Nona Van Dyken hopes to open a salon and day spa some day, but this summer her work is quite different. She’s helping Frank Gargalis, right, and his wife at their Baker City Auto Salvage business.

BAKER CITY, Ore. (AP) - Shielded from the simmering sun beneath a canopy, far from the yard of battered trucks, aged tires and grease-covered car parts, the three do what they have done all summer. They chat.

Baker City Auto Salvage's so-called "Green Sanctuary" is the newest addition to the lot, juxtaposing steel and rubber with flowers and gardens in a showcase of environmentalism. Stashed away in the corner of the yard, the vibrant, colorful plot is a prime locale for a stimulating discussion.

This time the topic is owning a business.

Frank and Deb Gargalis have owned BC Auto Salvage for just over a year, and this summer they have a helper: Nona Van Dyken.

The 19-year-old is participating in the summer youth program through Oregon Training and Employment Consortium, and she is interested in one day becoming a business owner herself.

While Nona has taken a particular liking to working at the salvage yard this summer, her future doesn't involve carburetors or radiator hoses.

Her dream business is a hybrid between a salon, day spa and body art shop that specializes in tattoos and piercings.

In the dimness of the canopy's shade, ideas and scenarios for the three-in-one shop are batted around.

"That's something you're going to have to think about for your business," Deb says to Nona.

Frank nods his head and offers his two cents.

"It's going to take lots of ventilation," he adds.

The conversation began with what sort of responsibilities businesses have to the environment, then evolved into a discussion of how Nona will have to keep clients safe from chemical vapors in her salon.

This is far from the first-time hair solution and styling products have been bantered about on the grounds of the salvage yard.

After Nona arrived in June, these sorts of items have seeped into the yard's essence, right between the dirt and grim, and the oil and grease.

"Since I was little, that's pretty much been my direction," said Nona, who recently graduated from Baker High School.

This fall she'll enroll as a business major at Blue Mountain Community College.

But she hasn't had to wait for higher education to begin her comprehensive education on entrepreneurship.

Frank and Deb have given her a crash course during the past two months. And Nona's duties have been about as varied as the topics on which the two business owners, who boast decades of experience, have offered their advice.

Nona has done inventory, helped customers track down parts, answered the phone, placed orders for the shop and maintained the signboard out front with daily jokes and factoids.

And that's just what she and Deb could think of within a few seconds.

"I like it all," Nona said. "And Deb and Frank are very understanding and lenient."

While Nona has been exposed to a lot in a handful of weeks, possibly the most beneficial aspect has been simply hanging around Frank and Deb at the yard.

Deb has tried to describe to her that a business owner is responsible for all those "behind the scenes things that nobody else can do" and, as a result, must act as the last line of defense in all situations.

Another important topic Deb has thrown around in conversations with Nona is being strategic. With this she is referring to a number of items, including handling employees and meticulously planning a budget.

And with Deb maintaining that her strong points lie in marketing and finance, those two aspects of running a business have surely come up a time or two as well.

"We want to build to the point where she can open her own business and be successful," Deb said.

With Deb spending most of the daytime hours working at the Oregon Employment Department's Baker City office, where she has been the manager for almost three years, Frank helps Nona absorb how to manage the day-to-day tasks of running a business.

Nona watches Frank deal with customers, notices which items he places highest on his priority list, and to what extent he takes care of certain tasks himself rather than calling on his employees.

And even though Nona isn't as car-savvy as most of the workers at BC Auto Salvage, Frank is impressed with her work ethic and propensity to catch on quickly.

"I like to see young kids get work experience," Frank said. "But I don't want to ask them to do anything that I wouldn't do myself."

Both Frank and Deb believe that their job isn't merely to teach with words and actions. In their minds, they must also be the gatekeepers to opportunities.

Their philosophy is quite simple: Foster freedom while providing structure.

"The tools, the rules and the advice. That's pretty much how it goes," Nona explained.

Nona said that while the Gargalises offer her advice or suggestions for how to approach a situation, once she gets under way the job is all up to her.

This brand of self-sufficiency is what Deb believes an entrepreneur must possess.

"You're not going to start your own business if you're not a self-starter," she said.

Another reason Deb finds providing this freedom so important is that she believes in order for a mentor-mentee relationship to thrive there must be mutual trust.

A byproduct of this hands-on-then-hands-off approach comes in the form of Nona's daily commitment to maintaining the signboard which stands a few feet from the storefront on H Street.

From a notebook that she has toted around since starting at the salvage yard - where she keeps bits of advice, jokes and random information - Nona chooses a daily message for the signboard.

Most of the time it's a joke or a "Did you know" fact that accompanies BC Auto Salvage's hours or a sale-item alert.

While the formula isn't quite exact, it has been effective.

And it has been Nona's all summer.

"It's something Nona brought that gets people to stop," Deb said. "I see people stop, read it and laugh before they come in."

None of the three would disagree that this summer has yielded a perfect marriage, not only between business owners and a young adult, but also between two people who want to teach and a third who's dying to learn.

From adjusting her communication to the wide variety of customers who stop in, to helping run the shop when Frank is away on a tow call, to considering what signboard messages might draw in a passer-by, Nona is thinking like a business owner rather than just an employee.

"A lot of little odds and ends will help," she said. "Not only do I have this much more work experience, but I have grown on this many more things, and have more office experience. That will give me a leg up."

Nona still has college in front of her and there is plenty of work separating her from the opening of the salon-day-spa-body-art conglomerate shop.

But a summer at a salvage yard suddenly makes the piercing studs, sauna steam and perm rods seem that much closer for the aspiring entrepreneur.

"Being here and having the experience and being able to watch," Nona said, "enlightens me on processes and how businesses work."