MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Redds Automotive
The do-it-right creed behind Redds Automotive, and the owner who has lived it for nearly thirty years, Michael “Redds” Ostrowski.
Michael “Redds” Ostrowski likes to keep busy. Set him at a desk for too long, and he jokes he’ll be asleep in no time. For nearly thirty years, his cure has been in a West Annapolis shop full of cars.
Michael Ostrowski
The itch to take things apart
The curiosity started at a young age. Ostrowski has been pulling things apart, and putting most of them back together, for as long as he can remember. “Ever since I’ve been young, I’ve worked on cars, taken everything apart. I’ve just always enjoyed doing it,” he says. The appeal was never complicated. He likes the work, he likes staying active, and he knew early that a desk job would never suit him. When the time came to open his own place, his father helped him take the leap, and supported him along the way. Redds Automotive opened its doors in July of 1998, and nearly three decades later it is still going strong.
Everything the dealer can do
Redds works on all types of cars, with a specialty in European imports. Ostrowski has the equipment to back that up, keeping the factory tooling for European cars and much of the same dealer gear used on American and Asian makes, so the shop can handle “pretty much everything and anything the dealer can do.” But the tools, he is quick to say, are only half of it. What really sets Redds apart is the mindset he brings to the work. Today’s cars are rolling computers, impossible to diagnose without both the right scanner and the patience to think it through. “if you don’t know how to use anything, it’s useless. You have to think, work hard,” he says.
Never stop learning
That mindset shapes how he runs the place. His team trains on a regular basis, from week-long classroom sessions to online courses to on-the-job problem-solving with their lab scopes and scanners.
Sometimes a job comes in that takes three, four, or even five days. It barely turns a profit, but Ostrowski counts it money well spent, because the next time a similar problem rolls in, his team knows how to tackle it. The industry never stops changing, and Ostrowski has watched capable mechanics get left behind when they stopped keeping up. You have to be flexible and learn, he says, or you will be left behind. So he hires for it, cherry-picking people with the aptitude and the appetite to keep growing. “They need to want to learn,” he says.
His team has high standards and is a point of real pride: a sharp, driven crew he trusts to dig into the problems others would rather hand off, and one that keeps getting better right alongside him. “The guys that I have, they’re really good,” he says.
Do a good job, and the rest falls in line
“I don’t worry about money, because when you do a good job, you make money.”
Ask Ostrowski for the best advice he ever received and he does not hesitate: do a good job, do it right, and be mindful of everything you do. “If you do a good job, things usually fall in line,” he says. The money, he has learned, tends to take care of itself.
It is the same advice he now hands down to his own kids and to the young mechanics he trains: work hard, follow what you love, and give it time. He is living proof it works.
“I don’t dread coming to work. I love coming to work.”
Fix it like it’s your own
For customers, all of that adds up to peace of mind. Ostrowski fixes every car the way he would fix the cars his own kids drive, aiming to keep it running so it never leaves anyone stranded. What he earns in return is trust: people leave glad they came, confident the job was done right and their car well taken care of. He wants them to drive off and simply stop thinking about their car. “We don’t play games, we just fix the car,” he says.
The Bronco in a million pieces
There is far more to Ostrowski than the man behind the counter. He restores cars at home, runs a fabrication business building and repairing commercial gym equipment, and keeps a full machine shop at home. He’s curated his own home gym and loves the sauna and cold plunge. Most of all, he is determined to pass on what he knows, teaching his kids to use tools, take things apart, and never be afraid of something broken. The current project is a Bronco that his two youngest sons have taken down to a million pieces on the way to putting it back together. “That’s stuff they can carry on and always use in anything,” he says.
Nearly thirty years in, the man who cannot sit behind a desk has built exactly the life he wanted: busy, useful, and worth showing up for every morning.
Find Redds Automotive
Michael Ostrowski, Owner
114 Ridgely Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 • Open Mon–Fri 8 a.m.–5 p.m. • reddsauto.com
Michael also runs a custom fabrication shop building and repairing commercial gym equipment.
