» Supplier Profile Keystone Fitness The Key to Rebuilding Success BY KATHRYN KORCHOK


20 years ago, he laughingly says he fi- nally finished working on it last year and can now drive it when he finds the time. Rebuilding cars echoes Jim’s career,


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which is based on rebuilding engines - from autos to fitness equipment. Growing up around cars and engines, Jim’s mechanical capabilities were honed from an early age in the fam- ily business. It’s the key to his success and a story that starts in 1957 when his dad, Jim McPherson Sr., bought Keystone Auto Electric in North York, Ontario.


24 Fitness Business Canada Fall 2018


im McPherson loves his red ’66 Mustang convertible, a classic au- tomobile that he restored with his dad. After buying it at auction


The Early Days: Rebuilding starters in the 1960s


The company’s (renamed Keystone


Generator) key business was rebuild- ing auto parts, specifically alternators and starters for the truck industry, which it then sold to markets in the U.S. and Canada. Jim went off to college in Dallas,


Jim McPherson Jr.


Texas with the idea of working in the auto industry there after graduating. But the family business was growing and he returned home. The company expanded into repairing and rebuild- ing alternators for fitness equipment, and, in 1996, Keystone Fitness (key- stonefitness.ca) was launched. “All of the self-powered equipment


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