Volume 8, Issue 2 SHOPNEWS fall, 2008

Bruce Sets new Qualifying Record on the Sports Car Track
While Customers and their Volvos Win at the Shop

 When owner Bruce Ackerman pursues his passion for sports car racing at the track, he sheds the staid khaki shirt, spotless denim jeans, and pale yellow sweater embroidered with Ackerman’s logo, that make up his shop uniform, and pulls on a one-piece garment that keeps him safe and brings out his wild side.

“Painted blue and yellow for the Swedish flag, it resembles a high-tech spacesuit. Futuristic, blue gloves, a grey, light-weight, carbon fiber helmet, and narrow, incombustible low-tops complete the requirements,” says Bruce.

Suited up and belted into the cockpit, he is ready to experience the adrenalin rush Superman surely felt when he shed his Clark Kent alter ego and flew to the top of sky scrapers in pursuit of felons.

“Moving at my top speed of 130mph, with centrifugal force pushing me to the edge of the race track, I feel like I’m on the edge of life itself. At times, I’ve been so overcome that I have shed tears of joy after winning a hard-fought race on asphalt,” adds the usually understated Bruce.

This was the case at Laguna Seca race track in Monterey this summer when he not only won the race in his white, 1962 Volvo P1800 emblazoned with Ackerman’s logo, but set a new record. His recipe for success was simple: driving a well-conditioned car and directing the same steely focus Superman trained on his targets, to his fellow competitors. “My only thoughts were of getting around the car in front, applying the brakes to their maximum capability, circling the track in a particular way to get a fast lap, hitting the corners just right to get the quickest exit speed, and then reaching the highest speed to the next corner.”

But even with the laurel wreath in his possession Ackerman credits the specialists who maintain the P1800 with his victory. “For me in particular a perfectly tuned car is a matter of life and death. I put my life in my race car mechanics’ hands.” said Bruce whose love for fast vehicles emerged as a child.

“At age eleven I liked riding a coaster, which is a go-cart without a motor. I loved the sensation and thrill of speed. I was faster than all my friends. “Slow down” was the first thing my dad, David Ackerman, said when he started giving me driving lessons. I was thirteen then. He taught me to anticipate other people’s moves and to watch out for all the other knuckle heads on the road. He’s eighty-seven now and I still take his advice and keep safety in mind every time I race.”

Although Bay Area roads, not racing circuits, become the testing ground for Ackerman’s customers and their Volvos, the same standards for keeping them in superb shape apply. “A great-performing car mandates preventative maintenance,” states Ackerman whose zeal for winning on asphalt carries over to winning customer loyalty at the shop.

To earn this loyalty he hires honest, skilled, and experienced mechanics, and treats patrons like visiting Swedish royalty. Nothing is too much trouble as evidence by the classical music, delicious hot coffee, chocolate-covered biscotti, genuine hospitality, monthly drawing for dinner at Chez Panisse, and even a peaceful spot to observe tropical fish in the light-filled lobby decorated with multi-hued orchids.

To crown it all, the customer’s wish is Bruce’s command. Whether it’s a pick up from home, a ride to BART, a donation for a school auction, or a request to donate 5% of their repair bill to a good cause, Ackerman delivers with a majesty befitting all Volvo drivers.

And when on the rare occasion a glitch might inconvenience someone, he takes immediate action. For example, when, at the beginning of this school year, a Berkeley mom experienced a fuel-injection emergency with her Volvo 240 he did everything possible to ensure same-day-turn-around time so she could pick up her middle-school-aged son on time.

But when the tardy delivery of a part and a mechanic’s sudden illness threatened that goal, he phoned the customer, gave her Hertz Rent a Car’s number, urged her to call, have them pick her up, go choose a rental car, and charge it to Ackerman’s account.

That satisfied customer not only collected her child on time, but enjoyed being chauffeured to Ackerman’s the next day to pick up her perfectly running car. That’s customer service Ackerman style!

Featured Customer: Katie Hawkinson

INVITES YOU TO ASK BRUCE TO DIRECT 5% OF YOUR VOLVO REPAIR CHARGES TO WATERSIDE WORKSHOPS, A WEST BERKELEY, AFTER SCHOOL, NON PROFIT HELPING AT RISK YOUTH STAY IN SCHOOL AND UNDERSTAND THE VALUE OF A GOOD EDUCATION.

As an artist, teacher, home cook, community advocate, and Volvo enthusiast, Katie Hawkinson takes a thoughtful approach to Life. Her passions and actions enhance the lives of others the same way fresh cream enriches a sauce. And the high standards she sets for herself, while using her talents or coaxing the best from people, or raw ingredients, usually demand an avoidance of short cuts.

Take her approach to soup. When she and her husband, metal sculptor Joseph Slusky, feel like a nourishing bowl of tomato soup, she does not reach for a tin container and a can opener. Instead she’ll slow roast a tray of tomatoes with garlic and olive oil to intensify the flavor. Then while their heady aroma permeates her West Berkeley home decorated with personal art, she makes that soup from scratch.

