Collision Repair 19#1
KATE AND ANDREW TAPLEY
FIX AUTO STRATFORD
Pivoting has been the name of the game for Kate and Andrew Tapley at Fix Auto Stratford since they starred on our cover in January 2020—just before the pandemic reached Canada.
Kate and Andrew have a long history in the automotive aftermarket, beginning with their father, the late Al Tapley. Al started his career with Perth Motors in Stratford, before opening and operating Stonetown Tires and Collision in St. Marys. In 2000, he acquired Nick and Dan’s Collision from the Festoso family, and eventually grew the business to a second location.
Following his death in 2015, Kate and Andrew decided to continue the family legacy and took over the business. In 2016, they followed their late father’s vision and consolidated the two businesses into Fix Auto Stratford. Moving most of their business and communications online has been seems to have been a challenging but rewarding experience.
“A very smart man once said to me; ‘Kate, good, hard working people prevail,’ and that’s just something that stuck with me,” said Kate.
“I’m so proud of our team for navigating through these unknown times,” she told Collision Repair. “It’s only up from here.”
Collision Repair 19#2
RANDY LOWE
CSN OPENROAD RICHMOND AUTO BODY
Randy Lowe has worked in nearly every position imaginable, from an estimator, to a car prepper, to a systems manager, all the way to his current role as owner and president of CSN OpenRoad Richmond Auto Body.
When reflecting on his career in the autobody industry Lowe is most proud of his family’s involvement and his role in training young technicians.
“My kids are involved and they’re doing a great job,” he said. “Not very many families can work together like we do!” Since Lowe was featured on the cover in early 2020, CSN OpenRoad Richmond Auto Body’s has gone on to boast an impressive apprenticeship program.
“I am very proud of our apprenticeship program; it’s suspended right now because of COVID but we helped a lot of good young technicians. Our focus is teaching them the right way right off the bat. We have a lot of employees who started their apprenticeship here and are now journeymen with us and that’s something I’m very proud of.”
Collision Repair 19#4
HARVEY GOLHAR
SIMPLICITY CALGARY NORTHEAST, SIMPLICITY CALGARY SOUTHEAST, SIMPLICITY CALGARY NORTHWEST
Last year when we spoke to Harvey Golhar, the owner of Simplicity Car Care Southeast and Northeast, he had his sights set on opening another location. Less than a year later, he achieved his goal by opening a third location, Simplicity Car Care Northwest. Harvey is now the only member within the Western Canada region of the Simplicity Car Care network with three franchise shops.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges within the industry, Harvey has persevered and pushed through these difficulties in order to keeps his businesses afloat. “We have been battling through, it has its ups and downs and by keeping all my employees on we’re able to manage as a team,” he said.
Harvey applauds the support from corporate Simplicity and with their credible knowledge and expertise. He says working alongside these talented individuals in the industry has been insightful. The future of the industry is ever evolving, and in Harvey’s words, from here, the industry is only going “up”.
Collision Repair 19#5
BOB HEROUX
LAZER AUTO BODY
You don’t see bodyshops like Lazer Autobody around much anymore these days. An old-school, independent, family-run shop out in the prairies that puts pride into every repair.
“Lazer” Bob Heroux and his family have been a staple in the Saskatoon collision repair community for decades now and have proven that old-school customer care, combined with modern management resources are the key to success for a shop making a go on their own.
“I got 4,000 sq.-ft. bay on a main drag in the north end of Saskatoon. We got a paint booth, and equipment, and I had myself, my one bodyman and my wife. We were a three-person show that started this company back in October of ’87,” said Bob. “We started to evolve over the years. There were some pretty rough roads at first: I grew a little too fast and my overhead was killing me. I finally moved to a less busy area where my rent and overhead were way less for a larger building. That’s where things really started to show that we were doing well, making money, making profit,” said Bob.
Fast-forward several decades and Bob and Jen’s son Braden has entered the fold at Lazer Autobody, and is proud to carry on the legacy his parents have left in the community. “We have given two large donations to two organizations here in the city,” said Braden. “It feels incredible to be able to give back with a substantial donation to the community. It speaks volumes about my parents. We’ve worked really hard and we are happy to do that for Saskatoon.”
Collision Repair 19#6
MUHAMMAD SIDHU
ASSURED AUTOMOTIVE MISSISSAUGA NORTH
Since gracing the Collision Repair mag cover in December 2020, Muhammad Sidhu and his team have been busy constantly improving their operations and business model.
Just last year the collision repair centre added an aluminum room, said Sidhu. “We have two dedicated mechanical bays, because we do in-house mechanics here, and a dedicated aluminum room–which many facilities are not equipped with.” As calibrations and ADAS calibrations continue to become more and more important for collision repairers to understand, Assured and the Boyd Group recognize the importance of compliance and continuous improvement.
The Boyd Group takes pride in supporting training so our shops can achieve I-CAR Gold Class certification—a top international standard. “We are very committed, and not just to the technicians, but in the back office, too. Our staff have the tools to complete the repairs at the international standards,” Sidhu explained. “Not only that, with the vehicles becoming more complicated nowadays, and technology advancing every single day, we encourage our staff to use all the available data to identify the issues and take the corrective measures and actions accordingly.”
