By Marie Wood
When Derran Dugger was a teenager, he got the nickname Rockin Ronny from his father’s friends who could hear him coming down the road.
Then in 1993, at age 19, Dugger turned his hobby of building custom hot rods and sport trucks with powerful audio systems into a business — Rockin Ronny’s Superstore in Mankato.
“At the time, there was no retail outlet to buy accessories for vehicles other than general auto parts stores. We decided to open a business with both audio systems and accessories,” said 37-year-old Dugger of Mankato.
While attending Minnesota State University, he opened Rockin Ronny’s with some guidance from his dad, who helped renovate the store and coached him in employee management.
“He got me going in the right direction,” said Dugger of his dad.
A passion for cars runs in the family. Dugger grew up building custom cars and going to car shows with his dad, who learned everything he knew from his father, a shop manager at a Chevrolet dealership. And now Dugger’s 4-year-old son knows the makes and models of his Hot Wheels.
Over the last 17 years, Dugger has built Rockin Ronny’s into a successful business that has become a Mankato icon. Aggressive marketing plays a role.
Dugger airs commercials on all local radio stations, runs ads in The Free Press, displays a custom car at the River Hills Mall during the holiday season and advertises in a kiosk there year-round. A Rockin Ronny show car rides in area parades.
“We strive to be different than any place out there. You see that when you walk into the store, hear our commercials and see our car at the mall,” Dugger said.
Roll with the changes
Dugger started out installing stereos and customizing street rods and race cars, but soon began working on trucks and foreign performance cars. He tapped into the off-road market with suspension kits and big tires and wheels.
Then, in 1996, Rockin Ronny’s began installing remote car starters, and today the remote starters are 60 percent of sales.
“We have earned the reputation that we’ve installed the most remotes and have the best warranty,” Dugger said.
When Dugger opened Rockin Ronny’s, some of his employees were older than him. That made it challenging to gain their respect, he said.
These days, he employs up to 10 people and recognizes his crew as the nuts and bolts of the business. Sadly, he lost an installer and good friend, Steve Ellis, to cancer at the age of 35.
“By going in there time and time again, I’ve gotten to know his employees. They greet me by name. It’s a good place,” said Tom Doerr, owner of Choppers Bar & Grill in Mankato.
From day one, Dugger saw the potential to draw female customers, so he made it a priority to run a store that’s clean and welcoming to people of all ages and gender.
The result is a customer demographic of age 14 to 60 with a mix of male and female customers. The number of female customers looking for window tinting, remote starters and stereos has increased over the years, added Dugger.
While sales have grown every year, Dugger remembers the early days as being a little spooky. He remembers installing the first big stereo system in the parking lot.
“I look back to those days when we’d have three people come to the store. Now we have 30 people a day.”
Today Rockin Ronny’s has two garages: one for building custom cars and another for installing remote starters and audio systems.
Installing audio systems has changed with late-model vehicles. Instead of replacing the radio, Dugger enhances the radio by adding amplifiers and MP3 outlets. There is also a market for DVD players for family minivans and SUVs.
As a fringe benefit, Dugger has a front and rear entertainment system in his Chevy Tahoe. His two children can use their headphones to listen to music and watch movies.
“I can’t imagine what my parents went through. You click your seatbelt and turn on the DVD player,” Dugger said.
A custom job
Rockin Ronny’s is Mankato’s version of West Coast Customs, a California custom car company that’s behind the TLC show “Street Customs.”
For Dugger, building custom vehicles and doing specialty audio and video systems is the best part of his job. He’s proud of the many restorations and stereo system installs they’ve done on classic and muscle cars. When customers come in with an idea for their vehicle, Dugger often tells them to wait and see.
“I like being able to make a design in my head come to life and show somebody something different that they’ve never seen before.”
Shane Yule, branch manager of Rihm Kenworth Dealership in Albert Lea, has been sending customers to Rockin Ronny’s for the past three years.
“His custom work is unbelievable,” Yule said. “If you have the smallest of spaces and you want to put in the biggest stereo system, he can do it.”
When it comes to audio, Dugger has installed systems in boats, motorcycles, four-wheelers, sports cars, golf carts, semis, muscle cars, street rods and classics.
Dugger also has designed three custom vehicles for Three Eagles Communications Street Fleet, which are used by the company’s four radio stations at remotes, parades and events. Dugger is behind the Pavement Pounder, a cube van that looks like a boom box on wheels. All boast top-of-the-line audio and two vehicles have video, too.
“I’ve been in radio since 1976 in markets all over the country. I’ve never seen anything like what was produced for us by Rockin Ronny’s,” said Dave Sturgeon, general manager of Three Eagles Communications. “It’s custom from the word go. It’s not cookie cutter. It’s a design entirely created by his vision.”
Dugger has even worked on the custom vehicles of some of the Minnesota Vikings during training camp. Next up for Dugger is a Rockin Ronny’s store in Minneapolis when the economy improves.
