by Madeline Martin . Photos by gmhTODAY

Jack Spence , has been providing garage doors and openers to residential and commercial customers in Gilroy and the surrounding area since 1973 . They handle every aspect of the job , including sales , installation , repairs , and maintenance .

At 95 years old , Jack still shows up to work two days a week at the business he started 50 years ago . The company started in Jack ’ s garage , where he began , aptly , building garage doors . He would sell and install them during the day and build them at night . Within about a year , Jack rented a space to build the doors and worked the next few years to earn his contractor ’ s license .

As Jack ’ s business continued to grow , his next step was to open his own place . By 1978 , with the help of his brother Allen Spence , an engineer who worked for Gilroy Foods , he built the Luchessa Business Park in Gilroy and moved his company in , where it is still located today . Jack still owns the buildings and leases the ones his company does not occupy to other

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“ The great and glorious legacy of a human being is to live with purpose .” – Robin Sharma businesses . Over time , the company shifted from constructing their own doors to functioning as a dealer plus installation and repair service .

The garage door business would not be here if Jack had followed his first love — farming . “ My goal was always to farm ,” he said . “ I loved farming … but it didn ’ t work out … it wasn ’ t profitable .”

As a boy , Jack grew up in Merced , California , as the second oldest child ( and oldest son ) in a family of fourteen children . He worked on his family ’ s property with almond trees and also did some work at a dairy farm when he was 12 . He was 14 when World War II broke out , and he quit school and went to work . At 16 , he joined his dad working in a plant that dehydrated foods for the military .

When Jack was 18 , he signed up to serve two years in the Navy and was sent to China to serve on a ship called the USS Stentor ( ARL-26 ). The goal was to rebuild and refurbish the war-torn ship from WWII until it was good enough to sail it back to the U . S . On the return trip , the Stentor faced rough seas , relied on welders working around the clock to keep the ship together , and lost its navigation system . The communication systems were not very good , either , and the Navy could not reach them or find them , even with search planes . They were listed as lost at sea .

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