Last month, we gave thanks. This month, we give gifts.
Autobody News at Thanksgiving asked the industry -- shop owners and operators, trainers and techs, suppliers and servicers -- what garnered its gratitude. Now it’s time to give gifts, for Saint Nick to take a bow. He seems busy, appearing at collision centers nationwide, or at least leaving evidence of having done so.
For this holiday group Q&A, the insistent inquiry was: What are you asking Santa for? What’s on your gift-to-others list?
Gathering a still-respectable sack-full-o’ replies, considering any reasonable person would much rather go to the holiday party, or hive off on a trip somewhere, or just hang out and rest at home than talk about it.
Here then an edited compendium -- a Christmas list written once and checked twice, if you will -- of what all we’re doing to close out 2024.
Appreciating Collision Shop Employees
Online, it’s easy to find the Scrooge McDucks, who perhaps run coal mines as a side hustle. Posts decry, and it’s a fair cop, such cheapitude. The term “pizza party” is now the go-to euphemism for badly done year-ends.
One post included an image of a party invite. It announced a lunch, not a dinner, and potluck -- meaning not presented by owners.
The shops we talked to, though, give bonuses and throw bashes.
It’s as if Thanksgiving gratitude steeped and stepped into December, directed now toward body shop staff.
Drew Bryant owns Orlando Collision Center in Florida. The shop gives bonuses based, like many shops, on tenure. On a sliding scale of years, employees get cash equal to from one-fourth to 100% of their take-home. At 10 years, he tosses in -- lightly -- a Rolex.
“I’ve given two of those,” he said, “and have a couple people approaching it.”
Michael Whittemore gives members of his shop crew a $500 gift card to the Snap-on Tools truck; office staff gets $500 or $1,000 Amazon gift cards. His Flagstaff Collision Center in Arizona has 20 employees total.
Paap Auto Body in Mattoon, IL, gives monthly bonuses through the year but doesn’t skimp on December’s party: “We have a Christmas dinner catered in,” said owner Tim Paap, who’s also seeking a second shop from Santa, “or at least some satellite facilities.”
In northern California, Ken Pike does a lot of custom work for clients, and a bit of bonusing for staff, again by seniority, while also considering each member’s contribution. The cash runs up to about $500. Pike plans to be in the bosom of a family and friends gathering for the holiday itself.
Up in Idaho, Greg Solesbee runs an ersatz raffle, trundling down the line by years of service. Hunting’s a thing in the Gem State, so a few rifles found their way into the raffle, along with Milwaukee tech tools, and $100 gift cards. All told his 11-employee shop, which has won statewide awards, ponied up $3,000 in prizes.
Wrapping up these notions with a bow, Steve Olson, who co-owns collision centers in Louisville, KY, and Manchester, NH, said it’s not about an annual bennie, but a full-year effort with a totalizing goal.
“One thing we try to differently in our shops” for employees, he said, “is give them the peace of mind, where they can be in a good environment for their futures, and strong financially. There’s a lot I have no control over but I can help relieve those burdens.”
Winner Winner, If Not Necessarily a Chicken Dinner
Connor Johnston extols a holiday shindig thrown by a three-shop Oklahoma MSO owned by the Davis family. Each year it hits a local bowling mecca with 30 to 35 employees. Year-end giving tops out at a hot tub and somebody’s new 70-inch flat screen TV.
Lower-range gifts for shop noobs include gift cards and wireless headphones, Johnston said.
His prize?
Johnston went home with a top-of-the-line seven-piece DeWalt XR brushless home power toolkit -- saws, drills, batteries, charger -- and posted a photo on social media, garnering several dozen appreciative comments on it.
And, oh yeah -- he bowled pretty well, too: in the mid-140s and winning a couple games.
Johnston’s the lead auto tech at the Midwest City Davis Paint & Collision Auto Center after five years with the family. The site has three bays, and also does mechanical work. The shops also run an apprenticeship program.
We caught up with Johnston as he drove to a school-and-family holiday event for his daughter.
Giving Begins at Home, Goes to Work, Sometimes Travels
Speaking of travel, Whittemore and his wife Theressa will be in Texas to see their daughter and son-in-law, Jessica and Paul Williams, and the grandkids. Paul Williams is president of Brightpoint Auto Body Repair.
When Autobody News caught up with him, Solesbee and wife Rachelle had returned from Southern California to see family, and are now “trying to learn to plan family trips” with impact. “We got to experience Bali with a business group, and we want that” for the people closest to them.
Also in Idaho is Andy Rogge, at least until he heads to Montana for a week. He is going to see friends, along with time for family near Coeur d’Alene. He runs the auto body paint tech program for North Idaho College.
Laura Lozano will be in Mexico, “hopefully turning off my phone for a couple days [and] eating some good food.” She’ll visit her grandparents, too. “I grew up there until I was 9 years old; my childhood is there.”
Lozano teaches in and co-chairs Contra Costa College’s automotive collision repair program.
Closer to home, Drew Bryant said he and his wife collect blankets and pillows until the holiday, “pile them up in the garage, then go out, get a bunch of cheeseburgers, and drive around, the day before Christmas Eve” handing out the loot to the unhoused.
Mark Cardella, a shop owner whose operations were splashed across the big screen in an Adam Sandler movie some years back, seeks “peace in my life, and to spend time during the Christmas season with my grandchildren,” he emailed.
“On my list for others is peace, prosperity, and health for the coming year. That’s what’s important.”
Florida-based Consolidation Coach founder Laura Gay wrote, “I am incredibly blessed and really have no tangible wants.”
