If it hasn’t been made evident by now, we love people here at AAT! We love hearing about their stories and passions for our community, but we also love hearing about what our fellow locals do and why they do it! For example, we have some wonderful neighbors who own/manager some fantastic local businesses and serve our town tremendously by doing so! This fact is why AAT has partnered up with our good friends at B3 Glass, to bring you all “Small Business Fridays!” Each week, we’ll feature a different, local small business and talk with its owner and hear about their journey, their business in general, as well as their heart for their customers and our city!
One of the benefits of having fantastic sponsors, such as B3 Glass, is that sometimes they’ll recommend some very cool people for us to interview! Such was the case with today’s featured guest. Therefore, thanks to our friends at B3 Glass, this week, we’re joined by Justin Stidham. Justin is the owner of the new, off-road recreation shop, Envy Offroad Inc. Although his business has only been open for about a month (at the time of this article’s publication), Justin already has begun doing great work to help people get the most out of their time with their power-sport toys.
Thank you for joining us this week, Justin. Some folks around the community may recognize your face/name from your time working at a few different locations in the past. However, we want to get to know you now fully. Can you please share your story with us? What has it been like starting this new shop?
“I was born and raised in Northeastern Oregon. I grew up ranching and working in the fields. We had four-wheelers, ATVs, motorcycles, and everything else. If we weren’t working, we were playing, and my passion grew from there.
“After high school, I decided to move down here to Elko. My dad was living down here working as a driller. Once I moved down, in late 2006, everything changed for me. I started out working for Sears for a couple of years. From there, I moved to another local business, The Cove, where I worked my way up to management. One day, I realized I wanted to work power-sports and go back to playing with toys, so I went over to work at Ship’s Cycle.
“Power-sports have always been in my blood. Over the past year or so, I started wondering if I wanted to go out and do something on my own. I had the opportunity to do just that, earlier this spring, and I jumped at it!
“Going out on my own has been insane, to say the least. I had to build everything up from scratch. My better half and I started playing around with the idea last fall. We thought about what would be a good alternative for people who wanted work done on their toys because we don’t really have an independent shop like this around here.”
Let’s talk more about Envy Offroad for a second, Justin. As a newer, local establishment, can you please explain to us what the overall goal and purpose of your business is?
“Envy Offroad is a business for anybody that plays with power-sport toys. We offer preventative maintenance to full-on builds. We have the ability to do almost anything. We offer after-hours support because we know that nobody needs anything done on their toys during normal work hours. If you bring your machine in to us, it’s going to be indoors all the time; we have cameras and security. People don’t want their vehicles sitting outside while they’re waiting for parts. What people assume about us is that we sell machines. We do not do any of that. Our ultimate goal is to be a nice alternative for people to get work done.”
Why do you feel like you have a genuine passion for this line of work, Justin? Your business is new and exciting; however, what’s going to motivate you to keep doing this for the long haul?
“Both my service technician and I both genuinely enjoy riding. We spend a lot of our off-time riding, and we want to see everybody do the same. We enjoy it, and we want to make sure everyone else can enjoy it. Everybody in this community works their ass off, so everyone is going to need an escape; that’s why we’re here to help!”
As someone who grew up as an Oregonian and then found new life in Elko as a business owner, what was that overall transition like for you?
I was very skeptical when I moved down here! I moved here from a town of twenty-two hundred people. I came from a real small, rural area. I had a class of twenty-eight, and you had to drive an hour and a half just to get to a Walmart. I had never lived in a bigger town like this one before. However, although Elko is bigger in population from where I grew up, it still has the same small-town feel. Everybody here is still great; the only thing I really miss about back home are the trees!
Well, thank you so much for joining us this week, Justin? We’re glad we were pointed in your direction! Is there anything else you’d like to share before we let you get back to the shop?
Our goal is to help people out! When you go out and play, you should have no worries. Your biggest worry should be what you’re going to grill for lunch. So, if you need help with your off-road toys, that’s what we’re here for!
You can stay caught up on everything going on around here at AAT by checking out our “Stay Connected” page! Make sure you never miss a feature!
If you would like to submit a FREE entry for The Around Town Bulletin Board, simply email us anthonyaroundtown@gmail.com
See you around, Elko!
Blog Credits:
Written by: Anthony Crosby
Edited by: Nadara Merrill
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