It was 1997 and after 15 years in my family’s auto parts business, the Capitol Core Company, I was facing one of the biggest challenges of my life. The automotive core market was shrinking rapidly. Better rebuilding practices, Chinese imports and the disappearance of most of the old line rebuilders had driven our business down over the previous five years. In addition, our family business had become quite top heavy. My Dad and I were partners, and we also employed my brother, my stepmother, my stepsister, her husband and my cousin.

As I looked forward, I could see that this was not a recipe for success. Given that I had three boys in private school, a mortgage and a bleak automotive core market to deal with, something had to change.

That change happened in September of 1997. My Dad and I sat down at the local greasy spoon, Burger Delight, and I told him that I was leaving to start a new business. I wasn’t sure what I would do, just that it wouldn’t compete with our old company. It was a sad time for both of us, as I had learned so much from “Schultz” about business and life, but we both agreed it was for the best.

Goldfarb & Associates Inc. started out of the back of my 1993 Ford Taurus station wagon. I had little money to work with and even less of an idea of what I would do. Initially, I tried selling automotive ECM cores. That lasted only a few months. Then, I stumbled across the ADS Web site that had listed its entire membership roster. I knew two members of the Association at the time, Thom Miles from Turbo Air in N.C. and Joe Pieroshek from Arundel Fuel Injection, Baltimore, M.D. Both of these guys had been customers of ours while I worked at Capitol Core. We had dabbled in turbos, but never to any great extent.

I met and spoke with both of them and asked them many questions about the fuel injection industry. With their encouragement I called as many of the ADS members as I could to find out what kind of cores they needed. Of course, I didn’t know an injector from a pump at the time, but I’m a fast learner!

Working out of an office that I shared with a CPA firm and renting a 10 x 20 foot self storage unit was not an ideal situation. When it’s 12 degrees outside and you have to meet a Roadway truck and load or unload 100 turbocharger cores by hand, you stop and think, “Is this what I want to do for a living?” Soon, I expanded to three of the 10 x 20 units: one for turbos, one for pumps and one for fuel injectors.

Goldfarb & Associates has grown every year, and after a couple of years some of the ADS members even knew who I was. After six years of shuttling between an office and a self storage facility several times a day, it was time for Goldfarb & Associates to make the plunge and move to a warehouse. In May of 2005 we moved to a 2000 square foot facility in Rockville, M.D.   Then in December of 2009 we moved a few doors down to our current 6000 square foot warehouse.

Today, Goldfarb & Associates is a growing organization with a strong team including Brant Freed (VP Sales), Karla Marroquin (Administrative Assistant & Latin American Sales), Linda Diaz (Purchasing Agent), Kash McClure (Sales, Purchasing & Ebay) and our great warehouse crew.  We ship all over the world, including such diverse countries as South Africa, Chile, China, Lithuania, Belize and Israel. We enjoy meeting our customers at the leading industry events where we exhibit such as the ADS Conventions, ARPA’s Big R Show, ReMaTec, and Automechanika.

I would like to extend my deep gratitude to all of our customers for enabling Goldfarb & Associates to be successful. We look forward to being your partner for many more years.

Saul Goldfarb
President, Goldfarb & Associates, Inc.