For all but five years of her 30-plus year career at Chabill’s Tire & Auto Service, Beth Barron has worked alongside her husband Carey.
Like her, he's filled lots of different roles over the years and moved up the ladder. He’s worked in commercial sales and managed stores. Today he is director of operations.
Carey Barron joined the company in December 1993, the same year he and Barron got married. They started their family and were busy young parents as they juggled the responsibilities at home and at work. But as they both rose in the ranks at the office and their children got older, Barron says tension was building at home and at work.
And, it was becoming unclear which of them might succeed Barron's father, Charley Gowland, as the company’s leader. Plus, Barron also had a brother-in-law working for the company.
“I don’t think Dad wanted to leave the business in Carey’s hands, not because Carey’s not capable, but in my dad’s head this is his family business,” and she believes he didn’t think turning over the business to a son-in-law was the same thing as handing it over to one of his children.
Then add in the fact that it was rare — and remains rare — for women to lead tire dealerships in the U.S., and Barron says things eventually were at an awkward standstill.
“It’s hard to navigate all of that,” she recalls. So in 2008 Carey Barron left Chabill’s for work elsewhere.
It would have been a perfect time for Barron and her father to have a formal conversation about plans for the future. But that never happened.
“My dad never said anything, but everybody else that worked here then understood,” she says. “It enabled me to take that position” of future leader.
As time went on, and the company continued to grow, Martin Michel, who was working as a general manager of Chabill’s retail business at the time, said he needed help. He thought the company could use someone who was focused on operations.
There wasn’t an obvious internal candidate, but Michel had one in mind — Carey Barron. By this time the Barron children were older and the family pressures at home had eased. Both Beth and Carey thought they could make it work.
She says, “We brought it to Dad and he deferred to me and said, ‘if you’re good, we’re good.’” So, in April 2013, Carey Barron returned to Chabill’s.
In those five years, his wife had cemented her role.
“When I came back, it was so much simpler,” Carey Barron says. And it was clear to Gowland what Beth wanted. “Everybody was extremely comfortable and knew that Beth was taking the reins.”
