Like many of his relatives, Reed Parman was putting new tires on cars well before he could legally drive one.
“I started when I was about 12 years old,” he said. “The initiation for Parman family boys was, you go out and sling tires.”
Now, the preteen who sweated out his summers doing shop work is the president of Big Chief Tire, the company his great-grandfather started in 1961.
Since Big Chief’s founding by Fritz Parman Sr., the Jacksonville-based tire and auto service business has been led and entirely owned by the Parman family. Today, it has not only survived growing competition from national chains but is expanding, having opened locations in 2023 and 2024.
For that, Reed Parman, 39, credits a time-proven commitment to Jacksonville and a set of customer-oriented company values carried through the family’s generations of ownership.
A fundamental practice, he says, is that Big Chief recommends only necessary service and repairs, unlike unscrupulous shop operators who charge customers for work that isn’t needed.
“Honest and integrity above all is our company motto,” he said.
“There is so much honest work that needs to be done on most vehicles. We will never manufacture work. We will never tell somebody something needs to be done when it doesn’t.”
Big Chief’s service begins with a full digital inspection to identify any service needs. Customers receive a text of the inspection report, which uses a green-yellow-red color code to signal the urgency of repairs and maintenance. Customers are provided with videos of any problem spots and explanations of the work needed.
“If you look at our mission statement, it says, ‘We strive to provide the best tire and automotive experience in the city of Jacksonville.’ That’s what we want to do. We want Jacksonville to have a respite from, ‘We’re just trying to rip you off and take your money.’”
Reed Parman said Big Chief started when Fritz Parman Sr., a salesman for a store that dealt in tires and televisions, sold so many products that the owner couldn’t afford his compensation and instead offered to give him the business. Parman Sr., who had achieved a chief’s position in the Navy, named the store based on his rank.
His son, Fritz Parman Jr., who grew up with an interest in cars, joined him to run the service shop. Dorothy Parman, the elder Parman’s wife and Reed Parman’s great-grandmother, ran the business operations.
“It was just kind of a natural fit and a great team,” Reed Parman said.
In the mid-1960s, Fritz Parman Jr. met his future wife, Sue, after she applied for a position at Big Chief. She went on to do accounting work for the company.
Reed Parman said his father, Fritz Parman III, had no interest in the tire business but was raised amid a societal expectation that he would carry on the family enterprise. He dutifully took it over after Fritz Parman Jr. retired.
Along the way, Big Chief hired staff members who would display long-standing loyalty to the company and help it stand out in a business that, according to Reed Parman, faces high turnover in technicians. Several company employees have retired with more than 40 years of experience with the company in the past five years.
As for Reed Parman, he said he knew by age 16 he would be part of Big Chief. After working full-time for a year in the shop, a time in which he said he developed enduring respect for technicians while learning he was not skilled in mechanics, he discovered he had inherited his great-grandfather’s interest in sales and convinced his father to move him into an office role.
Reed Parman said he expected to transition into leadership to allow his father, a devout Christian, to pursue an aspiration to become a minister. Those plans were curtailed in 2021, when Fritz Parman III died in an automobile accident.
After his father’s death, Reed Parman said he and his sister, Kelsey Roth, determined that to keep the company thriving, they needed to expand by six stores in 10 years.
Those plans began with the opening of a store in Orange Park in 2023 and Mandarin in 2024.
“In our industry, it’s all about convenience,” Reed Parman said.
“We can be the best tire store in the world, but if you live in Julington Creek, you’re not getting your tires done by Big Chief Tire because it’s not convenient.”
Working in the company offices at Big Chief’s longtime headquarters at 5444 Normandy Blvd., Reed Parman and his leadership team are mapping out the next expansion sites for the company. Yulee or Julington Creek are possibilities.
Wherever it is, he said, it will be in the Jacksonville area. Three generations of his family before him would have wanted it that way.
“We have said we’ll never move out of market,” he said.