Growing up as a child, I remember my father painting vehicles in our garage at night. This happened after working all day at his own body shop. We used to have GTOs lined up in front of our house where he would do lot damage for the local dealerships at night.

Then in the mid 1980’s I would work for my father after school. Eventually it became my full-time job in 1990. This was the family business and it became my career path. After doing just about every job in the shop, I became the lead estimator, and then shop manager. Business was booming. Then in 1995 we started using Sherwin-Williams. Sherwin-Williams ended up being an integral part of our shop; from advice to education about the market, as well as partnerships.

In mid 2002 we began our search for more business to feed my father’s store. During our search we came across a local Chevrolet dealer in San Jose that had recently closed their body shop. We were seeking their customers, and amazingly the dealer welcomed us with open arms. They asked “do you want to see our body shop instead of us sending our customers to you; in fact, why don’t you just move in?” As an added bonus, the shop was still well equipped and their permits were valid. We kept a straight face and walked to the car as calmly as we could. As soon as we got out of the parking lot we give each other a high-five. Both with butterflies in our stomachs and ideas racing through our heads, we couldn’t imagine a better opportunity.

After being settled at the dealership for a while, we opened a new body shop in October of 2002. This new location in Sunnyvale was completely independent from the San Jose shop. My wife joined forces with me in our NEW venture together. Our drive and confidence levels were high, and success was the outcome.

In March of 2010 we moved into our current facility on Evelyn Avenue. This was another existing body shop that closed its doors. We brought all of our accounts over to the new location. 2015 gave us even more growth, almost doubling the amount of cars we were repairing since opening the new location.

In October of 2016, Mike Lanza from Sherwin-Williams came to our shop to do an evaluation of our facility. Mike spent the day with me, taking a bunch of pictures and many notes. All of this was with a promise to help improve our auto body shop. After a short period, he sent me a punch list of things to do. Difficult things like brick-and-mortar updates. Cutting holes, breaking down walls and cutting open doors for efficiency. I followed his roadmap. Mike came back with Sherwin’s experienced team of consultants and spent four days talking to my staff. Changing our processes and helping me connect the dots. After that, we never looked back.

Now we’re proud to serve our customers with the most modern repair processes, state-of-the-art equipment, and attention to quality with safety at the forefront. 

 

Golden West Collision Center encourages applications from talented, positive professionals that want to be part of a winning team! We offer an aggressive pay and benefits plan and are excited to work with motivated body shop experts.