Motorcycle shop owner finds niche back home
By Ken Alltucker
Ely officials figure they need more people like Raymond Fisher.
An Ely native, Fisher sold his successful Reno repair shop a few years ago and returned home to live his dream of building custom Harley-Davidsons. Fisher started a new business, Gone Wild, in Ely with his partner Kelly Marker.
Fisher builds about 10 custom bikes a year from scratch, but most of his money comes from repairs and selling parts.
It's tougher to operate a business in Ely than in Reno, Fisher said, because it can take two to three days to get an important part shipped to eastern Nevada. Reno -- considered a key distribution hub of the West Coast -- has more efficient transportation systems and generally relays shipments overnight.
Fisher said he has declined a grant from the White Pine County Economic Diversification Council. The grant would have helped fund a machine shop to make parts, but he said he wants to hold off and see how things go now that Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd. has closed its copper mine and laid off 433 workers.
Fisher has already dipped into the profits he earned from the sale of his Reno business to help run Gone Wild. He fears that business will slow more as laid-off miners leave town and others curtail spending.
He believes there's one answer for Ely.
"Our deal is tourism," he said, pointing to the two-lane U.S. 50 in front of his business, a popular road for bikers. "If they bring things to bring tourists, we need that."
RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL