Dave is an ASE Certified Technician and has been in the automotive industry for over 20 years. He got his start working on cars by helping out his grandpa fix the family vehicle. When he got his first a car, a Jeep, he was hooked.

Dave loves working at Tri-City because he loves people. From customers, to employees, to vendors, Dave enjoys interacting with people. His goal is to influence his corner of the world for the positive.

In his spare time Dave enjoys mountain biking and spending time with his family.

Born in New Hampshire, raised in Winter Haven Florida and Nevada, Joey has put his roots down in Mesa, Arizona since 2009. He was born with a passion for cars. As a toddler, Joey loved to get under the car with his Dad. He started working on cars as a professional in his high school years.

His ability to talk to people was not overlooked and he quickly was promoted from turning wrenches, to managing his first auto repair location at the age of 20.

While he loves cars, he does not have a hobby car as his four kids keep him more than busy. When asked what he likes most about working at Tri-City, he said, “The shop is extremely clean and organized, has a high level of professionalism, and a team atmosphere where comradery is fostered unlike anywhere I have ever experienced.”

Jon, a rare Phoenix native, is an ASE Certified Master Technician with almost 40 years in the industry. He started as a lot attendant at “Valley Dodge” in 1977 and worked his way up. What Jon likes best about working on cars is the sense of accomplishment it gives him to do a job well.

He enjoys working at Tri-City because he gets to learn a lot of new things and everyone at Tri-City is professional. He says that there is a great group of people working at Tri-City. At the same time, Jon has also taught Automotive Technology for 25 years. He’s known as the “technicians’ technician.” In his spare time, he likes to play the guitar.

Mark is an ASE Master Certified transmission builder who hails from Newport News, Virginia. He has been working on transmissions for over 40 years and truly loves it. Mark says, “Working on a transmission is like working on a piece of art."

Mark has worked in all aspects of the transmission business including owning his own transmission shop with his brother for over 18 years back in Virginia. In his spare time, Mark enjoys spending time with his wife, hiking, walking and learning to play a Native American flute. Mark says, “after 40 years in the business, I have never worked with a more elite bunch than the people at Tri-City Transmission.”

Santiago hails from Deming, New Mexico. He has loved fixing cars for as long as he can remember. At an early age his dad worked as an automotive technician and that is where Santiago found his intrigue for cars. His first car was a 1991 Nissan 240SX where he started turning wrenches at age 15. He still has the vehicle and is building a custom 5.3l Chevrolet LS motor for it.

In his free time, he loves working with his dogs, drifting cars, and barbecuing. What he likes about working at Tri-City Transmission is the good environment and he is able to fix the car the way it should be done.

Jon’s life originally started in Kansas. From Kansas he moved to Chicago and then Arizona.

He has been in the automotive industry for over 25 years.

He loves working on cars!

His passion is Muscle Cars and Harleys!

Kristian is an ASE Certified transmission rebuilder who hails from Chicago. He has been in the auto industry for 25 years, 20 years of that specifically rebuilding transmissions. He got his start working on cars when he got his first car in high school. Kristian enjoys working at Tri-City Transmission because he says it’s like family. Plus, he gets to work on some pretty cutting-edge stuff.

In his spare time, Kristian enjoys photography and keeps King snakes. Growing up, his sister was allergic to dogs and it was the only pet he could have as a kid!

Mark is an ASE Certified technician who has been in the business for over 20 years.

He works on some of the more unique situations at Tri-City and prides himself on being able to resolve conflict.

In his spare time he likes ride motorcycles and play the guitar.

There is no substitute for experience. Mike has been in the automotive world for over 60 years; most of that time he has spent as co-founder of Tri-City Transmission. We appreciate Mike's wisdom, expertise and experience at Tri-City Transmission & Auto Repair. He is our "go-to" expert when it comes to older model and vintage vehicles.

Mike Young & Tri-City Transmission … The rest of the story

Mike Young and Leon Bouchy were young mechanics, barely out of trade school when they started working together at an auto repair shop in Phoenix. They had no idea what grand adventure lie ahead, but they were sure it was something good.