And then a big pause, via double ellipses, and then this: “But if Santa could figure out … work/life balance -- that’d be the best gift ever!”
To be clear, she’s not asking for a Gumby -- she feels like one, “stretched in 18 different directions.”
Daniel Pfisterer.
Trumpf’s national sales manager for power tools, Daniel Pfisterer, wrote via a spokesperson to say he’d ask for more time, for himself and others, and would give gifts to save more of that for them. That list headed in some measure by metal cutting and modifying entries from the company’s line.
Lori Barrington, I-CAR vice president of delivery kicks in by email through a spokesperson: “I’m asking for more opportunities to deliver hands-on training to technicians eager to learn and grow.” This gets confidence, mastery and safer repairs.
Note to Nick: she also asks more training sessions, instructor support and a celebration of continuous learning.
Driven Brands communications coordinator for collision, Keely Pampell, wants Saint Nicholas to bring “an upcoming year full of happiness, good health, love, and blessings!” she wrote in an email.
Striking a not dissimilar note, Micki Woods, who runs marketing programs for automotive businesses from a north Los Angeles base, emailed to say “this year I’m asking for something different.”
Lori Barrington.
This Christmas, she wrote, “I’m leaning into and craving a closer relationship with Jesus” and marked out the type of clear-eyes-strong-heart territory oft-mentioned in such asks. “That he opens my eyes to the direction … my ears to discern … my heart to see people and love [them] as he does.”
Barry Crupi, whose Staten Island body shop has been in the family 40 years, focuses on the family.
“Honestly, just a good relationship with my son and my family,” he said.
It’s Christmas after all: show me the party and the presents
“I love to bless my circle with gifts or things they’ll use or would never do for themselves,” Gay wrote.
Teen painting phenom Keaton Lee gives homemade gifts that align with her work. Her family lives on Lake Coeur d’Alene, so “for my dad I’m painting the whole outline of the lake as you would see it on a map, on a metal wall art panel.” She gives painted phone cases as gift and her boyfriend got power tools.
Micki Woods.
Mary Winning manages Steve Olson’s Manchester, NH, shop. She’s pretty sure the rotund red-bedecked man is bringing her kids some sweet stuff.
OK, you caught us. She’s doing it.
No doubt like Santa himself, Winning has “no idea” who Tyler, the Creator is, but she’s getting concert tickets for her daughter and “a niece who’s like a daughter to me.”
“My son’s getting dirt bike parts.”
Her collision center crew gets Carhartt sweatshirts, and gift cards to restaurants or other coveted locales.
John Melendez in Chicago keeps the party going for a week or so.
“What my wife does, is the ‘five days of Christmas,’” he said, “where each day for the five days until the shop closes,” there’s a gift of some kind. Maybe it’s some “good-sized warm blankets … we do some gag stuff, like a pair of shorts from the Grinch -- but every day they’re each going to pick something.”
Robert Molina and Frankie Casanueva with the roast pig they prepare for the shop.
Then the shop closes for the rest of the week, from Christmas. This gets the five-day weekend, for a shop that’s already shuttered on Saturday and Sunday. Other shops put the “Do Not Disturb” sign up at least on Christmas Eve and Christmas.
OK, but top this: a whole roast pig.
Robert Molina, owner of Collision Care Xpress in Pompano Beach, FL, bids for Best. Party. Ever title with -- still not a chicken dinner -- the other white meat.
“We traditionally roast a pig with everyone,” he said.
Production manager Frankie Casanueva “masterminds” the food fest, which starts, well, the day before it starts -- where they actually pick the pig at a farm, bring it back, “season it the night before as a team while we hang out. Then, the next day, starting at 5 a.m., we start cooking.”
This lasts all day. Fully 12 hours. Anticipation.
“We have dinner that night, with families, staff and vendors,” Molina said.
Not Exactly the Ultimate, More the Penultimate
Randy Kuntz, collision center manager at Bennett Automotive Group in Pennsylvania, always angles to get the [nearly] last word in these accounts, and they’re usually pretty funny.
He wrote that he’s asking Santa “to remove my name from the naughty list … reimburse for the Pro Spot we just bought … and [set] labor rates that reflect what we’re worth vs. the insurance fixed rate.”
Oh yeah, and a “bigger collision center.”
And by the way, “my beach, is that ready yet?”
You know, if you’re not too busy there, Old Red.
To be fair, and less funny, Kuntz also wants to give.
“[Serving] guests with whatever they need … helping out my employees … educating customers on proper repair, and use of OE parts … donating to Goodwill and Toys for Tots … starting out the day being positive.”
And remember, he said, be kind to all: it’s free.
One Last Thing Before You Turn the Lights Out
First, put the eggnog in the fridge. Don’t want that stuff to go bad.
Second, consider this: body shop owners are always scheming at it.
They’ve always got some plan or another cooking next to the pig.
At Thanksgiving, Joe Messina of Roseleno Inc. said he was working on something big, and was grateful to have found some financial backing to move forward from the napkin sketch stage.
For the Christmas news, we have Oscar Moreno, owner of Integrity Auto Collision Center in Fairfield, CA.
His “gift to others” we asked after is “a project open to the public where people come together as a community and the shop can educate them on what we do every day,” he emailed. These town halls of sorts would include, “the most popular questions we’re often asked by customers.”
By this gift, Santa “could help create a more compassionate, educated and sustainable” relationship “inspiring people to work together.”
This is definitely something we’ll ask him about in the “New Year’s Resolution” edition of this holiday Q&A series.
Paul Hughes