Her familiarity with the culinary arts comes from three sources: the period she ran her own catering company, the time she worked as a private chef in Seattle while earning an M.F.A. in painting at the University of Washington, and her three-year-stint as a chef working with Chef Annie Somerville at Green’s restaurant in San Francisco. “The intensity of the work made me less interested in complicated cooking and led me to simple food prep with fresh ingredients,” clarified Hawkinson.

Still this philosophy of going the extra mile to maximize flavor at home spills over to the way she teaches her drawing class at UC Berkeley’s Architecture Department, acts on her desires to strengthen family ties, creates a welcoming home, chooses Volvo to optimize driving pleasure, and partners with Ackerman’s to make a difference in her neighborhood.”

For example, when she heard the Waterside Workshops needed extra money for programs that teach team building, commitment, and life skills to youth, she asked Bruce if she could put the word out in his shop newsletter so that others might support the classes in boat building, bicycle repair, sewing, and gardening.

Two key influences motivated her to highlight this particular cause. First was the gratitude she feels to her parents for the secure childhood she and her sister Kristen enjoyed in Maryland. “Our parents loved us, cared for us and made sure we were well educated. They brought us up in the very service-oriented Quaker religion. We were raised to believe that being part of a community meant contributing.” Second was the knowledge that creative after school programs were badly needed in West Berkeley.

Not surprisingly, Bruce agreed to help put the word out about Waterside Workshops. They were kindred spirits and his wish to give back to the community mirrored hers. Bruce’s response reminded her of the time she first brought her Volvo to Ackerman’s on her sister, Kristen’s recommendation.

“The shop was so unlike any other car repair I’d been to. Bruce was organized, the staff was personable, and the technicians were seasoned. I also felt a generosity of spirit that was very inviting. And there’s always coffee and biscotti if you ever have to wait. I remember being impressed by Bruce’s kindness when a homeless person came in and helped himself to a couple of biscotti. Bruce didn’t bat an eye,” added Hawkinson who often welcomes fourteen guests at the long, rectangular, wooden table that dominates her dining area and would be wanted in any medieval castle.

Even when it comes to buying a Volvo, she and Bruce are on the same wavelength. In spring of 2008, Hawkinson traveled to Sweden to fetch her new chameleon blue Volvo V50. Bruce and his partner Paul did the same thing in 2007.

Hawkinson’s plan to go to Sweden evolved when the maroon, Volvo 740 GL 1990 station wagon, she inherited from her mother Marsie as a wedding present in 1998, developed mechanical problems during commutes to and from Stanford University where she was teaching a painting class. It was impossible to give it up because like a trusty steed it had transported her across country, accommodated her art work and hauled food for parties of 150. So instead of putting it out to pasture when her dad encouraged her to get a new car, she had it repaired for city driving and handed it over to her husband.

The search for a replacement took her to Lawrence Volvo in Walnut Creek where she discovered Volvo would pay for two people to fly to Sweden if one of them were buying a car. Volvo would also knock $4,000 off the retail price, and throw in 2-weeks car insurance, free car delivery to the U.S., and a night’s stay at the SAS Raddison hotel in Gothenburg

The opportunity to visit relatives, and discover family roots was too inviting to pass up. When conflicting schedules and an important art show in Mexico City made it difficult for her husband to join her, she invited her dad, John Hawkinson, instead. Luckily, getting him to agree was easy. “Dad had retired and I didn’t have to pull his ear.”

Eight years earlier, the elder Hawkinson and three siblings traveled to Sweden and hired an archivist to trace living relatives and pin point the location of their ancestral farm, in the tiny community of Bodarp.

That time they found a lost cousin, Viveka, but language difficulties and the absence of a translator stymied their efforts to find the farm in Bodorp. But in 2008 the father-daughter duo was better prepared. They now had a willing translator and collaborator in Viveka, who had visited them in America in 2001. The quest to locate the farm would begin afresh with the new Volvo providing transportation.

The first leg of the journey took them from Washington Dulles airport to the Danish capital of Copenhagen. From there they caught a flight to Gothenburg where Volvo staff met them and transported them to their hotel.

Next day during a Volvo factory tour, they saw how Volvos were made. “We saw how giant bolts of steel morphed into indestructible cars. In the manufacturing process Volvos start out as a spool of sheet steel.” Katie adds, “It’s clear that Volvo takes pride in its green building methods and the good working conditions they offer staff. They are proud of the company’s history and how it started as a ball-bearing manufacturer. You also sense a strong local loyalty to Sweden.”

After a meatball and lingon-berry lunch, and a mandatory driving lesson, the pair drove south to Halland where Vivekka, and her mother Ellie, and her husband Stig were expecting them. “That night we had a moose-pot-roast-dinner along with rhubarb-custard pie made with home-grown ingredients. Stig, also a bee keeper, had killed the moose in the nearby forests and later butchered and cooked it himself.

