Eli Pace / epace@skyhinews.com
John Keeler, owner of Winter Park Automotive, has been working on vehicles since graduating automotive school in 1988, and he’s been putting Grand County’s drivers back on the road for decades now.
Keeler started his Grand County career working out of a small garage in Granby after moving to the High Country in 1992. Now in Fraser, Keeler admits he took a break from his automotive career “to get more time on the hill.”
However, after starting a family in the place he’s made home, Keeler had to get back to work.
“I am glad I did,” he said. “It is very rewarding. I’ve got a lot from the community, and I’m hoping that I am giving back to the community with this service.”
Keeler knows there are a lot of choices for automotive work and many great shops across the county. However, he hopes people will see Winter Park Automotive as more than just a career for him because, as Keeler put it, he feels like the shop is more of a community service than it is just a business.
Grand County is a unique place, Keeler explained, with all sorts of different kinds of folks here with a wide variety of automotive needs. Some might be living out of their cars, while the county’s second homeowners often leave a car parked in Grand County for most of the year and only drive it a few weeks before bringing it by the shop for its annual service.
Winter Park Automotive handles pretty much any and all general mechanic needs, including everything from cylinder head gaskets to alignments, tires, oil changes and everything in between. Keeler’s shop can fix foreign imports, European brands and domestic vehicles with up-to-date computers in the shop for all makes and models.
“We see it all here for sure,” Keeler said of the work they do at Winter Park Automotive.
More than anything, he wants people to leave his shop feeling good about the work that was done on their vehicles and the price they paid.
One of the reasons this is important to him, Keeler said, is because he and the people who work at his shop live here, too.
“We go to the post office and we go to the grocery store every day, and when we see somebody, we want them to be happy that they see us,” he said.