Employee Spotlight: Tim Baker

There’s a lot more to vehicle repair than you think.

“Most people think you can just hook a computer to a car and find out what’s wrong with it,” Tim Baker said. “Then we replace the part and that’s all there is to it. But that’s not how it works.”

Baker is a team leader at the Landers Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram service department and has been here since the dealership opened. There are two teams of technicians for the service department and each team has its own team leader. While the service advisors are the liaisons between the customers and technicians, the team leaders strictly deal with other technicians and management to make sure things are running smoothly.

Maintenance and repairs can take a little longer than most people expect.

“Customers can bring their car in and we’ll have it for an hour and have it repaired,” Baker said.

Other times, things take longer than they originally thought.

“That’s where our service advisors need to explain things to customers,” he added. “Things take time and there can be unforeseen problems you have to fix.”

Most people consider those who work on cars for a living as mechanics. Baker says there’s a difference between a mechanic and a technician.

“I think of a mechanic as a general term,” he said. “It’s someone who works in a fleet or independent shop that has the vast majority of cars to work on. For a technician, I think it’s someone who has specific training for [certain brands of vehicles at] a dealership. Not that one is any better than the other, it’s just that we have different areas of expertise.”

Baker’s expertise is in Dodge and FCA vehicles as he’s been working for Dodge dealerships for about 23 years. Originally, he was going to work in aviation on airplanes and diesel trucks.

“When I was younger, my dad had a trucking company,” he said. “I was 13 years old and worked on semis and at that point, I thought I was going to do aircraft maintenance but I ended up going into the auto industry.”

Baker has been in the auto industry for more than two decades and he started learning before that. He and the technicians at the dealership have many, many years of training combined.

“We have over 100 years of experience here as a whole, not to mention some newer techs who are very bright and have a great future ahead of them,” Baker said. “We try to incorporate our experience here with the younger people and the younger people teach us some new tricks. We work together really well.”

There’s a genuine bond between all the technicians at the service department because they see each other outside of work. Baker likes to race dirt track cars on the I-30 Speedway with a few coworkers in his free time. That friendship makes it easier for them to learn from each other and work together in learning new techniques.

“I’m willing to try anything if it makes things more successful or more efficient.”
When it comes to fixing vehicles, Baker isn’t afraid to learn about the latest and greatest or stay late for a customer if he needs to.

“Some people will be coming through town while they’re on a trip,” he said, and something goes wrong. “You have the stress of getting them out of town and you may have to work late and go the extra mile to make that happen. But that gives me the satisfaction of providing good service to my customers and that’s what I enjoy most.”