Two-business owner operates from Thousand Palms hub

Public Record, The, Nov 02, 2004 by Kleinschmidt, nice

Joel Johnson laughs when he recalls that people thought his parents were crazy when they bought commercial property in Thousand Palms in 1970. Today, Johnson considers his business location at Varner and Ramon roads ideal. Joel's Bike Shop can be seen from Interstate 10 and is across the street from a McDonald's and Flying J gas station. Behind the bike shop, he tuns an excavation/grading business.

Though he was born in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, Johnson has lived in Cathedral City for 52 years. He attended Cathedral City Elementary School, Nellie Coffman Middle School, and Palm Springs High School. His father, Hank Johnson, owned an excavation/grading company from 1955 to 1970.

After earning an associate of arts degree in architecture and engineering from College of the Desert, Joel Johnson married and was drafted into the Army. Within months, he was in Vietnam. After returning from Vietnam, Johnson was on leave but preparing to go to Fort Hood, Texas, to finish his service when his father had a heart attack. He got a hardship discharge and took over the grading business.

Johnson and a friend, John Kunkel. formed a company, Johnson & Kunkel Construction Inc., to buy the grading operation, but after a year Kunkel decided it wasn't what he wanted to do. Johnson never changed the company name.

"It was a corporation. It was going to cost me another $1,500 to change the name," he says. "Besides, two names sound better than one," he adds, noting that it makes the company sound larger. Johnson has two employees in the grading business, one of whom has been with him for 25 years. After his father recovered from his heart attack, he worked for his son for 14 years.

Johnson & Kunkel performs preconstruction grading and finish (landscape) grading for custom homes in communities such as The Tradition at La Quinta and Thunderbird Country Club in Rancho Mirage. It also performs light demolition such as concrete removal. A recent project involved digging out a swimming pool, filling the hole and digging a new pool in another location.

Johnson's second business started about 10 years ago when son Kevin was working at Desert Cyclery in Rancho Mirage. "I never had a nice bike," Johnson says. "At 45 years old, I finally got a nice bike. I got to liking it." And so he decided to open a bike shop. "I thought maybe this would be a more relaxing business, but it's a 'business," he says, then adds, "It's a fun business."

With more than 300 bikes in stock, and a vast supply of parts and accessories, Joel's Bicycle Shop offers mountain bikes, road bikes, beach cruisers, racing bikes, BMX bikes, jumping and freestyle bikes, recumbents, three wheelers, and low riders. It sells to and services security bikes for Palm Springs Unified School District, Coachella Valley Unified School District and Augustine Casino.

"I work six days a week," Johnson ,says. "It's not easy. I go out and do what I can with the grading business and then come [to the bike shop] in the afternoons."

However, Johnson says he enjoys what he does and has son Kevin helping him in the bike shop. He and wife Kathleen also have three other children. One daughter works in the escrow business and with her husband runs a dairy operation in Kingsburg; another daughter is an opera singer who just moved to Kansas City, Mo. The Johnsons are driving their 19year-old son to Provo, Utah, this week as he embarks on a two-year church mission to Ecuador.