'Protiree' still moving cars — now for free

Jerry Hayes is 79 years old and technically retired, although if I were you I wouldn't bring that up in his presence. He is not at all keen on the R word, preferring instead the word that is stenciled on his personalized license plates: PROTIRE.

"It means to keep renewing," says Hayes.

He's not kidding. It's been 10 years now since he stepped down from a seven-year term as president of the Utah Automobile Dealers Association. Before that he spent 35 years as a Buick dealer (he and his brother Norm owned Hayes Bros. Buick).

And he's yet to pull out of the fast lane.

Matter of fact, he's still moving cars.

Only now he isn't selling them, he's giving them away.

Honestly.

Jerry is transportation specialist for the Inner City Welfare Mission, an LDS-affiliated charity that seeks to provide needs for people who slip through conventional cracks. Ever since the mission began in 1997, the very year he, uh, retired (Jerry will tell you the timing is no coincidence), he has been the facilitator in finding vehicles for people who need them to get to work or for other important functions.

The program is called "Wheels to Work," and as of last weekend Hayes had rounded up 1,065 cars, vans, trucks and the occasional motor home since he found himself "unemployed" a decade ago.

The vehicles come in from anywhere and everywhere, including a fair number from Jerry's old contacts in the for-profit automobile world. One of them, Jay Brasher, who owned an auto auction, donated a car a month to Wheels to Work for five straight years.

Some of the cars have been parked for months or years when Jerry gets his hands on them. Some don't run at all. That doesn't matter to Hayes, who has lined up a network of repair shops that are willing to do charity work at cut-rate prices.

He is well aware of the 180-degree turn his career has taken.

"In my last job I was president of an organization with 148 new-car dealers from 38 Utah communities," he says. "Now I try to resurrect old clunkers to give to the poor.

"In my protirement," he proclaims, "I have started over at the bottom."

And yes, since the Hayes Bros. dealership moved a ton of cars, used and new, during its long and successful heyday, it is entirely possible that he may have once sold one or more of the vehicles he's now giving away.