Precision Collision buys Wenatchee Collision Center; plans expansion

Posted on 25. Dec, 2009 by nevonnemcdaniels in Companies

by Nevonne McDaniels

Then: John Brown was operating Wenatchee Collision Center and John’s Quality Auto Glass in two locations on South Wenatchee Avenue in October 1993 when the Wenatchee Business Journal caught up to him for a story.

At the time, Brown talked about his plan to add street-rod and restoration services and was negotiating to lease the 5,120-square-foot former Goodyear Tire building at 703 S. Wenatchee Ave. The building had been built in 1988 by Bud Truswell.

Brown’s plan was to put his two businesses under one roof with a remodel that included six open bays, one closed bay and a common front office.

In July 2000, putting everything under one roof continued to be a theme as Wenatchee Collision Center and John’s Quality Auto Glass announced its move from the Goodyear building across the parking lot to 625 S. Wenatchee Ave., which had contained a portion of the Wenatchee Collision Center business and required a dash across the parking lot.

Now: Wenatchee Collision Center is still under one roof at 625 S. Wenatchee Ave., but another roof and a new name, Precision Collision, are about to be added.

Following John Brown’s death in April 2009, his widow Judith Brown was looking at closing the business or finding a buyer, preferring the latter because it would save the jobs of the shop’s four employees. She discussed her options with Tony Gott, who had been managing the auto body repair business for about 10 months at that time.

Gott, who has a 21-plus-year history of working in the auto body repair industry locally, from Cascade Auto Center to Reichert Nissan and even as an independent insurance appraiser for a year, said he started sorting through his mental Rolodex and at 2:30 one morning a week after his discussion with Brown, landed on one person he knew with the interest, knowledge and capital — Scott Hensrude.

Hensrude and his wife, Christy, founded Precision Collision Auto Body in 1985 and had grown the company to 12 locations in Puget Sound, from Burlington to Federal Way to Monroe.

Gott said he recalled Hensrude talking about his long-term plan to expand to 20 locations when he worked for Hensrude several years earlier. Gott called to ask if Hensrude was interested in making the jump across the mountains.

He was — if Gott would stay on as manager. Negotiations on the sale of the business and the building started within 30 days of that phone call, Gott said.

Because those kinds of things take time, the deal didn’t close until September, which left several months of limbo when visible signs of Precision Collision’s brand could not be displayed.

But internally, things were moving ahead, said Mark Lovell, Precision Collision’s marketing director. Those things included assuring the employees they had jobs, providing certification training for employees and getting the business files set up so the company could continue to operate.

At that point, Lovell said, if the deal had fallen through, the shop simply would have closed and Precision Collision would have had minimal losses, but they didn’t think that was going to happen.

Gott said the limbo was a challenge because it felt like he was operating as two businesses at once, assuring customers and employees that the shop had a future.

The knowledge that Precision Collision overall was showing a 20-percent jump in revenue in the past 18 months helped, he said, as did behind-the-scenes plans to expands the Wenatchee shop. Soon after the deal with Judith Brown was completed in September, negotiations started on taking over the former Asplund Supply building next door, which would double the space for body shop work and provide a larger office and lobby for customers and retail sales. Those negotiations are still underway, but Lovell said the hope is everything will be inked by the end of the year.

At the moment, Precision Collision’s name is only found on the glass front door, but that will change as soon as the deal with the building next door is complete. Lovell said it made more sense to wait for new signs and exterior paint job than having to redo the process within a few months.

Taking over the building doesn’t necessarily mean adding employees right away, though the shop has added one employee since Precision Collision took over in September, for a total of five staff. The added space does accommodate a growing company, Lovell said, and that is the expectation at the Wenatchee shop.

With the logistics worked out, Gott and Lovell, who has been driving over from Everett several times a month, said the next push is to spread the word about the new ownership, making the word-of-mouth connections and touting the company’s local experience and expanded resources that include access to collision repair facilities on the west side of the mountains should a Wenatchee-area car get in a collision over there.

Gott said that through it all, the basics have not changed.

“This business is about people first and cars second,” he said.

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