In just a few months, Massachusetts state representative Dennis Rosa (D.-Leominster) will be coming home to roost. The former city council member and advocate for veteran’s issues will retire from the legislature to spend more time managing the body shop business he founded 41 years ago in a converted chicken coop.
Rosa says that his company, American Auto Body & Repair is thriving, but both his long-time business partner and his shop manager have had health setbacks. Rosa, who served on city council for 20 years before being elected to his first term in the statehouse in 2008, wants to turn his attention to the shop and determine what direction he wants to take the business.
“We started the business from scratch, but we never though we were going to get older,” says Rosa, 69. “We didn’t plan for succession. My partner and my staff gave me the freedom to do all I wanted to do in Boston all these years. I can’t let them down. If I don’t go back, the business could go backward.”
Rosa announced earlier this year that he won’t seek another term. He is a member of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs, and has served on the Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Election Laws, and Community Development and Small Business committees.
Rosa’s interest in government began in high school when he helped start a Good Government club. He served in the Air Force during the Vietnam War and was stationed in the Philippines.
“I saw things I didn’t like when I was in the service, and saw a lot of waste in government,” Rosa says. “When I got back I thought I might like to get involved in government.”
He later worked on several local campaigns before running as an unknown for the state representative seat in 1988. He came in third out of five candidates. He then ran for city council in 1989 and served as councilor at large for 20 years. When the state representative who had beat him in his first campaign announced his retirement, he ran for and won that seat in 2008.
Rosa and his partner started the shop in a converted chicken coop with just a few thousand dollars. It has since grown into a 12,000-square-foot shop with 14 employees and roughly $1.6 million in annual revenue. “We’ve owned the building and everything in it for 15 years, so we have a very healthy bottom line,” Rosa says. “In Massachusetts we have the lowest autobody rates in the United States. It’s very difficult, unless you own the property, to make a profit.”
Rosa says he is putting a plan into place so that he can either grow the business, or eventually sell it.
During his time in the legislature, Rosa (the only body shop owner among the 160 legislators) worked to increase labor rates for collision shops and also helped push for the Right to Repair legislation that eventually became state law.
Heavy lobbying by insurers has stymied movement on labor rates. “I don’t see that bill passing in the next few terms,” Rosa says. “Any time it gets close, the insurers flip the shops 50 cents and then tell the leadership that they’re addressing the issue. Once the leadership backs off, they go back to not giving the shops a raise for a few more years.”
His proudest accomplishments, though, came via his work with veterans. On the Veterans Committee, Rosa worked on the Valor I and Valor II Acts, which established additional support for returning veterans including job assistance, education, and handicapped access support. Thanks to the legislation, veterans with experience as electricians or other specialities in the service can also transfer their licenses for civilian positions without having to jump through administrative hoops or serving additional apprenticeships.
“Massachusetts has some of the best services and benefits for veterans, by far, in the U.S.,” Rosa says. “I’ve helped a lot of veterans over the years, and its’ very gratifying. When we came home from Vietnam, we were treated very poorly.”
Rosa has not ruled out potentially running for office again in the future, but for now is focusing on keeping his shop healthy. The biggest challenges are the low labor rates and preparing for aluminum repairs.
“Aluminum equipment is very expensive, and if you can’t match the labor rate to the expense of making that investment then it’s going to be tough,” Rosa says. “You can spend $300,000 to set up the shop, or you can spend just a few thousand dollars and specialize in smaller dents.”
Finding new employees is also difficult. “When we started in 1975, we’d have two or three trade school kids in here all the time, but then the kids stopped going into the tech programs,” Rosa says. “It’s hard to spend $10,000 on tools when the pay is stagnant. Most of my employees started here when they were teenagers, and now they’re in their 50s. Getting trained technicians is a huge problem for everybody.”
Whether he keeps the business or sells it, Rosa is proud of his work in the industry. “We’ve had some setbacks, but we’ve worked really hard and been fortunate,” he says.
The original 30 ft. by 60 ft. chicken coop, by the way, is still operational. “We just remodeled it,” Rosa says. “There’s a spray booth in there, and we use it for overload.”
