MONTEITH ON A MISSION

William Monteith is bringing Ontario’s Zenetec Collision to new heights

Story by ALLISON ROGERS

William Monteith has spent his days in collision centres since he was a kid, sweeping floors and doing odd cleaning jobs at his father’s collision centre in Barrie, Ontario.

Martin Monteith opened Zenetec Collision Centre in 1992. Today, under William’s leadership, Zenetec owns five collision repair centres, all proudly partnered with the CSN network, two glass and calibration centres and one car wash. The company has acquired three bodyshops in the last three years: a bare-bones shop in Aurora, Ontario; a Keswick, Ontario, facility CSN Norris Smith in 2023, and now CSN Bayview-Steeles, taken over from Manuel der Haroutiounian.

We prefer to explore CSN shops as they are committed to the highest quality, also proud to say my dad was shop number 8 to join CSN over 20 years ago.” said Monteith. “I’ve known Manuel since I was 21 years old,” he added.

“We met in a 20-Group by BASF. I grew up in the business and have learned lots from him.”

Monteith has always been immersed in the autobody trade. His father “hired” him for small sweeping tasks and garbage cleanup when he was young; Monteith says his weekend role was essentially making sure the space was spick-and-span for the crew come Monday morning. Monteith “couldn’t get out of school fast enough” and went straight into the bodyshop when he finished high school. He credits both his father and other industry leaders for helping to shape his management style. “When I was 21 years old, my dad gave me the opportunity to become an appraiser. I wasn’t fond of the paperwork aspect.” “When my dad started taking me to every 20-Group and Coyote Vision Group meeting. He took me to events, and I met people like Manuel, Sam Piercey, Kelvin Campbell, Ken Friesen…”

“In my early twenties, I was sitting with titans of the Canadian sector and listening to their ideas, hearing what they were working on at the leading edge of the industry. That influenced me a lot, on the business side. The, ‘you’re either moving forwards or backwards,’ type mindset; always aiming to be better than what you are today.”

He adds that he’s always had a fascination with big business operations. An avid reader, Monteith applies some ideas to his own practices.

“The idea that a company can deliver a great product with consistency while continually innovating—that inspires me. I’ve always strived to be a company that isn’t driven by me or my concepts but is driven by the culture with in Zenetec to be the standard to beat. Not necessarily the industry standard, but our own internal bar that we’re always working to raise.”

At the core, Zenetec remains a family business, and Monteith always makes sure this shows.

“The relationship that all of us have with our teams is so personal. I believe we really have an advantage as a family business. A lot of growing companies in the collision space are backed by big money, plan to go public or already are public. We have no intention of doing that. I’ve got two boys and a daughter. My dream is to turn Zenetec into a third-generation business, not to sell to the public market.”

Matt Scott, vice president of Zenetec, seconds the “family feel” that the company fosters.

“One of our core values centres around breaking bread, you know, sharing meals together. We call it ‘Monteith Beef ’,” Scott told Collision Repair. “Monteith will bring a big Monteith striploin roast—it’s sort of the classic.”

“Obviously these gatherings are getting larger and larger,” added Scott. “But I guarantee it will remain a pillar for us.” One of the best examples of Zenetec’s family feel comes from Jonathan Garay, who started at the company nearly eight years ago as a co-op student from Georgian College’s School of Automotive Business. He made it 30 minutes into his first day at the company before he received the call that his wife was in labor.

“I was scared, for sure. I didn’t know if they’d want to keep me on after that. So, two days after my daughter was born, I came back to the office.

“Martin asked me how I was, and I told him my daughter was born. He looked at me and said, ‘What are you doing here? Go home, be with your family—your job is safe. I’ve always remembered that, of course.” Now, eight years later, Garay is Zenetec’s vice president of collision.

“All of my classmates seemed to want jobs in corporate, working for OEMs,” said Garay. “I had already worked in corporate…I wanted to join a family business and be part of building a legacy. That was my dream.” In the last three years, Zenetec has added three locations to its collision business.

Garay, Monteith and Scott pointed out how each acquisition has been starkly different from the last. The Aurora, Ontario, location was a former facility with nothing but a paint booth, requiring new equipment and a team of trained staff; the Keswick, Ontario, location had equipment, but a small staff and no processes and a smaller customer base. The most recent acquisition of CSN Bayview-Steeles was fairly turnkey, added Monteith.

Regardless, the team was able to flip all three additional facilities into bustling, brilliant bodyshops.

“We’re never going to grow in a way that jeopardizes our customer service,” said Scott. Zenetec took the reins at CSN Bayview- Steeles on April 1. This marks the company’s deepest venture into the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) thus far.

“We questioned whether we wanted to go that close [to the city]. It’s our first true GTA bodyshop—I mean, we’re northerners by Toronto standards up here in Barrie, [Ontario]. But now we’re excited to be down in the city.” Monteith said Zenetec is hoping to continue its acquisition plans, for “the right opportunities.” “We mesh with shop owners that treat their people like a family. That’s a core value for Zenetec—the ‘team’ process. We were traditional flat-rate for forever and found it to be a difficult process to balance sometimes, in terms of fairness.”

Zenetec transitioned to a team-based process during the pandemic. Production is run as a team; front end is run as a team, and so on. He adds that team-based operations are not a “set it and forget it” program and credits the diligence of Zenetec’s managers and technicians team mind set for always ironing out the details.

“Our managers including all the support staff work hard to adapt as needed. It’s a constantly evolving team. I cannot discredit how much they do to keep things running smoothly.” As for the future, you could say Zenetec is ready to rumble.

“We’re looking for acquisitions where we can seamlessly continue that family-feel type business. You know—single operators looking to take care of their people. We want to continue that legacy of trust and work with like-minded business leaders.”