Company Info
A brief history of our business;
In the late 50's and early 60's Mr. Dean Dravis was a popular barber at this location in McKinley Heights, Niles. Back in the day, men and their sons did not go to hair stylists, in fact, Dean employed a second barber just to keep up with the demand.
But then in February, 1964, the Beatles came to town and the whole picture changed. No longer were men and boys getting "butch hair cuts" and regular cuts, in fact , that started the demise of a once thriving barbering business. Longer hair meant less frequent trips to a barber. It became clear to Dean that he needed to suppliment his income.
Dean started learning small engine repair. He set up a make shift repair shop in the basement of his barber shop.
Cutting hair by day and working on customers lawnmowers by night, the business was born.
For several years, the business stayed in the "basement" until 1980. One of Deans longtime hair customer was a man named Herb Jones, a fine gentleman and excellent small engine mechanic. Herb agreed to help Dean out as Dean had just opened a brand new workshop on the property, Deans Outdoor Power Equipment was born.
With Deans son (George Dravis and son in law Joe Svarny), the business expaned into a showroom addition, in a few years a second showroom was added along with a warehouse for new equipment. Quality Manufactures found us as we grew and now carry hi quality power equipment such as Simplicity, Gravely, Cub Cadet and Echo just to name a few.
Again, in a few years, we needed to add an additional warehouse and then a another large storage building.
We now employ 3 full time technicians, 4 sales people, managers and a driver along with a part time bookkeeper for a current total of 11 people.
With this growth , we never forgot the core values Dean had tought all of us; Be fair, be courteous and treat our customer as we would want to be treated.