Q&A – LIFTING THE STANDARD

When a young Koos Reineking entered his first bodyshop in Delfzijl, Holland, he certainly never anticipated he’d one day be an integral figure to the trade—let alone across the ocean in Canada.

Koos has held a bevy of roles in the industry, starting as a technician and transitioning to businessowner before making the jump to AkzoNobel’s corporate office. Now the performance manager for Lift Auto Group, founded alongside his son, Mark Reineking, Koos has altered the industry in more ways than he could have ever dreamed.

Koos and Mark sat down with Collision Repair to delve into Koos’ impressive industry history and discuss the future of Lift Auto Group in Canada’s ever-changing automotive landscape.

Collision Repair: Koos, how did you first become introduced to the automotive realm and a career in the field?

Koos Reineking: When I was 17, my mother thought I would become a schoolteacher. Personally, I could never imagine myself in a classroom for the rest of my life!

Thankfully, my older brother, Ton, took me to the bodyshop he worked at in Delfzijl—a town in Northern Holland, about a half-hour drive from our hometown, Bedum. It was called H.E. Buist. Ton mentored me in the trade, and within a few years I was painting completes. The shop evolved quickly and by 1974, I was painting in a beautiful Italian downdraft paint booth with two-stage paint. Then I met Clari—a Canadian girl whose parents had emigrated to Calgary, Alberta from Bedum in 1955. I decided to follow her to Canada in 1974 and began working at Northland VW in Calgary.

My English was quite limited at first. I thought it was an antiquated shop, even though it was touted as a new VW dealership. But the shift to painting in a crossflow booth without heat and using “packaged VW paint”—it was a real challenge.

Not to mention the stereotypes around the collision repair industry in Canada drove me crazy! It’s certainly not what I was used to in Europe. I would phone my brother Ton in Holland—a half hour phone call was $100.00 and with wages of $5.00 an hour, it was very expensive—and we talked about opportunity.

CR: That must have been quite the transition, going from a high-tech shop in Europe to a more traditional facility in Canada. How did you move forward in such a position?

KR: In 1977, I went through a lot of difficult life changes and simultaneously getting very frustrated with the trade. My wife and I decided to go back to The Netherlands, and I asked myself, “what next?”

When I discussed it with Ton, he said that it would be a shame to give up on the industry. So, through his connections with his Sikkens rep, had made an appointment at the Sikkens Plant.

We expected a tour and some coffee—which we did get—but we also ended up at the export department manager’s desk, who suggested that I could become a technical rep in Canada, and I should find a distributor. We went back to Canada, excited but unsure where to start, we did look for a distributor in Surrey, BC, who had some initial contact with Sikkens. But we were not able to connect.

This is when my brother-in-law, Al Gotlieb, an oil executive suggested to start as a body shop, in order to build a business with the goal of importing Sikkens and being able to demonstrate it.

This is how Reineking Paint & Auto started in Northeast Calgary. My wife was pregnant of our first child, and we both quit on the same day to start our new venture. I phoned Ton excitedly and he and his wife also emigrated to Canada and joined me at the shop a year later.

CR: Where did you begin with Reineking Paint & Auto? What were the first aspects you narrowed in on?

KR: One of the first things we did, was to find a good booth, and with the help of a local paint rep, made an appointment at the Devilbiss Factory in Barrie. We had to go to Toronto to meet with the Sikkens export manager to go over all the details about importing Sikkens, so we were close enough to visit Barrie.

Interesting side note, there was a small Sikkens distributor in Toronto, called Dutch Coatings, and he had four customers: and we visited them all. One was Ralph D’Alessandro from 427 Auto Collision, a small shop, at the time! Ralph was the very first Sikkens customer in North America, which we celebrated a few years ago. At Devilbiss I tried to explain what we were looking for, and they mentioned that they had only used downdraft technology for the OEM manufacturer, not for the Bodyshop. They also warned me about the cost, and the difficult return on investment, I mentioned that I was not too sure what that meant, I just needed a good booth.

So, they built their first prototype downdraft booth, which later became the Concept and the Concept Cure. The booth and air make up unit was $20,000.00 not installed, by the time we did the pit and roof work, ductwork, it was more than $40,000.00 in 1978!

We grew fast, mostly repairing European cars, and by 1984 we did almost a million in sales with a $33.00 door rate. One of my proudest moments was when the president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada called, and asked what we were trying to do, change the industry? And I responded, yes very much so, this is a professional industry, and we need to get paid for what we do!

Our real business was of course to import and distribute Sikkens, so in 1985 our bodyshop became our training center and we focused on growing the market with Sikkens. We ended up opening Reineking Paint branches in Calgary, Edmonton, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Saskatoon, and Regina.

We had an incredible team of people, with a lot of unique talents, people like Fernand van Poeteren our Sales Manager, Dave Smith, our technical manager, Bill Jaster our allied sales Manager, our store managers Ron Schurink, Dirk Velthuizen, Randy Sarchuck, Scott Heffley, Larry Ubels. Bill Jaster our allied sales Manager, Bernard van Wieren, our accountant and so many amazing people.