Ruark and Sons History

In 1984 Bill and Janet Ruark decided, out of necessity, to open a part time automotive repair shop in their garage.  Bill had been a technician and a service writer all of his life, so making the transition into owning and operating a repair shop was fairly simple.  At first Bill was spending his days service writing at an area dealership, and then fixing cars in the evenings at home.  So for the first 10 years of its life the then unnamed Ruark and Sons Automotive was only a means of supplemental income for Bill’s family.

In June 1995 for ethical reasons Bill left his full time job.  While searching for a job that was more in line with his moral and ethical standards, Bill began to realize that the poor treatment of customers and technicians was becoming an all too common occurrence in the industry.  With this realization Bill took a leap of faith and established Ruark and Sons Automotive to begin working full time from the garage. The decision paid off.  By September the business was up and running smoothly with the support of friends and family.

By March of 1997 Ruark and Sons had 2 full time employees and Joe was working when he got home from school.  Later that year the decision was made that, because of the volume of work, more bays and more parking were needed. So Bill purchased the property at 114 South Columbus Street and operations were moved there.  The Ruark team had hoped for a 25% increase in business after the move, within 6 months return business had doubled and by their first anniversary business had quadrupled.

With his steadfast business model of putting honesty, integrity and the customer first, Bill had gone from working in a 5 bay garage to owning a 5 bay garage and employing 5 people in 3 years time.

By 2000 Joe was overseeing the daily operations and by 2004 Alex joined the staff full time.  Adhering to Bill’s business model has allowed the Ruark and Sons team to enjoy more than 20 years of serving the Sunbury area’s automotive service needs.