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The Masuda family has been fixing and glossing over life's dings, dents and vehicular indiscretions for nearly seven decades.
The Masuda family
repairs life's errorsBy Erika Engle
eengle@starbulletin.com
Masuda Fender & Paint Shop Inc. founder Sadayoshi Masuda established what would become the family business in the 1930s in Kakaako.
In 1956, his daughter-in-law Marjorie, who had married son Walter, joined the business and has been working in the office, keeping the books and helping to establish, grow and maintain relationships ever since.
Honolulu advertising executive David Koch has been going to the present-day shop on Kalani Street in Kapalama for years, once to get a banged-up 1978 Alfa Romeo repaired.
"When I was backing it out to leave, I took off the front corner of the fender of Walter's BMW," Koch said. He imagined Walter had saved up money for years to purchase such a car.
"They wouldn't let me pay for it," said Koch.
Walter and Marjorie's son Derek, who now runs the shop and is vice president of the company, remembered the incident and confirmed his parents were just that way.
Marjorie said, "I don't remember that already. It must have been something minor."
Perhaps it was the roses Koch sent as a thank-you.
"The secret is to find out who the woman is who is really in charge, and be nice," he said.
Dealership referrals have been a steady source of business for the Masuda family. As general managers at dealerships have changed hands over the years, some of the referrals have come and gone but some have remained for 20 years or more, such as Servco Toyota and Pflueger.
Hollywood stars such as Richard Boone, of TV's "Have Gun Will Travel," and some Magnum P.I. cast members had their high-end cars serviced at Masuda's over the years due to the shop's relationship with TheoDavies.
"They have their own body shop now," Marjorie said.
The shop's dealership business "probably came in from, I guess, who you know but also how you treat them," Derek said.
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Derek has worked in the shop since his graduation from Pearl City High School in 1977."I started from the bottom, washing tires, vacuuming cars, getting yelled at to empty the rubbish can," Derek said.
He gets some of the credit for keeping the business coming in.
"He's really good with the customers, too, they all like him," Marjorie said.
Carrying good customer relationships over to his relationship with his mother, he takes her out for dinner every night. "I don't cook," she said. "Only for the dog."
Family ties extend beyond blood lines to the shop's seven employees.
Clyde Shishido and Edwin Owara have been with the company 30 years or more.
In the past six years it is not the business that has been difficult, but loss.
Seven beloved family members have died, including Walter.
"We miss him very much," Marjorie said.
The grief has been hard for those left behind, but the realization that there was nothing he could do helped Derek turn a corner.
"You just gotta think of it the other way; they had a good life," he said.
Marjorie had spent her hours after work caring for the ailing relatives and wants to spend her post-retirement years helping others.
"My parents were old. My mom and dad were 94. My auntie and grandma were 93. I'm going to live long," she said, giving her many years to volunteer in a hospice program.
"I'm ready to get out of here," she said, "but I still try to help get that mortgage paid."
Derek had grown into a leadership role years before his father's death but learned more valuable lessons after Walter was diagnosed with cancer.
It was a blessing to have enough business to keep the shop open six days a week, "until the period when dad was in the hospital," Derek said.
"It's all money and no fun," he remembers his father saying.
Normal shop hours then changed.
"I want (employees) to enjoy their families and their lives," Derek said. "All money and no play? You gotta enjoy it when you can, when you're young."
Derek's wife, Dee, is a partner in Salon Nanea on Ward Avenue. The Masudas don't have children and their two dogs are unlikely to succeed Derek in the business.
His sister Diane Nakanishi is a special projects coordinator with Hawaii Benefits; her 19-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter have not expressed an interest in the fender and paint business.
"It's tough," Derek said. He encourages his niece and nephew to find cleaner work that pays better.
Not that he's complaining about his lot in life.
"I've been fortunate," Derek said. "That I could get something like this, I didn't have to build it up on my own. People try and cannot. Me, I got it handed down. I'm lucky."
