just a few years ago.
"I first started working with Snap-on tools when I was 13, because my brother-in-law had a garage," he said. "They're more expensive, but you don't have to buy them twice."
Given their value to tool collectors in general - and the Snap-on Museum in particular - it turned out they had only appreciated in value.
"I think the prices are many times what I paid," Karnes said.
Needless to say, company officials were happy to have the tools return home. They first made arrangements to have a truck pick things up on Feb. 2, but that proved to be the day that the whole area got socked by a blizzard.
Soon, items were on their way to a place of honor in the Snap-on Museum.
Special exhibit
A special garage display was created, complete with a 1965 Rambler bought just for the exhibit. First, though, the Karnes collection hit the road, taken to Orlando, Fla., for the company's conference for its franchisee dealers in August.
Much to Karnes' amazement, it turned out that they wanted him there, too. The company flew Karnes and two of his sons to the conference, held at the swanky Gaylord Palms resort.
"It was first-class all the way," Karnes said, admitting that he had never flown first-class before. "They treated us like kings. It's an honor I'll never forget."
They set up his equipment in the lobby of the Gaylord Palms, complete with the '65 Rambler. Karnes himself got a more formal welcome to the conference, introduced to the thousands of attendees from all over the United States and the world.
The people at the conference understood what Snap-on meant to Karnes - and what Karnes meant to the company, said Nick Pinchuk, chief executive officer.
"We introduced him and our people were on their feet, cheering," he said. "He confirms our legacy and our future. And that people believe in our tools so much . . . that he kept them all those years and treated them with such reverence. It's a very special thing."
As the exhibit was developed, employees learned that the company had paid attention to the mechanic decades earlier, said Rick Secor, director of marketing and communications.
"He was actually pictured in November 1966, with the new equipment he bought," Secor said. The item appeared in the "Snap-on News" magazine for dealers.
The museum, which began in 2007, is used mainly for corporate events and is not open to the general public. The company began as the Snap-on Wrench Co. in 1920.
In thanks for his gift to the museum, Snap-on gave Karnes an expensive new toolbox, and then gave boxes to a son and grandson. Karnes still has plenty of Snap-on tools, even though he doesn't work on repairs anymore.
"Now I don't even change my own oil," he said good-naturedly. "Getting old."
Company officials also had one more thank-you for Karnes. With the exhibit now on permanent display at its museum, the company hosted a special private gathering Saturday for their favorite old-time mechanic and his family and friends.
It's been an unexpected mutual admiration society for the mechanic who loved his tools.
Did he ever use anything else?
"Yeah, by mistake," Karnes said with disgust, explaining that he realized an old pre-Snap-on purchase was damaging auto parts. "So I threw the thing in the garbage can."
That's when he really became a Snap-on man.
"No better tool made in the world," he declared. "The difference between Snap-on and others is the engineering that goes into them and the metallurgy. It's better than the rest of them put together."
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