So far, the most common request is to open cars for people who have locked their keys inside. He’s provided services in Bemidji, Emmetsburg, Iowa, Redwood Falls, Slayton, Chandler and all over Pipestone County. Then once it’s open, he can seal the hole, so it’s no longer visible.īusiness is going well so far, he said. If he can’t do it by listening, he said, he can drill into the safe to get a view of the mechanism inside, which helps him determine the right combination. Once he spent three hours a day for three days sitting quietly in front of a safe, slowly turning the dial listening for the telltale click that indicates he’s on the right number, before he finally cracked it. He can make keys, open any vehicle, change and repair commercial and residential locks, and even open safes. Scholten is professionally certified and licensed through the state of Minnesota and registered the legal name of his business, “Rich’s Lock Service,” in November. He earned his diploma in January 2010, bought his van and began his mobile locksmithing business. “Nobody was there to bother me until my wife got up and turned the TV on.” “I’d study from two until five in the morning,” Scholten said. Scholten started taking correspondence classes through Foley Belsaw in September 2009. “There’s a demand for locksmiths around the country.”Īccording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook 2010-11 Edition, there are about 22,100 locksmiths in the country and the job market between now and 2018 is projected to grow “about as fast as average,” with around 6,100 job openings. “I’d get a letter in the mail, you know, and then they’d want you to do it,” he said. He worked on the farm until he took the job with Public Works.Īfter nearly two decades of retirement, he said he decided to take up locksmithing due to the recruitment efforts of the Foley Belsaw Institute based in Kansas City, Mo. He moved to Pipestone about 55 years ago to take a job on a farm after serving in the Korean War in 1952-53. During that time he was also a custodian for seven years at the old central high school and did some interior and exterior painting on the side. Scholten, 81, retired about 15 or 20 years ago after working for the Pipestone Public Works Department for 28 years. “My wife didn’t want me to go,” Scholten said, “but I said, well, it’s my business, I better move it” that business being a 24/7 locksmith business. He pulled up alongside a parked car, stepped out and began picking the lock. On a cold winter night at about 11 p.m., Richard Scholten left the warmth of his Pipestone home, got in his van and drove.
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