Magazine. At that time, I learned that Randy had opened his first SVB facility in Kingman, Arizona, in 1986.

In 1994, he opened an SVB store in Las Vegas, some two hours away. In 1999, he sold the Kingman store to concentrate on the Las Vegas location. When I interviewed Randy, he had just moved his operation to a fabulous 20,000-square-foot, company-owned building dead-center in the middle of Vegas. The ancient history of Sun Valley Bumper is only relevant as we take a hard look at the changes the new owner, Bob Simmer, has made, why he’s made them, and how he thinks they will affect the company’s future.

In September of ’05, Bob purchased the business and merchandise on hand only. Randy retained ownership of the one-acre SVB property and soon sold it separately. Bob moved the business to a huge, brand-new complex near a major street, Decatur Road, in what he describes as “the southwest quadrant of Las Vegas.” He readily admits that his new location is in an area that is “more industrial than retail.” Bob, his wife Stacy, a former colleague who elected to stay in the corporate rat race, and their two boys live 23 miles from the new SVB location.

The next part of the new SVB picture is really paint by numbers. The business operates in a leased area of 15,000 square feet, mostly on street level, with 3,500 square feet of showroom including office space and a huge warehouse and installation area of more than 10,000 square feet. The new SVB displays all merchandise including truck caps, toolboxes, and large items under roof, and has no outside display area, except 30 allocated parking spaces. Inventory on hand under the new management at SVB ranges in value between $350,000 and $375,000. In an effort to operate with a smaller, more efficient staff, Bob reduced the original work force from 16, keeping as many of the original crew as he could, to 10, with five full-time installers and four salesmen plus himself, who like most owners, pitches in where he’s needed.

A closer look at the Simmer crew and we find Bob’s 20-year-old son Shawn, an avid light truck owner and accessory aficionado, a full-time workhorse at SVB, and the way his father sees it, the heir apparent to the business. Then there’s 14-year-old son Kevin, a full-time student and a part-time SVB helper, at least for now. The new SVB also has a sales desk manned by the very experienced Brian Hamilton, Randy’s 21-year-old son, who worked for his father and was very active in the original Las Vegas SVB.

After he acquired the business, Bob was able to keep the majority of product lines that had been profitable for SVB under Hamilton. His primary lines and best sellers are still SnugTop with total sales at 85 percent lids and 15 percent caps, and Weather Guard with active sales in job site boxes by KNAACK, a Weather Guard division, and Weather Guard toolboxes. A third best seller for Simmer is Westin/ICI chrome nerf bars and accessories. For secondary lines, Simmer lists K & N Filters; Penda Bed liners, and Transfer Flow auxiliary fuel systems.

According to young Shawn Simmer, “Transfer manufactures a line of large replacement fuel tanks to replace the stock tanks and smaller auxiliary tanks to supplement the stock tanks, all to increase the overall fuel capacity of large pickup trucks. Some customers just don’t want to stop for gas. They want to be able to drive forever without worrying about fuel.

“It has turned out to be a very popular line for us,” adds Shawn, “and it’s also very profitable. It takes about 3½ to 4 hours to switch a stock tank for a much larger Transfer Flow tank. There’s profit in the sale of the product and in the labor involved. But guys who want the cruising range are willing to pay for it.”

In addition to the aforementioned primary and secondary lines, SVB carries just about everything available for the light truck market and then some. If you wander around Bob Simmer’s accessory superstore and you don’t see it, it probably doesn’t exist. The new SVB even makes referrals for spray-on bed liners to a local Alpha dealer.

Like the previous owner, Simmer’s policy is “we install everything we sell.” However, unlike the original SVB, Simmer’s installation department doesn’t do any electronic work nor do they refer customers for sound system installations.

“We also don’t do any suspension modifications,” says Simmer. “We don’t do lift kits or drop kits. There’s just too much liability attached. And we also don’t sell many wheel-and-tire packages. We just can’t compete in price and service with companies that specialize in it.”

SVB’s current hourly labor rate of $60 compares very favorably with the going hourly rate of $80 and up at area new car dealers. The SVB installation department has been an active profit center.

“We have retained a large number of old SVB customers,” explains Simmer, “even many who didn’t know the company had been sold or that it moved. Somehow they found us even if they didn’t see our relocation notices. People who had been SVB customers just wanted to remain SVB customers. We’re grateful.”

The remainder of the new SVB story goes like this: “Our nearest competitor handling SnugTop products is about 15 miles away,” reports Simmer. “The nearest competitor handling Weather Guard product is just three miles away. But that company doesn’t install and that puts them out of the race. Actually, we don’t have any competitors near enough to pose a threat.”

The new SVB’s store hours are pretty traditional: 8 to 5 Monday through Friday and 9 to 2 on Saturday. What’s not traditional about Bob Simmer’s way of doing business is his advertising thrust. “We’ve pulled out of the newspapers,” says Simmer, “in favor of media advertising. We are putting our dollars into radio and TV primarily. We acquired a mailing list and we are printing and mailing our own flyers. We depend heavily on word of mouth. And we are still doing some yellow pages, but not much.

“We also support our Web site, www.sunvalleybumper.com, heavily,” he adds. “You know if you Google “truck accessories” locally, Sun Valley Bumper is the first listing.”

Eventually our conversation arrived at the name of the business.

“I inherited the Sun Valley Bumper name,” explained Simmer, “but I’d really like to do business as ‘The Truck Accessory Superstore.’ We’re using it right now as a kind of subhead. At the moment, there is still value in the old name because long-time customers relate to it.”

When I did my first article on SVB, I remember discussing the Sun Valley Bumper name with company founder Randy Hamilton, and although he no longer sold bumpers he had elected to retain the name.

“We’ve talked about changing the company name,” said Randy, “but it’s always been Sun Valley Bumper. I figure if it isn’t broken don’t fix it. The name has always worked just fine and it still does.”

That was the understandable attitude of the company founder. But the new owner, Bob Simmer, has no sentimental attachment to the name. He’s a tough businessman looking for whatever edge he can find. He admitted that he’d prefer to call the company by the subhead he authored, “The Truck Accessory Superstore.” It’s my guess that he’ll hang on to the Sun Valley Bumper name as long as he thinks it is helping him retain customers from the old location and establish his territory as “the new guy.” When Simmer is confident that he has created his own identity, he’ll rename the company “The Truck Accessory Superstore” and the Sun Valley Bumper name will take its rightful place in the Las Vegas aftermarket history books.

But before he changes the name, let’s look at the significant changes he has made.

“It was my intention from the outset to make the sales area more modern,” declares Simmer. “I wanted the appearance of the location to be more business-like -- more modern. I pretty much kept Randy’s sales approach by not having a traditional sales counter, but by positioning the sales people at open desks in the showroom much like car salesmen. However, I bought top-quality furniture and tried to position the desks in the showroom so each salesman had a margin of privacy.”

Simmer’s arrangement of his sales staff throughout the showroom is more like a balanced combination of “open, but semi-private” than it was at the old location.

“Our average sales ticket at the moment is between $500 and $750, about half of what Randy’s average ticket was,” continues Simmer. “Randy concentrated on more ‘big ticket’ items. However, I expect our average ticket amount to grow in time. I believe customers spending that kind of money in a retail outlet like mine deserve to do business in a quality environment.

“My second intention was to create a smaller, more efficient staff,” he went on. “I wanted to operate with fewer people, but greater efficiency, than Randy did. I reduced the total staff from the 14 or 15 or 16 that operated Sun Valley under Randy to 10.”

Reducing the body count has obviously reduced Simmer’s overhead. But has it adversely affected sales?

Total gross sales for Simmer’s first 12 months of ownership is just under the $3 million in annual gross sales reported by Randy Hamilton three or four years ago. In the face of the current, less-than-booming economy, and the understandable reduction in business resulting from the relocation of the company, Sun Valley Bumper under Bob Simmer’s ownership is doing just fine.

To what does Simmer attribute his success so far? No, it’s not beginner’s luck.

“This is a family business,” says Simmer, “and we strive to create a family environment at our store. Our keynote is customer service and we work very diligently at providing it to each and every customer from our very large commercial fleet customers to every individual sport truck owner.

“One of the things about this business that impresses me most,” adds Simmer, “is that these people treat their trucks like their children! Your approach as a retailer has to reflect your understanding of the customer’s feelings for his vehicle.

“Unfortunately, I’m not a truck guy personally,” he adds, “at least, not yet, as I’m still paying off an automobile and with the purchase of the business a new truck for me just isn’t in the budget right now. But it will be soon.”

What about the future? How does Simmer see his business in the years to come? Obviously, his experience as an aftermarket retailer is very limited, but his experience as a businessman is vast.

“The truck accessory business will grow here in Las Vegas and my store along with it as long as the city continues to grow,” predicts Simmer. “The word is that Vegas is growing by 6,000 new people a year. That’s a lot of potential customers.”

So here’s the bottom line: The corporate “numbers cruncher” made a big investment in the automotive aftermarket on his way to becoming a “truck guy.” He likes the business. He likes dealing with the customers. He has instituted a couple of business-like changes -- a quality business environment and a smaller, more efficient staff -- from the way the previous owner operated. In the face of the move to a new location (from dead center in the middle of Las Vegas to a more industrial than retail area in the Southwest corner) and a less-than-booming economy, he has managed to maintain an impressive annual total gross sales volume. Bob Simmer brings new blood and a different perspective to the automotive aftermarket. At the moment, he is only making a few subtle changes to the Las Vegas landmark that is Sun Valley Bumper. But by the time he’s ready to change the company name to “The Truck Accessory Superstore,” just watch his smoke.