Randy Kawanna has been at Southlake Kia for 14 years now, half of which he has been Service Manager in the auto shop. For his part, Randy credits discipline as a large part of what has made him successful in life, both at Southlake and in his recent weight loss plan.
“A lot of it is just my own discipline. I meal prep on Sundays and now I’m on extreme gym. I have a trainer, I eat five and a half ounces every two and a half to three hours and I feel marvelous. As long as you’re seeing results that’s what keeps you going. Last week I lost four pounds,” said Kawanna, who has already lost a significant amount of weight.
As for where this discipline comes from, Kawanna credits his time playing Pop Warner football from the age of eight and his subsequent involvement in sports.
“By the age of 14 I was making the paper almost every week and I was third in state as a wrestler at 119 pounds and that took a lot of physical discipline,” said Kawanna.
As for Kawanna’s interest in cars, that too started at an early age, and has only flourished ever since.
“I was about 14 years old and I started working on cars in the alley. I liked muscle cars, and there were a lot of older teenagers with hotrods in the 80s. I started seeing the neighborhood guys tinker around with their cars. Then, when I was 14 years old, I got a Monte Carlo my mother gave to me. It needed a motor and me and the buddies put a motor in it,” said Kawanna of his start in the auto world.
Now, he sets the benchmarks for the day, dispatches jobs to technicians and follows up with customers and makes sure warranties are done correctly while managing the service shop. However, dealing with the customers and making sure they are exceptionally happy, is the highlight of his responsibilities.
“Everyone in this department is a family. We spend a lot of time together. They may not always like me, but I run a stern ship,” said Kawanna.
Kawanna still finds leisure time outside of work in his current town of Whiting, which offers great opportunities to relax after a hard day’s work.
“I live near Whihala beach, I love it there and I like to walk in the sand. Whiting is an excellent town,” said Kawanna, who also takes advantage of Whiting’s proximity to Chicago to go on walks and grab some pizza downtown.
Kawanna also likes to build motorcycles, quads and dirt bikes and does customized interior lighting on the inside of cars and under the hood in his spare time.
Even when he is on the job, however, it’s easy to see that Kiwanna is happy to be working with cars in the position he is in.
“My great-nephew describes me as one of the few people he knows that likes to go to work,” said Kiwanna.