By Gary Butler
In collision repair, there’s good, better, and best. Then there is Walker’s Collision Repair, 10606 Kingston Pike in Knoxville, Tenn., which is in a class all by itself. Owner Paul Walker has made a virtual crusade of making his 50,000 square-foot shop, as well as his other location in Seymour, a benchmark for other collision repair shops to aspire to. But, as Walker himself would attest to, you don’t have to take his word for it.
“When we got our Honda certification, they flew this gentleman in from somewhere, I don’t remember where, and he said, ‘I want you to know I’ve been in close to 400 body shops in the United States, and I have to tell you this is the nicest body shop I have ever set foot in,’” Walker said.
It doesn’t take more than a cursory examination of Walker’s amazing facility to see why the Honda inspector was so impressed. Walker and his team have pulled out all the stops to make his state-of-the-art shop the “gold standard” among collision repair facilities. Not only is his new facility an I-CAR Gold shop, which Walker points out is an honor bestowed on no more than ten percent of existing body shops in the U.S., and is certified by not only Honda but Ford, Acura, Nissan, GM, Chrysler, and Infinity, but he said it houses the only certified aluminum “clean room” in the State of Tennessee.
“Knox County didn’t have any codes on an aluminum clean room to go by, so they had to hire an outside source from Virginia to come in and certify our room,” he said. “Nobody in Nashville knew how either, there just weren’t any codes on the existing books.
“Aluminum is the wave of the future, so we made sure we were on the cutting edge of that technology,” Walker said. “These new Ford trucks are awesome, they’re built like a race car. They are riveted together and bonded; it’s unbelievable. But because the metallurgy is not what most shops are used to, we knew we had to learn everything we could to know how to deal with it. Aluminum can flash-fire quickly, and contact with steel can cause corrosion and other problems.”
“Learning everything they could” might even be an understatement when it comes to Walker’s training protocols. His new facility includes a spacious training room with a large projection screen where his employees are given both refresher courses and new training on a wide variety of repair techniques.
“All of our technicians, painters, mechanics, even the detail guys, are either I-CAR- or ASE-certified or in training to become certified,” he said. “Not many people are certified to weld aluminum, and we have eight people under this roof who are.”
Walker said that because technology has changed so dramatically in recent years “nothing can be left to chance when it comes to the safety of our customers.
“We have factory spot-welders that restore vehicles back to their actual factory specifications, not just close to factory specs,” he said. “The welders have programs where you type in the model, make, year of the car and whether you are spotting in a door scan, a quarter panel, whatever, the program knows how hot to make those welds.”
Walker freely admits he had to grapple with the learning curve of new technology, too: “Before I had all this fancy equipment, I had to do the best I could, drill holes, use a MIG welder, just like everybody else. I’ve been there.”
“Being there” for Walker meant growing up on a farm and getting his start making basic repairs and doing paint jobs in his grandfather’s barn.
“When other boys I knew were out going to races and doing other fun stuff like that, I would be in the barn, honing my skills,” he said. “By the time I was 18 I had a contract with a couple of major East Tennessee companies. Word had gotten around that I was a good painter, and when I was 23 I started doing insurance work, and the rest is history.”
Like all highly-respected craftsmen, Walker said he soon learned that extensive training had to dovetail with use of the best equipment available. Toward that end, he said he made sure no stone was left unturned to outfit his new shop with the very best of everything.
“We have two Italian-made Blowtherm downdraft paint booths, and intend to install a third,” he said. “The locking mechanisms, motors, heating units in these booths are of such high quality that it makes them basically the Ferrari of paint booths. They tell me that paint booth could sit there and run constantly, day in and day out, for the next 30 years. I gave a little more for them, but if they will last 30 years, I’m all for it.”
Walker also points to the durability and strength of his Car-O-Liner frame machines, manufactured in Holland, which he said you could “take a sledge hammer to, and the hammer would bend before the frame machine.”
Is Walker concerned that all this pricey equipment could cut into his bottom line?
“My wife complains about all this high-tech equipment, saying we don’t make as much money as other shops because of the expense,” he said. “Money doesn’t drive me, though,” he said — well out of earshot of his wife, who handles the financial end of the business. “I take care of the customers, the insurance companies, and the employees, and I know the money will come.”
It doesn’t appear that Walker’s Collision has any reason to worry about solvency or a customer base, though. He said the new shop, open for only six months now, already turns out between 300 and 400 cars a month. With a dogged determination to use the best equipment money can buy, stay abreast of every scrap of information concerning trends in technology, and provide a high-end facility so brightly lit, clean, and attractive that customers may think they’ve wandered into a NASA lab or an operating room at the Mayo Clinic, what makes Walker Collision stand out?
“We hired Studio Four Design to help us create something customers had never seen before in a collision repair shop,” he said. “When customers come in, they are treated to a spacious, luxurious, waiting room where they can look through a glass wall and see the repair area below. And to further make their life easier, on of the top rental car companies has an office under our roof, adjacent to the waiting room. The car rental company told me they had been asked by hundreds of body shops to do this, but they chose us because they were asked to do it by so many direct repair programs.
Although Walker has 40 employees at the Kingston Pike location, he says they are as much like family as they are like employees.
“We treat them and the employees at our Seymour location to lunch once a week via a lunch truck, and we provide a health insurance program second to none,” he said. “And when an employee tells us they have a personal issue to deal with, a sick child, whatever it is, we urge them to go take care of it, no questions asked. And that has paid off in so many different ways,” he said. “For one thing, we basically don’t have a turnover rate. Nobody wants to leave here, and I have a stack of resumes of people who want to work here.
“It also pays off in their willingness to pitch in and do whatever is necessary to get the job done, whether it involves their specialty or not,” said Walker. “For instance, we give all the vehicles a hot water wash before they are disassembled or repaired, but we only have four bays designated for that. If we are short-handed for any reason, painters or mechanics, even one or two of the girls in the front office, will step in and help clean cars.”
Walker said he used to hear about some infighting or resentment among a few body shop owners in his market area, “but I have never witnessed any of that. In fact, we have a very good community of body shops around here,” he said.
Walker made a special point of praising long-time body shop owner and competitor Joe Neubert: “Joe is a great guy, and he paved the way for the rest of us around here.”
Walker said, in fact, that there is no dearth of work for area body shops.
“In 2015, there was $44 million paid out in automotive claims alone in Knox County. There’s enough business for everyone,” he said.
In addition to praising some of his competition, Walker also praised — in a sentiment somewhat atypical of a body shop-owner — the EPA and OSHA.
“When we built this place, I invited both the EPA and OSHA to come here and give me their input,” he said. “I asked what I could do to make sure we met their standards. Turns out, they are here to help. In fact, if anyone is thinking about opening a body shop, I would urge them to call those folks and ask them to come give their input. If you’re not up to snuff, they will help you get there.”
Finally, Walker said that, whatever business one wants to pursue, hard work and perseverance are the only keys to success.
“As long as you’re trying as hard as you can to do the right thing,” he said. “That’s the best advice I got from my grand-daddy. He said ,‘You’ll never get in trouble trying to do the right thing.’ And he said you only get out of something what you put into it.”
Walker’s grand-daddy must have been a pretty smart cookie and a great mentor, because his advice to his grandson has blossomed into one of the most impressive, comprehensive, and respected collision repair shops in the country. •
