Correspondent photo / Nancilynn Gatta Gary Kleiner of Howland folds the sides of the license plate down as he is in the process of making a five-pointed barn star.

HOWLAND — Gary Kleiner became interested in automobiles through his father.

“I like to say that my apprenticeship started when I was a little girl holding the torch for my dad while he did electrical work, plumbing and auto repair.” Kleiner said. “My father was a child of the Depression. I’ve always worked on cars in one form or another. When I graduated from Liberty High, we started buying legally wrecked and salvaged cars where we fixed them up and put them back on the road. I financed my education at Youngstown State University by buying and restoring cars in the 80s.”

Kleiner did not think he would become a college graduate and was more likely to have a skilled profession.

“When I was in high school, I took a lot of shop classes. I was always handy with my hands. I thought I was going to go into the trades.” he said.

While still a student at YSU majoring in business administration, Kleiner worked for his friend’s construction company, seeing it as a potential path to employment.

“I drove a truck. I was a mechanical contractor. I delivered and helped with jobs,” Kleiner said. “I thought ‘if I don’t get a job in a year, I’ll go into the trades.’

When he returned from the US Army after completing ROTC at YSU, he worked in construction for a few months until he was hired at Parker Hannifin in sales support, where he worked for more than 29 years.

By that time, Kleiner’s father had switched to working on classic cars.

“Everything was going up in price and my dad suggested buying an old car. So I bought a 1971 Corvette. We redid that. My dad made another Corvette. We ended up with a lot of pieces left. We have a spot at the swap meet at the Canfield Fairgrounds. Those were the days when people waited to get in, and it was non-stop for three days. My father was retired. He was doing well with selling the parts.” Kleiner said.

After the sudden death of his father, he had to decide how to proceed.

“I loved the exchange scene. I made the pieces for a few years, but I realized that the business was starting to decline. I got rid of the pieces. I had really, really good places for sellers so I thought ‘I have to do something different’. I started making art in the garage like signs, clocks and banners. They were real steel signs and high quality commercial banners made in America. We’ve done that for a long time in several major shows a year.” he said.

Kleiner was able to navigate a new product with a discovery at his parent’s house and his father’s affinity for cars.

“My dad never saved anything, but when my brother and I were starting to thin things out at my parents’ house because we knew my mom was moving into a nursing home, I looked in this closet and found a lots of license plates and they were in very good shape. I thought, ‘I can’t throw this stuff out,'” Kleiner said.

He started looking online to see what other license plate craftsmen were doing.

“I started seeing stars in the barn. A lot of the items were quite rudimentary and I thought with my sheet metal and mechanical background I could do a better job.” he said. “I went to Harbor Freight and bought a bender and some clamps. My daughter, with her engineering background, figured out all the angles. I folded the edges and crimp it so there are no sharp edges. I took them to the swap meet and people were telling me how much another guy was paying and mine were way better.”

He started his business, All Things Auto Art, with barn stars and then bottle openers. Kleiner then met a young woman at YSU’s Summer Arts Festival, who offered her space in her Hubbard shop for a few months. His items sold so well that he decided to try selling at the inaugural season of the Youngstown Flea in 2016. It was a very organic process.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a website. I didn’t have a social media page. It was before Father’s Day. I would go in and put up the tent. There were people putting up tablecloths and display cases and elaborate curtains. I just had my 10×10 tent,” he said.

His items have attracted a lot of attention because there usually aren’t many man-made products in the craft markets.

“Nice thing about the flea community, they are there to help everyone. They said, “You have to get some tablecloths. You have to do this. I didn’t have business cards.” Kleiner said.

He became more organized and began participating as a vendor at other area events such as the Holiday Flea at De Yor, the YSU Festival of the Arts and Fall in the Woods at Hartford Hill Winery.

“I’m on the third generation of some of the products. I keep tweaking them to make them a little better.” he said.

Each five-pointed barn star takes nine steps and 25 bends to create it, he said.

It even takes special product requests.

“For birthdays or holidays, someone can say, ‘My dad was born in 1971. Do you have an item from that year?'” he said.

A woman whose father died had license plates with his Vietnam battalion on them. Kleiner made a plate for her and her brother with the plates.

He said people donate old license plates to him, he buys some at estate sales, or people bring him a license plate with a special meaning and ask him to create something with it. He also has friends and family members who are always looking for license plates.

His creations now include license plate roofed birdhouses, key chains, barn star Christmas ornaments and magnets. It has license plates from all 50 states and several foreign countries.

What started as a way to dispose of the many license plates his father collected became a passion for Kleiner.

“This is my therapy after work. I spend two hours in my shop every night. It helps me unwind from the day.” he said.

He is married to Maureen and they have two grown daughters.