Rick Koebernick Classification Talk

Today, our own Rick Koebernick made his classification talk.

Born in Florida, his Mom moved both him and his older brother Steve to Palatine, Illinois when he was 4 years old. His Mom met his Dad (Neil) when she had to bring her car in for repair. They were married 3 months later and Neil adopted both Rick and his brother. Rick grew up in Buffalo Grove graduated from Buffalo Grove high school in 1984. He went to Eastern Illinois University and graduated in 1988 with a major in Marketing.

Rick has worked in the family’s business, Dakota K Auto Repair, on and off for about 15 years. The other years he has worked for other businesses and had his own business for 4 years repairing and selling cars and golf carts in Huntley. Over the years he has seen a big change in the repair business as a result of the technological changes in the automobile control systems. One of the latest changes being the automatic tire pressure sensing and monitoring systems now installed on all passenger vehicles starting in 2007.

While favoring the Ford and Toyota brands, Rick doesn’t feel that the jump to luxury models is worth the extra money in any brand. He also feels that turbo-diesel cars which can run on petroleum or bio-fuel diesel are a better short term solution to the energy/environmental problem than the hybrid cars now being sold in the U.S. They are very popular in Europe at this time and there fuel mileage ranges between a low of 35mpg to a high of 85mpg.

Rick met his wife Kari during his first year at Eastern Illinois University. They got married right out of college. They currently live in Palatine with their two children Bailey and Tyler, 17 year old twins. Both Bailey and Tyler are finishing high school at Palatine where they have been very active in Poms and band, respectively. They are both honor students and are planning on attending college.