Meals like this dispelled any misconceptions the visitors had about Swedish food. The chef turned art teacher who inherited her interest in food from her mother and grandmother was attentive to the fare served in today’s Sweden. “I was surprised at how exceptional the food was. It was prepared simply and exquisitely to let the true flavors shine through. When I was growing up my dad joked that the Swedish salad was the iceberg lettuce under the molded Jell-O. But on this trip we found fresh greens, venison, wild duck, goose, gravlax, and chanterelles instead of Jell-O. I remember a carrot soup garnished with Swedish caviar and tables decorated with Swedish textiles.”

Instead of crowding around the T.V. after that delicious moose-pot-roast-dinner in Halland, the family piled into the host family’s Volvo 40 and headed for the woods for some moose watching. “At 8 or 9 p.m. we drove down rural dirt roads, parked, and waited quietly for the animals to appear. The first night we saw eighteen deer, seven moose, three dancing cranes, one fox and three rabbits,” recalled Hawkinson.

Although the visitors enjoyed Halland’s simple pleasures, it was in the nearby, 700-year-old city of Halmsted, during a visit to Stig’s childhood farm bursting with yellow daffodils that Hawkinson sensed she had truly come home. “It felt like the true Sweden, and I understood the connection of people to the land.”

Stig’s story of the powerful winds that decimated forests and left the land looking as if a giant had upturned it stayed with them as they later hiked to Danska Falls, the site of a battle in 1600 between the Swedes and the Danes where ingenuity trumped might. “The Swedes tricked the Danes into thinking they could cross a bridge that looked sturdy but was designed to collapse as people crossed,” said Hawkinson with a smile.

Excitement built as they later approached the ancestral farmland

of Bodop. Would Swedish-American determination and Viveka’s language skills unlock the missing piece of family history? “We knocked on doors and said we were looking for the Hokenpaulsen family farm. The first house we knocked on yielded no response. Then we met a man who recognized dad from 2000. He directed us to a 30-year-old man, Mattius, who was writing a history book about Bodarp farms and lived nearby in his 500-year-old farm house complete with low ceilings and two-foot-thick walls.

That evening Mattius, who turned out to be a distant relative, welcomed them to his home and shared the history of the Hokenpaulsen farm where, as it happened, his parents now lived. Before adjourning to their guest house to rest and digest the information they looked at photos of the original farm house which burnt down in 1950. “My father was thrilled to have this gap in geneolegy filled in,” said Hawkinson.

Before departing the next day they paid their respects at the grave of Johanna Hakandotter, one of their relatives, and headed off in the Volvo knowing that Matteus would forward a copy of his completed book.

From her kitchen window, the sight of the blue 4-door car with its appealing profile and clean, elegant, Scandinavian, design is absolute proof that the odyssey was real. But just in case the memories of Sweden’s blue-green, silvery-brown landscape fade she has already created a new family heirloom with a little help from mypublisher.com, a coffee-table-style book which captures the adventure in vivid photo-format.

To read Katie’s Artist Statement and to view her art work, visit www.katiehawkinson.com.
For more details on Waterside Workshops visit www.watersideworkshops.org.

Katie Hawkinson’s Roasted Tomato Soup

3 – 5 lbs. ripe heirloom tomatoes
5 cloves fresh garlic
1 large sweet onion (Vidalia, Walla Walla, or Maui)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
Fresh basil
Spanish smoked paprika (Pimenton de La Vera)
Cayenne
Aged balsamic vinegar
Core and halve tomatoes, or quarter them if they are large. Lightly oil a sheet pan with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Chop garlic and put a little under each piece of tomato
on the sheet pan. Roast tomatoes in a 400-degree oven for
approximately 20 - 25 minutes until they are thoroughly cooked and still juicing. Remove from oven and allow to sit for ten to
thirty minutes.

Finely dice the sweet onion, and in a heavy soup pot sauté the onions in olive oil, salt and pepper until they soften and start to turn golden. Carefully add the liquid from the tomatoes to the onions and continue to simmer.

In batches, puree the tomatoes in a food processor either with or without the skin. Make sure to include the garlic from the bottom of the sheet pan. Add the puree to the onions and continue simmering.

Add the Spanish smoked paprika and cayenne to taste. Balance the flavors with salt, pepper balsamic vinegar and possibly even a little sugar.

Garnish with a chiffonade (fine strips) of fresh basil.

Help Ackerman’s Reach its 2008 Goal of Donating $10,000 to Schools and Nonprofits at Zero Cost to You

All you have to do is ask Bruce to donate 5% of your repair bill to your favorite cause. So far this year’s contributions amount to $7,200. Ackerman’s customer-directed financial contributions cut a beneficial swath through schools in Berkeley, Oakland, Castro Valley, and El Sobrante. Additional donations to the Bay Area Hispano Institute for Advancement, the Berkeley Food and Housing Project, the Pacific Boychoir, Temple Sinai of Oakland, the Multi-Cultural Music Fellowship, and the Waterside Workshops reflect our caring and eclectic customer base.

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ShopNews Fall '98
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