Mike Young was settling into his new job as a transmission mechanic when he met co-worker Leon Bouchy. Leon and his wife Rita had recently moved to Phoenix from Pennsylvania. Since they were new to the area and didn’t have friends or family nearby Mike and his wife, Sharon, started including Leon and Rita in their lives. They often spent holidays such as Thanksgiving or Christmas together. The two couples immediately hit it off.

Mike said, “I liked Leon immediately. He was a man of integrity. There was just something about him.”

Even though they were opposites- Mike was a quiet and reserved person while Leon loved to talk to people and to be the life of the party - The two became fast friends at work, and away from work.

After a few years of working together, Mike and Leon started talking about opening their own shop someday. Maybe it was a pipe dream, after all, neither one of them had any money saved up to open a business. But they still liked to dream. Their reputation of providing quality work and customer service began to spread, and soon their customers were encouraging them to open their own shop.

Leon had a friend who had been his previous automotive instructor. The friend told Leon it was time to stop talking and start doing. And so, he loaned the two of them $5,000 to start a transmission business.

Mike says they were very fortunate. By this time in their careers they had developed relationships with suppliers who knew that Mike and Leon were people they could trust, so the suppliers gave them generous terms on the equipment and tools they needed to start their shop. The automotive community trusted them.

So, on March 20th, 1972, Tri-City Transmission opened its doors. On the day they opened they had a line of cars waiting for service. Mike and Leon were encouraged, and the business started building a reputation of excellence from the first day.

Being in business with a partner can be tough, but Mike thinks that because they both had the same values of integrity and taking care of people, it made working together easy.

Mike and Leon were best friends. They shared the same office at work. They spent a lot of time together hunting or fishing or going on family vacations. They rarely had any disagreements, but when they did, they got over them quickly.

Fast forward a few decades, the City of Tempe contacted Mike and Leon and said that they were planning on building a big development on their site and that they should investigate relocating Tri-City Transmission or else risk losing it to eminent domain. That site is now the location of Tempe Marketplace.

Mike and Leon were flexible in the way they worked with the City of Tempe and as a result they built the building that Tri-City is now in on Rio Salado Parkway. Because the back of the building was facing Rio Salado Parkway, the City did not want any exterior heating or air conditioning equipment exposed to the street to become an eyesore. That’s when Mike and Leon met Dave Riccio.

Dave Riccio was a young man working for the HVAC company that Mike called to help them with their HVAC problem. Their situation was unique and that meant that the company had to design a custom solution to cool their building that wouldn’t show equipment from the outside. Dave was instrumental in designing that system.

From the beginning Mike and Leon liked Dave. He was a young man, but he was a go-getter. On top of that, he was a man who kept his word. If Dave said something was going to happen, it happened. Mike and Leon were very impressed on how Dave handled the project and they were pleased to have worked with him. Little did they know that in a few years Dave would become a very important part of their lives.

At age 29, Dave Riccio’s life was going well. He was happily married and had a newborn son who was the apple of his eye. He also had a fulfilling career in the industrial heating and AC (HVAC) industry. But then one day, life as he knew it changed forever.

It started out as any other day; he kissed his family and hopped into his car to go to work. But when he went to put the key in the ignition he couldn’t do it…he couldn’t control his hand enough to get the key in the ignition, and he had a bad headache. Dave thought that he had a migraine, so he went back inside and went to bed.

But when he didn’t get better after several days, Dave went to the hospital. The early diagnosis was a tumor, a stroke, or Multiple Sclerosis (MS). It took weeks of testing before the diagnosis was confirmed. Dave Riccio had MS.

MS is a disease of the central nervous system. Symptoms include numbness of hands and feet, blurred vision, stiff legs, short-term memory loss, dizziness, fatigue and chronic pain. MS is not curable or preventable, however treatments are available to reduce severity and delay progression.

Dave’s initial MS episode left him physically unable to drive for three months and it was during that recuperation that his life took on a whole new meaning. Suddenly it became Dave’s mission to provide for his family in the event of ongoing relapses of MS. He felt that owning his own business would be the best way to do that.

It was then that Dave remembered Mike and Leon at Tri-City Transmission whom he had sold HVAC equipment to. They had looked as if they were close to retirement age. In earlier jobs Dave was an automotive technician as well as managed a tire and auto repair shop. He felt with his experience he would do well in the transmission business.

