For the “interview with Sos Tyres International collaborators” section, this time we traveled to Sicily, specifically to Catenuova, in the province of Enna, to interview one of our top rescuers: Andrea Lopresti, born in 1977, who, along with his brother Carmelo, runs a service center for light and heavy vehicles, offering his clients 33 years of experience in the field.
It all began when, at just 14 years old, he started working as a tire fitter to help his parents financially; he soon realized that he enjoyed this work and committed himself to becoming a precise and efficient professional, putting a desire to learn and constantly improve into his work.
He worked for a while as an employee in a small workshop, gradually acquiring the skills and resources needed to open his own center.
Initially, the equipment in his shop was limited, and for each tire change, Andrea had to return to the workshop: the van he used for roadside assistance was not equipped with all the tools necessary to work on-site, significantly increasing both the number of kilometers traveled and the time taken to reach the breakdown point.
His drive to do his job well rewarded the tireless young man, who over time moved from a workshop with only a bottle jack, a hose, and a lever to having a center with two facilities for assisting light and heavy vehicles, where basic mechanical repairs are also carried out when necessary.
With two workshops to manage and a growing number of clients and assistance requests, Andrea involved his brother Carmelo in this project, who, along with a collaborator, handles in-shop assistance while Andrea personally takes care of most of the external services.
In more than thirty years of experience, Andrea has accumulated many successes, but also several accidents, a couple of which landed him in the hospital.
The foundation of his success is undoubtedly his decades of experience, combined with empathy and a natural ability to understand the needs of others: often, his clients have ferries to catch, people to transport, and work under tight schedules, making vehicle breakdowns a crucial factor for the success of their missions.
According to Andrea, putting oneself in the customer’s shoes is essential for the work to be a success.
Today, his van for external assistance and his nearly three hundred square meter workshop are equipped with all the tools to operate efficiently and effectively, although a couple of mechanics are still missing.
Andrea realizes that he has managed to realize his idea of work in a healthy and friendly environment, where the only pressures are those of the tires they repair. For him, working with a smile is fundamental!
