About: Skeeters Auto Repair & Service

The owner of Skeeters Auto Repair is Kaycee Howell -- she has been running the shop for 20+ years.

Kaycee is from a rural area in Eastern Kentucky – “the closest town was 25 miles away and it only had a population of about 2,000 people,” she says. “I bring those small-town values and personal service that you don't find very often to Orange County.”

Her mission statement is simple: To Be Truly Helpful … All The Time.

Having overcome polio that she contracted from a contaminated vaccine, Kaycee went on to Eastern Kentucky University and graduated with a degree in industrial education. After teaching industrial arts for a few years, she decided to come to California.

She went into sales and soon realized she excelled at it. She meshed her sales skills with her love and interest in automobiles. She emerged as a top sales person at a dealership and worked her way up to become finance and insurance manager .

After several years at different dealerships, Kaycee went to work for a car broker so she could sell any make and model including new and used vehicles.

“This was a way I could provide personalized service to each client, which was one of my goals,” she says.

Every time she sold a car, she would take a picture of the client and their new car. It wasn't long before she had the office wall full of pictures. She began to think that this is the type of business she should own.

“Being a single mom, I was always looking for a better way to provide for my son Peter and daughter Summer,” she says.

So Kaycee opened her own car brokerage business, Royal Auto, on Newport Avenue in Tustin, and the company thrived for many years. After buying and selling cars, she decided a natural transition would to open an automobile repair shop.

“Having sent the used cars out for inspections and service on a regular basis, I knew the business well,” she says.

She started looking for a shop to buy and soon found Skeeters Auto Repair. She purchased it in 1994 and transitioned it to more on the repair and service part of the business as opposed to the sales side.

In 2014, Kaycee was diagnosed with breast cancer and tumor in her right side. “I was terrified,” she says. She underwent surgery for the breast cancer, followed by a couple months of chemotherapy then followed by two more months of daily radiation treatments.

Today, she is blessed to be cancer and tumor free.

Through all that she never even missed a day of work at Skeeters Auto Repair.

A grandmother of four, Kaycee is also a very skilled networker and excellent public speaker, learning the craft through Toastmasters.

“I have a passion for business, and helping people with their automotive needs,” she says. “Saving them time, money and aggravation is important to me. That’s why we provide free pickup and delivery service.”