Dave’s Motor Supply was owned and operated by Roger Blaha’s father in 1974. In 2009, Roger followed in his father’s footsteps and bought the business from his dad, rebranding it as Rog’s Auto. Roger has been working on vehicles since he was an 8th grader when he began working for his dad in the shop. After graduating from high school, Roger attended the University of South Dakota at Springfield for his bachelor’s degree in automotive before becoming Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certified. After that the rest is history and Rog has been a mechanic ever since.

Rog is a true motorhead and has natural skills that are hard to come by when it comes to engines and vehicles. He has a passion for working on cars and helping people in order to keep them and their vehicles moving. He loves that every day is different in the shop, especially with the newer vehicles finding and fixing the problems becomes almost a puzzle to figure out with the advanced computerized technology. Taking over his dad’s shop was a natural fit for Rog, plus he wanted to keep the family business of auto repair going. When asked what Rog enjoys about being a business owner in Wagner, he said that Wagner and the surrounding area are busy communities and Wagner is a good business community to be a part of.

Rog’s Auto does almost every kind of automotive related service with the exception of body work. He also carries a large selection of parts in store. Recently, Rog’s Auto expanded their on-hand line of parts in order to have more parts readily available. The shop also carries a new line of heavy-duty parts for semis and more everyday car care needs. The shop will also be upgrading its computer system as their parts supplier has changed to AVP parts. The most exciting change to Rog’s Auto is the addition of a state-of-the-art four-wheel alignment machine. Thanks to advances in technology, alignment equipment is much more compact than in the past and even more accurate than before. A wheel alignment machine measures the vehicles wheel angles. It calculates and compares the angles against the vehicle’s original specifications. These calculations allow the technician to make adjustments to the camber, caster, and toe of each wheel as needed. One thing that is currently in the works for the shop would online parts ordering for customers that could either be picked up at the shop or sent to their home.

Rog’s Auto currently has five employees including Fred Scheuffele, Dave Vanderwerff, Lucas Cournoyer, Riley Collier and Jake Anderson. Fred has been a part of Rog’s Auto for over ten years and is the manager. Dave has been with Rog’s Auto since it was Dave’s Motor Supply for a total of 20 years. Lucas has been a part of the auto team for the past eight years. Riley is working and going to automotive school and has been with the shop for two years. Finally, there is recent WCS graduate, Jake Anderson, who has been helping after school and during the summer since he was an 8th grader. Having a great team and being able to have the right fit is important to any automotive repair shop. Rog finds that this ties into one of the most challenging aspects of running a repair shop. He finds it very difficult to attract new employees to move to a small town.

Being a motorhead, one would think that Rog would always be working on his own personal project vehicle, but surprisingly that is not always the case. He said that he has restored and modified a few vehicles over the years, but as of now does not have one that he is working on; however, he is always looking. When asked what his dream car is to drive, he said that he really enjoys the old muscle cars. As a mechanic, Rog has had the privilege to get to drive all types of cars because fixing and working on them means that they need to be test driven to make sure that all issues are fixed. There was not a single vehicle that he could name that he wanted to drive both new or classic, that he had not gotten the chance to.

Rog’s Auto will be having an Open House event coming up on Wednesday, June 26th. He will be serving burgers and brats, have an ice cream truck on hand and have drawings for prizes. The event is tentatively from 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.