Steve Hemstock has upholstered interiors for Jay Leno’s multi-million dollar Ferrari and every one of the 39 Ford GTX1s ever made. But walk into his Wisconsin shop, Knights Autoworks & Upholstery, and you’re likely to see a bunch of kids on the shop floor.
Steve and his wife Kelly have 11 children together. Kelly homeschools them all while also serving as the company’s vice president. “She’s a trooper, I’ll tell you what,” Steve recently told Eagle Herald.
The family runs the business in Marinette together in a practical way. Their three oldest – Kayla, Olivia, and Stevie – work full-time at the shop. Samuel, 17, and Timothy, 15, come in after school for a few hours. The younger ones help out on Saturdays, mostly sweeping floors.
“They don’t work for me,” Steve explains. “They work here for them — to see. This is their classroom.” Instead of learning business from textbooks, his kids get real-world experience in his shop.
This family-first approach has actually changed how Steve runs his business. Despite being able to charge $40,000 for upholstering a single Ferrari, he’s been turning away high-end clients to focus on local work. The reason? Working on community boats and hot rods is better for teaching his kids.
“With the kids, it’s important for us to do the smaller things with the customers,” Steve says. Instead of the intense pressure of working on million-dollar cars, “It’s kind of cooler to see a guy with his boat or with his hot rod.”
This isn’t just feel-good family business talk – there’s real strategy behind it. Steve believes that by the time his kids reach 21, they’ll be what he calls “$100,000 people” – skilled craftspeople with deep business knowledge gained from years of hands-on experience.
The family operation has grown steadily from Steve’s humble beginnings 25 years ago with just a sewing machine in his truck. Now they’ve expanded beyond upholstery into car sales and service, recently purchasing the neighboring Subway location to create more display space. It’s growth with purpose – building what Steve calls “a good, strong, solid platform for our business, serving the community.”
What’s perhaps most charming about the Hemstock story is how they’ve maintained their family-first approach even as they’ve gained recognition in high-end automotive circles. Steve’s work appears in numerous luxury cars and boats, but you won’t find his name prominently displayed. He’s content being what he calls “an unsung vendor, a silent manufacturer.”
The real pride comes from building something lasting with his family – a business where Saturday morning might find the youngest Hemstocks pushing brooms while the older ones learn how to craft leather interiors, all under the watchful guidance of parents who’ve turned their shop into both a thriving business and an unconventional but highly effective school.
In a world where family businesses often struggle to survive generational transitions, the Hemstocks seem to have cracked the code: start the transition early, make it meaningful, and remember that sometimes the best classroom doesn’t have desks – it has workbenches.
To read the full story in Eagle Herald, click here. Learn more about Knights Autoworks & Upholstery on their website and Facebook page.
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