Adam Lightfield and Wizard Transmission.

Adam's love of transmissions took him to Wyoming Tech, then to work for a string of shops and people who taught him the trade. In Fort Collins he met Joe Cashman and started removing and replacing transmissions for him. Joe made the work make sense, and Adam was good at it.

A robbery ended Joe's Fort Collins business. The two started over in Loveland and kept that shop going through two years of a bad economy in the mid-1980s.

Adam then spent six years at AAMCO in California, completing all the certifications he needed and building transmissions. In 1991 he came home to Colorado to manage the shop and build transmissions at A.C. Transmission. He met his wife, who had two small children, and they had two more. He took small jobs at home to support a big family.

His parents kept urging him to open his own shop and offered to help pay for it. Wizard Transmission opened in 1994 at 1790 South Broadway. Two years later it needed more room and moved in January 1996. By the end of 1999 it needed more again, and Adam bought the biggest building he'd ever had.

The shop today.

• A front building with five car bays
• A second building in back used only for inspecting and rebuilding automatic and standard transmissions and transfer cases
• A lift rated for more than 30,000 lb for RVs, motorhomes and motor coaches
• ATRA-certified technicians, with more than 50 years of combined experience

What ATRA certification means.

ATRA is the Automatic Transmission Rebuilders Association. Its certifications for R&R technicians, rebuilders and diagnosticians are among the most demanding in the industry. Members agree to honest diagnoses and repairs at a fair price, and repairs qualify for ATRA's nationwide Golden Rule warranty.