Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 13, 1994                   TAG: 9403090205
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: D-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By Megan Schnabel STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WILLIE'S CAR CLINIC

But it was a leap in the right direction, he felt.

"I always did want to own my own business," said Smith, now owner of Willie's Car Clinic in Roanoke. "I was willing to go through just about whatever it took."

So Smith in September 1991 left the security of a steady job and, with names of a few likely customers and a lot of faith, set out on his own.

"I tried to convince him to keep his full-time job and just open this at night," said Gwen Smith, who is both a computer specialist for Allstate Insurance and her husband's bookkeeper - or, as he calls her, his "backbone."

She wanted him to start out slowly, to get his feet wet.

He had other ideas.

"He jumped right in," she said with a laugh. "He got his feet and his whole body in!"

The building Willie Smith moved into on Patterson Avenue is nothing fancy. He said he chose it for its high ceiling - the car lift has to go somewhere, after all - and its low rent. And there's some space out back, behind the building, in case he ever decides to expand.

Expansion is a possibility, he said. He'd someday like to work on trucks, maybe get a contract of some kind with a company that owns a fleet of trucks.

Smith has taken another big step. Just a few weeks ago he bought the building he had been renting.

While getting the capital to make such a purchase is often the hardest part of starting a new business, the Smiths managed to secure a loan from Crestar Bank.

Steve Barger, an assistant vice president at Crestar, said Willie Smith had several things in his corner when he applied for the loan: He had been in business for some time, he had a history of meeting financial obligations and his mortgage payments would be no greater than the amount he had been paying for rent.

"He wasn't trying to leap to something he couldn't handle," Barger said.

"We just got started with small funds," Gwen Smith said. They still don't have a computer system - she does all bookkeeping longhand. And the interior of the building is still bare, save the artwork hanging above the workbench.

The pictures - crayon drawings and cutouts - are courtesy of the Smiths' 7-year-old daughter, Randi. They also have a 12-year-old son, Willie. Now that their dad is his own boss and no longer has to work weekends as he did when he was someone else's employee, the kids get to see a lot more of him, Gwen Smith said.

"The weekends belong to us," she said.

Willie Smith doesn't work Saturdays or Sundays, but he certainly could. In one day, he'll sometimes get enough jobs to last him a week. With all the referrals and word-of-mouth customers he gets, he doesn't even advertise anymore, except in programs for special church events.

The clientele of Willie's Car Clinic is diverse, Gwen Smith said. Although she rarely looks at the names on the paperwork when she balances the books, she said she knows the garage's reputation isn't limited to Roanoke's black community.

Sometimes Gwen Smith wonders whether she, as a black woman, would be able to rent an apartment on her own, let alone raise the capital to start a business. But she said her husband has run into no prejudice as he has set out on his own.

"I thank God every day for the blessings we have," she said. "We have what a lot of people dream of."

Willie Smith agreed.

"I'm not getting rich, but I feel good about what I'm doing," he said. "With the Lord's help - and my wife and my lawyer - it's all gone through fine."