VALUES DRIVEN: Author and Business Owner Collide

October 11, 2012
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Jack Zenian, right, with Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject author Peter Bennett, has found his slice of the American dream in Glendora, where he owns and operates the Lone Hill Collision Auto Center.

Jack Zenian, right, with Life Lessons of a Harvard Reject author Peter Bennett, has found his slice of the American dream in Glendora, where he owns and operates the Lone Hill Collision Auto Center.

When you dream and aim higher than your current reach anything can happen.

Today, Jack Zenian, who grew up in Yerevan, Armenia, is the proud owner of Lone Hill Collision Center in Glendora.

He came to the auto body shop’s front desk looking for a job, he ended up buying the place. While he got the keys, he didn’t get any guarantees of success.

“I quit my job, my wife quit her job and my son quit his job,” Jack said. “We put everything we had earned and saved for the last 25 years into this.”

Taking huge risks doesn’t faze Zenian. He came to the United States for the freedom and opportunity to make his own decisions, the bigger the better. 

“I don’t have to give myself a special pep talk before I come to work,” he said. “I know my job, I know my position and I know what I have to do to fulfill my responsibilities.

“I do what I have to do to keep the business going.”

Like every good business person, he has short-term goals and long-term ones. The short-term goals are to increase revenues and profits month-over- month and year-over-year. Long term, he and Mary want to hand off a successful business to their sons Christopher and Anthony.

He thinks they are on the right path. “If we didn’t think we were doing the right thing, we wouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

He compares himself to an astronaut flying to the moon. Rarely is the space vehicle on course, yet it somehow reaches its precise destination. “To reach your goal, you constantly have to make adjustments,” he said.

Despite the risks involved, Jack is happy to be the commander of his mission. He enjoys making decisions instead of having them made for him.

“It’s not ego, it’s the satisfaction that comes with seeing the results of your decisions,” he said. “That’s why you get married and buy a car and work to own a home.”

Jack enjoys being in the driver’s seat, although he knows he has long way to go before he turns over the keys to his sons.

“Enjoying the journey,” he said, is as important as reaching your destination.”

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