GARY T. KUBOTA / GKUBOTA@STARBULLETIN.COM Herman and Caroline Calasa have operated a family towing and used automotive parts and repairs business for about 40 years in rural east Maui. Other family members who work there include Herman's granddaughters Sarah and Brandy and son Rodney, holding 2-year-old great-granddaughter Cassie.

Calasas stay focused on
family while running
auto parts shop

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By Gary T. Kubota
gkubota@starbulletin.com

KAUPAKALUA >> Brandy Calasa was courteous but firm as she closed the gate of her grandfather's used auto parts business at 11:45 a.m. and told a customer seeking a vacuum valve for his car to return in the afternoon.

"Sorry, we're closed for lunch," she said. "You'll have to come back at 1 p.m."

At Herman's Repairs, Auto Wrecking & Towing, a sit-down lunch among family members is a tradition and since all the employees are family members, the business shuts down for an hour and 15 minutes.

Owner Herman Calasa said the lunch at his house begins with a prayer of thanks.

"So far, it's been going good. We have no problems," said Herman Calasa, who founded the business 40 years ago.

Away from the rush of suburban living, Herman's retains its own self-styled, country manner of doing business.

Customers driving to Herman's know by the time they get there that they've arrived outside the city.

The drive is about six miles east of Makawao Town through winding pasture lands on narrow two-lane roads with no sidewalks, no traffic lights, and hardly any traffic. This is a place where people have side interests in landscaping and selling plants and produce. Along Kaupakalua Road, a resident has turned the shell-casings of bombs into decorative fence posts; another resident has a wooden sign inviting people to stop and buy "beef/goat" meat.

Calasa sometimes fixes and sells a car, but most of the time he makes money from selling used vehicle parts. Once the parts are stripped from a vehicle, he has the frame crushed and sold as scrap metal.

The family's wooden office building overlooks tall grass and a 5-acre graveyard of wrecked vehicles.

Three generations of Calasas are employed at the business and live in several houses adjacent to the enterprise.

Herman, his son Rodney, and granddaughter Sarah repair and tow cars and go into the wrecking yard to retrieve parts from vehicles.

Running the office is Herman's wife, Caroline, and his granddaughter Brandy, who answers the telephone while watching her 2-year-old daughter Cassie.

Waiting customers may sit inside a rusted shipping container on car seats facing a coin-operated beverage machine.

Many customers arrive with the knowledge that the car they're driving is so old there are no parts for it at normal auto stores.

"We go there a lot of times when parts are not available anywhere else," said Al Gouveia, owner of Big Al's V'W' Auto Services in Kahului. "They have oddball stuff nobody else has."

Gouveia said he has sent several of his customers to Herman's and they've been treated well.

"They're nice people. They're family-oriented," Gouveia said.

Calasa said he learned how to fix cars from his father, George, who did most of the repairs to his family's vehicles and some to the cars of friends.

Calasa said when he bought the five acres of land from his family members to start the business in 1962, there were no houses but his within view of his property. Now there are a few.

At age 69, Calasa has three sons, nine grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. As a result, he and his wife have made some adjustments in their life, he said.

About 11 years ago, they decided to attend Catholic mass in the mornings before work, so they pushed back opening hours from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.

Calasa said that in the 1950s, he enjoyed repairing cars and entering them in demolition derbies and stock car races, but he's now grateful for waking up in the morning and going to work.

"I can still do it," he said.