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History of Toms Auto Upholstery
The business was first opened by Tom Kuka in
1978 as Tom’s Auto Upholstery. Tom originally
learned the trade at “T&C Marine” in Pompton
Lakes, NJ, under the guidance of Charlie
Trichilo, working through High School and
several years there after.
The current owner, Rodger Pisani, then an
apprentice in the industry, was fortunate enough
to have started working part-time with Tom back
in 1978 just after he opened the business. After
several years of continued growth and starting
to become well known within the community as a
business you can count on and people you can
trust, Rodger took over the company in 1985.
With great enthusiasm and the driving need to do
the job right the first time; knowing there are
no second chances for a first impression, Rodger
continued to take the business to the next level
with a hand-picked staff of highly qualified and
motivated craftspeople. Feeling the need to
offer more than just the ‘expected’, Rodger was
determined to do more than just ‘upholstery’, so
he started offering other services such as;
Window-tinting, Vehicle Accessories, Electronics
and Custom Audio. However, this required much
more space than he and his staff had to work
with so he started the search for a larger
facility and found a great spot in the
neighboring town of Bloomingdale, at 10 Star
Lake Road. He moved the operation there in 1989,
and while that location was just about ideal,
the prospect of leasing for the long-term was
not! The continued growth of the business
offered Rodger the opportunity to purchase the
property where it all began, so in 1992 he
packed the operation up again and moved back to
the 58 Boonton Ave., Butler location, taking
over the larger of the two buildings where the
business continues to flourish. In 2008, the
small shop where Tom originally started - and
which had since been rented out by various
tenants - became available, Rodger decided to
use that shop as another work space to help
alleviate the spatial constraints caused by the
continued growth of the business. So he talked
his Dad, Sal Pisani, into building a work bench
and some shelving to duplicate the work-area
they original had back in 1978. It’s been
working out very well as a 4th bay to
accommodate the Accessories & Electronics work,
leaving more room in the large building for the
Convertible top and Upholstery work to be done
in a safer & un-cluttered atmosphere.
In 2009 as the business continued to grow and
was able to offer much more personalized and
customized work that goes far beyond
‘upholstery’, Rodger changed the name of the
business to Creative Auto Interiors. Rodger is
confident that this new name will better
represent the high quality & custom work that is
being done by him and his highly skilled and
motivated staff. |
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