He also really liked the culture and attitude of Tri-City Transmission. Dave asked Mike and Leon if they would be interested in selling their business.

Mike says that at the time he hadn’t given serious thought about retiring or selling the business. They had employees that had worked there for over 20 years and they had become their close friends. Not only that, they were now servicing the vehicles of the grandchildren of their original customers.

“The business was very satisfying,” said Mike. He really didn’t want to give it up at the time. However, Leon, on the other hand, wanted to spend more time traveling and doing the things he loved. After all, they had owned Tri-City Transmission at this point for 35 years. It was time to move on. The problem was, they didn’t want to sell it to just anybody.

“I would have rather closed the shop than to sell it to a company that would change things and run it into the ground,” says Mike.

“If the business is successful, why change a good thing?”

Leon was ready to move on, mike wasn’t. That’s where Dave came up with a solution. Dave initially bought Leon out first, while Mike stayed on for a time to help transition the business and pass the torch.

It helped that they had worked with Dave in the past and knew him and liked him. Mike said, “Dave had the same work ethic that we did, and we liked that.”

It didn’t hurt that Leon’s wife Rita, also said that Dave reminded her of Leon when he was a young man.

So, it was decided that the business would be sold, and Mike and Leon worked with Dave to come up with an agreement that worked for everybody. They officially sold the business in November of 2006.

Since then, Dave has continued to run the business by the high standards that Mike and Leon put in place, but he also added his own “four rules.”

“Show up on time, do what you say you’re going to do, say please and thank you and finish what you start.”

With these standards in place, the business has continued to grow under Dave’s ownership. Dave says that it was the foundation that was built by Mike and Leon that has helped the business to prosper. In fact, because of the high ethical standards that Mike, and Leon set from the beginning that Tri-City Transmission has won many awards including the BBB International Torch Award for Ethics. “

Mike and Leon are still involved in the business. They are quick to help with vintage vehicles or offer words of wisdom when needed. Dave says, “regardless of the fact that vehicles have changed, people have not. I am just so glad to have Mike and Leon’s experience and wisdom as a resource. On top of that they are just great people and I thoroughly enjoy working with them.”

Mike and Leon are happy with the way that everything has turned out and give Dave their highest blessing. They both agree, “Tri-City Transmission & Auto Repair is still being run like we ran it back then. And that’s why we continue to refer our friends and family there today.”

Leon Bouchy is a transmission expert who has been in the industry for over 55 years. He cofounded Tri-City Transmission with his business partner Mike Young in 1972.

Leon Bouchy and Tri-City Transmission… The rest of the story

Leon was 21 years old, just married to his sweetheart Rita, and working at a steel mill in Pennsylvania.

“It was hard, dirty, and inconsistent work,” says Leon. “And I got tired of frequent layoffs and strikes.”

Leon knew he wanted a better life for him and his new bride. He started talking to a friend.

“Are you ready to go?” said his friend.

“Go where?” said Leon

“To Florida!” said his friend.

“No,” said Leon, “there’s no jobs in Florida.”

“What about California?” said his friend.

Leon started thinking about it, but Rita wasn’t going to leave her friends and family in Pennsylvania to go to California, so he shelved the thought for a while.

Besides Leon was busy. He was working the midnight shift at the steel mill, then sleeping for three hours, then going to transmission school during the day. Leon was working on a plan to have a better life.

Then one day the steel mill went on a 30-day strike. Leon’s friend came back to him and said. “Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” said Leon

“Ready to go to California,” said his friend.

Coincidentally Leon had finished transmission school. He was on strike from the steel mill. He said to himself, “Why not?”

Rita didn’t like the idea when Leon told her he was going to go to California to look for a job. She cried and cried. But Leon felt that’s what he had to do. So, he and his friend packed up their car, and headed out.

They eventually stopped in Phoenix because his friend had a friend there he wanted to visit. Leon had never been in Arizona before and what he saw surprised him. He had thought that Arizona was a wild west frontier with horses tied to hitching posts. But what he found was a modern city, just like he had left in Pennsylvania.

