“Veterans make excellent franchise owners and we have many veteran franchisees who have found Maaco to be the perfect post-military career,” said Dave Schaefers, senior vice president of franchise development for Driven Brands. “Veterans understand how to follow a system and have excellent leadership skills, which are a couple of the reasons why we recruit them to be franchise owners. We are happy to be named to this list recognizing our commitment to helping veterans succeed in franchising.”
Maaco currently has 23 veteran franchise owners and one veteran in a senior management position. Maaco provides veterans with a 25 percent discount off its franchise fee through VetFran.
“The steady increase in veteran representation within the overall franchising community over the last several years has been extremely encouraging,” said Rob Bond, founder of the World Franchising Network. “It certainly is clear evidence of the intrinsic values, invaluable experience learned through life's lessons and the exceptional work ethic of our military veterans. Hopefully, this trend will continue so that these fine young men and women can test their skills in franchising."
Maaco has nearly 500 franchised locations across North America and boasts systemwide sales of nearly $500 million, the company said.
Maaco plans to continue to expand its presence in markets across the U.S., and growth projections call for approximately 165 additional new centers to be opened by 2014. Markets targeted for expansion include Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Rochester, NY.
Maaco is owned by Driven Brands, the parent company to six franchised automotive brands. Other Driven Brands companies include Meineke Car Care Centers, Inc. (automotive repair/maintenance), Econo Lube N’ Tune (automotive repair/quick-lube services), Aero Colours (automotive paint repair), AutoQual (vehicle reconditioning, protection and appearance maintenance services) and Drive N Style (aftermarket installation services), as well as Tortal.net, a training company that specializes in developing interactive online training solutions.
