Published: Oct 9, 1998, 12:00 AM MDT

By Deseret News, Dennis Lythgoe, Staff Writer

Although he has been tinkering with appliances for 35 years, Kelly Anderson looks nothing like a repairman. If your stereotyped image of a repairman depicts a public relations-challenged, burly fellow with old, dirty, hip-hugging jeans and T-shirt, and longish, scraggly hair, Anderson is not your man.

With distinguished gray mane, immaculate beard and wire-rimmed glasses atop an impeccably-clothed slim torso, he much more strongly resembles a successful business executive or a college professor than he does a repairman. That's exactly the way he likes it.

"You're going into people's homes, with their wives and their children, and you've just got to be above reproach," says Anderson. "You can't just send any guy in there. You just don't have to be a slob or a dirtbag. When we started, I thought of doctors and dentists, and I wondered, why couldn't WE be that professional?"

Anderson, who has been enamored of cars since he was a teenager, operates out of his car, where he keeps all his parts and equipment. When he opens the hatchback of his sleek, black Volkswagen, he has all the parts he needs, tightly organized and compartmentalized, within his immediate reach.

Actually, Anderson is an accidental repairman. His first interest was architecture, and he says, flatly, "I'm not mechanically inclined. It scared me for awhile. But my dad told me ‘There isn't anything you ruin that we can't replace.’ That was all the freedom I needed to experiment, to cut a wire here and there, and since then it's been fun."

Anderson's technician father, Doyle Anderson, founded Doyle's Appliances in Murray in 1961. He hired some friends with similar talents to work with him, and they divided their time between selling and fixing appliances.

Kelly Anderson went into the army, served an LDS mission and attended the University of Utah for a year before marrying Virginia Smith.

Marriage decreed that part-time work for his father instantly become full time, so he gave up drawing and college dreams. Now the father of eight children, he is grateful for Doyle's stability.

When his father died in 1978, he inherited the business and gradually figured out a way to make it fit his personality.

"We tried to sell appliances first, but the margins were slim. We had 10 employees and a building, and I just hated it. People started preferring to get things repaired at home, so our shop became less valuable to us. Finally, in 1985, we closed the Murray shop and opened up a dispatch office in my home to answer phones and dispatch calls to the technicians."

Anderson's oldest son, Jeremy, acts as the dispatcher for Doyle's Appliance Group, and a brother, a cousin and a couple of good friends round out the technician staff.

They divide their responsibilities by areas - from Davis County to Utah County, with all the technicians working out of their vehicles. Anderson himself services the Sandy area.

Doyle's has developed a strong working arrangement with Whirlpool and KitchenAid. With the help of radio dispatch mobile phones and computers they keep their business simple and the overhead low. Most important for service, says Anderson, they solve most appliance problems within an hour.

"We meet once a week and go over things. I just feel like hugging those guys when they come in, to thank them for taking care of their areas, so I don't have to run to Tooele and Alpine and Farmington. We all live in our areas, and the arrangement couldn't be better. Whichever one of us is doing the work is the boss. We're free to charge what we want - but if we charge too much, people won't call us. If we don't charge enough, then we starve."

Doyle's technicians are not starving.

Anderson is the only member of the group who has no Doyle's logo on his car. "I'm kind of an oddball. I like it that way, and I'm too old to change. I have a lot of customers, so I'm happy."

He has noticed the quality of appliances has improved dramatically over the years. Whereas business used to be primarily the repair of refrigerators, they account for only about 10 percent of their business now, "and most of that is ice makers."

Most people who call repair people are surprised to see Anderson whip out his tiny computer to figure the bill or order parts. "We've used computers for about six years now. Jeremy got some for us to examine, so we took them into the basement, and I don't think we came outside all weekend. They were wonderful. We had the history of all the people we do business for and our company finances. Since then, I've had only one computer crash literally - I dropped it."

Anderson is not planning on dropping his responsibility as an executive repairman any time soon. A small ad in the Yellow Pages combined with word of mouth keeps him and his fellow technicians busy, and their customers are gracious and grateful.

"In church one day," says Anderson, "they were talking about bad language and dirty stories. The instructor asked, ‘Is there anyone here who doesn't have to deal with dirty stories and profanity in their work?’ I said, “I don't. People don't tell me dirty stories or scream profanity at me. There's a higher standard. Our customers are good citizens."

The biggest kick for Anderson comes from "helping people do things they can't do for themselves." He meets housewives every day who have some problem that slows their work and makes their lives miserable - "a cycle they can't use, a door that doesn't shut. A lot of it is simple stuff. They have the courage to call, and we can make it right pretty easily. It's just so neat to have things working right."