He stopped at Bill Johnson’s Big Apple on Van Buren Street… (This was when Van Buren was the best area in Phoenix.) Then they found a hotel nearby and Leon’s friend went to meet his friend. Leon stopped at the café next to the hotel for some coffee and happened to strike up a conversation with a woman sitting next to his table. Leon had heard about a shop at 56th Street and Thomas and he asked her if she knew were it was. She told him that it was not too far away from the café. So, Leon started walking to check out that shop because his friend had taken the car.

Leon had a lot of experience fixing cars. As a young man he had worked at a couple of Texaco stations in Pennsylvania. On top of that he had just gotten through transmission school.

When he talked to the owner of the shop, the owner surprised him and said, “Can you start right now?”

Leon was excited. He called Rita and told her he got a job. It was then that they decided to move to Phoenix. They never made it to California.

Leon had a couple of jobs in Phoenix in the automotive industry, and then he got a job where he met Mike Young. The two young men hit it off immediately. First, both men were quickly developing reputations of being the best at their work, even though they were young. Since Leon and Rita didn’t have family or friends in Phoenix, Mike and his wife, Sharon, often invited them to hang out. The two couples became fast friends.

Mike and Leon worked together off and on (mostly on) for a few years. They both developed reputations of knowledge, skill and integrity. Customers and friends encouraged them to start their own shop. The men weren’t so sure about starting a business, and on top of that, they didn’t have any money!

But they kept talking about it. A few more years went by. A friend of Leon’s told him to “quit talking and start doing” and gave him a loan for $5,000. Leon took it to Mike and said, “How much money do you have?”

Mike checked with Sharon. She said they had $250. Leon’s wife Rita also wrote a check for $250. Leon took the $5,500 to the bank and asked for a loan. The bank said, “Yes!” Mike and Leon became business partners.

Tri-City Transmission was born!

“It was almost impossible!” says Leon about the experience owning Tri-City Transmission.

“We almost went broke three times!” he continued. “Every time we were down to our last few dollars some big job came in that helped us make payroll. It helped that we both had wives who were supportive and help out.”

Leon says the business succeeded because of their reputation of being honest, doing excellent work, and keeping a clean shop.

He said, “We would take the women into the shop, (because it was usually the women bringing the cars in) and they would be surprised because the shop was so clean. They would go into the bathroom and be dumbfounded because it was as nice as their bathroom at home, or even better. Their shop bathroom was not a greasy, grimy bathroom like the ones they had seen at plenty of other shops.

Tri-City Transmission continued to grow. Next thing you know they had been in business for 35 years.

Along come Dave Riccio. Leon liked Dave Riccio from start. He saw that Dave was a hard worker and a man of his word. Also, the transmission industry was rapidly changing. It was becoming more computer and technology-oriented, something that Mike and Leon didn’t have a lot of experience with, and Dave was a “Master of Technology.”

It was a no-brainer to Leon to sell the business to Dave when he asked because Leon was ready to do some traveling. He’d been working hard for over 35 years.

So, they worked out an agreement and Dave officially took over the business in November of 2006.

Leon says that he’s glad they sold the business when they did. The timing was right because of changes in the industry.

“I don’t know if we would have done as well as Dave has.” says Leon

“We are proud of the business we built, and we are proud of what Dave has done to continue the business.

Dave still picks up the phone when he needs our advice or has a technical issue on a vintage car, stuff that Mike and I grew up on, and we are always proud to send family and friends down there.”

Mike got his start in the auto repair industry at 15 years old, right here at Tri-City Transmission. Mike’s dad told Mike that the other business partner, Leon, had to be his boss because he knew how hard dads could be on their sons and he didn’t want that with him and his son. From the beginning, Mike had a knack for cars and he quickly moved up the ranks to rebuilding transmissions. Today Mike is one of the most knowledgeable transmission technicians in the Valley. He learned in the old school way which is neat, organized and systematic which has helped him tremendously working with today’s modern transmissions.

Mike’s first car was a 1967 Ford Falcon. These days he drives a 2015 Dodge Dart. When Mike is not working on transmissions he enjoys playing the guitar and the drums.