Tim was born in Ely, Nevada in 1963, the 6th of seven children. The Carter family lived in McGill – Ely is 11 miles away. So, for the record, Tim is from McGill. During elementary school, the mines took the Carters from McGill to southern Missouri. Tim completed his elementary and high school education in Salem but later returned to Nevada to complete his BSEE at UNR in 1987. (Four of the 7 Carter children graduated from UNR.)
After graduation, Tim spent 8 years working for Bechtel Construction Corp. in the Mining & Metals department. He later joined Nucor Steel where he remained for 13 years. While Tim's experiences in the corporate world were very educational, he felt that after 21 years in that realm, it was time to change gears and become "his own boss."
Tim had always hoped to return to northern Nevada, but had no real concrete plan for how or when this might happen. After Tim retired from Nucor in February, 2008, he and his brothers began brain-storming about various business ventures. From those brain storming sessions, the dream of an Ace Hardware began to emerge at the top of the pile. The concept grew rapidly. The brothers decided this might be a good opportunity to serve the community in "an old fashioned way." Within a few months, Tim loaded up his truck, hitched a trailer to the back to carry his 1965 Ford Mustang, and began his journey across the US from Alabama to Reno. The store opened in mid-December, 2008, just about 8 months from the initial inception of the idea.
Carter Bros Ace Hardware is an experiment in proving that things can still be done the old fashioned way. As Tim likes to say "we are selling customer service here". Tim, his family and the employees at Ace believe that the most important thing they can do to be successful is to be trustworthy, responsible and a great place to go for help. They have found that sometimes being a "good neighbor" means a little bit of extra effort and help might be needed outside of the hardware arena. That extra effort may be old fashioned but it is needed today as much as it ever was.
