Q&A: PPG's Greg DeCamp, Randy Cremeans

Jan. 1, 2020
PPG Industries’ Greg DeCamp and Randy Cremeans talk with ABRN about what is ahead for the company as they work to fulfill their mission and grow in the year ahead.

Working to be the world’s leading coatings provider is no small feat. PPG Industries’ Greg DeCamp, General Manager or Sales & Marketing Refinish for the United States and Canada (USCA) and Randy Cremeans, Director of Marketing, Collision Segment USCA talk with ABRN about what is ahead for the company as they work to fulfill their mission and grow in the year ahead.

How is PPG working to forward its mission of being the world’s leading coatings provider? What is ahead in 2014?

Greg DeCamp

DeCamp:  PPG Industries continues to advance its vision as the world’s leading coatings and specialty products company. Through leadership in innovation, sustainability and color, PPG is helping customers in industrial, transportation, consumer products and construction markets and aftermarkets to enhance more surfaces in more ways than any other company.  With our new products and application expertise, PPG is poised to meet our customers’ most challenging requirements.

Auto refinish has long been a significant, strategic core business for PPG for more than 86 years.  So in 2014, you can expect PPG to remain committed to ensure the long-term success of our refinish partners, distributors and collision shops alike. In the short term, that means continued development of our industry-leading waterborne systems; continued investment in providing fast access to reliable color information, and a continued focus on training to give our customers the knowledge and tools that will help them succeed in a rapidly changing environment.

How is PPG staying ahead of the need to be environmentally friendly and also in compliance with new regulations?

Cremeans: It starts with PPG’s corporate vision and its ethical standards as a company, which are keenly focused on and concerned about the needs of society and the long-term sustainability of our environment. Specifically, PPG Refinish has dedicated resources globally to anticipate and monitor local, regional and national regulations to ensure our research, product and marketing teams are focused and informed on these issues. This includes monitoring environmental trends at the OEM level where PPG takes an active role in coatings development. It also involves staying on top of developments overseas where unfolding regulations there can foretell changes on this side of the ocean. Take waterborne technology as an example. Our history with this technology goes back to the mid-80’s with the introduction of ENVIROBASE® basecoat for use at OEM assembly plants, and, in Europe, as far back as 1992 on the refinish side. So, by the time auto refinish regulations in North America created the need for waterborne, we were well prepared with third generation technology representing more than two decades of global effort in development and refinement.  

Key to our marketing and product plans is ensuring that we have products in development that not only meet regulations, but also add value to our customers’ workflow and overall performance. This commitment contributed to the very successful launch of our ENVIROBASE® High Performance and AQUABASE® Plus waterborne platforms. In North America, we currently have over 9,000 collision centers using our PPG waterborne systems, with over half of them located in National Rule areas and not within areas with stricter compliance regulations. Their choice to make the switch from solvent to waterborne is testament to the technology, performance and color capabilities the PPG waterborne chemistry offers. 

Our proactive approach to environmentally progressive technologies underlies the launch of our new waterborne primers and our current development work on waterborne sealers that we believe will capture the markets’ attention in the near future and further contribute to a better environment inside and outside of the shop.

Tell us about PPG’s focus on ensuring color match solutions for its customers, and why this is so important for shops.

DeCamp: This business is all about color, since color match and finish appearance are integral to a customer's overall satisfaction of their repair. To underscore the point, you typically won't see someone crawling under their car to determine if the unibody repair was done correctly, but more often then not the customer will check out the paint finish. A poor color match can have a huge effect on the overall perception of the shop’s performance.

When a refinish technician sprays our waterborne basecoat and gets an excellent match, it represents a multi-million-dollar yearly investment in PPG’s global color program to ensure that painter gets the color right the first time. A key strength of our program lies in our extensive, worldwide initiative to gather the best intelligence on OEM colors and their variant permutations. We operate seven color labs on five continents and employ a team of experts who keep in direct contact with the OE manufacturers. We even dedicate color auditors to monitor actual vehicle finishes at key manufacturing sites and ports of entry to determine when critical variant formulas are required. The result is a robust color database of more than two million prime and variant formulas – and a world-class variant color chip deck that’s become an indispensable tool for the technician whose mission is to match customer vehicles with consistent accuracy.

Naturally one of PPG’s overriding objectives is providing fast access to up-to-date color formulas. And we accomplish this in a number of unique ways, so a shop can choose an approach that best meets their needs. Our industry-leading PAINTMANAGER® formula retrieval and paint management software works in concert with the inventive RAPIDMATCH software workflow process. When coupled with readings taken from the Rapidmatch X-5 spectrophotometer, it quickly searches and identifies the most likely “blendable” match. We have seen great success with this tool and users especially appreciate that they can easily stay current by downloading formulation updates via the Internet.

We continue to embrace “the web” in a number of ways to provide color tools with anywhere, anytime accessibility. First, PPG’s Online Color service gives access to formulas that are updated daily. And we recently upgraded the capabilities of our COLORMOBILE® formula retrieval application that works beautifully on smartphones and tablets for those on the road or outside the office. 

Our relatively new online Paint It tool provides a fast way to assist shops when the vehicle color and associated codes are unknown. For example, it’s tough sometimes to identify the correct wheel or trim information to complete the repair. The endless search capabilities of this Paint It tool makes it easy to correctly identify all necessary formulas for the repair.

What can PPG’s Platinum Distributor network members offer to collision shops and what is the program’s reach?

DeCamp: As we all know, success in our industry occurs when the customer’s vehicle is professionally repaired to its pre-accident condition in a timely manner. Given that color match and paint throughput are key concerns, PPG's distribution network of over 1,800 locations plays a critical role in helping collision shops improve their KPI’s and achieve that success on a consistent basis. With almost 1,000 service locations, our Platinum Distributor Network is the largest single-line PBE distributor network in the industry, and it offers the inherent advantages of having independent business owners focused solely on servicing and supporting PPG Refinish products. For example, our Platinum Distributors have strongly embraced PPG’s Distributor Technical Representative Certification program that qualifies their tech reps on the basis of a rigorous two-day evaluation of their technical knowledge working with PPG paint systems, color tools and equipment. As a result, PPG collision shops have access to an elite corps of representatives capable of providing the highest caliber of technical support for their paint operation. This program is one of many PPG training initiatives that our Platinum Distributors can take advantage of as we continually look for ways to strengthen an already world-class network.

How has the Convert with Confidence process helped bolster new product introductions and knowledgeable implementation?

Randy Cremeans

Cremeans: Our Convert with Confidence program brought to the market a process for overcoming some of the “fear” that we all have when facing change, whether that be with a technology, process, application or just putting your faith in using something new or unfamiliar. Our goal was to create a program to systematically educate our customers – owners, managers and technicians alike – on everything they need to know about upgrading to this new technology. Then together with the local PPG distributor, we provide each shop with individual guidance along the way as they execute our proven step-by-step methodology for a successful conversion. Our PPG Conversion Planning Guide, for example, provides the shop with an action plan for all the tasks they need to handle, from 30 days out to the actual conversion date. Key to this success is the curriculum available at our 16 training centers across the US and Canada, providing technicians with hands-on application experience as well as the latest information on new products and equipment. This easily accessible training, combined with on-site support on launch date, has been very instrumental in assisting our 9,000-plus shops make a smooth transition to our waterborne systems. We continue to use this same approach with individual product launches that require different applications and technical support. Since our process is well proven, it has made it much easier for us to “convert” new and existing customers to new products and technologies.

About Greg DeCamp
Greg DeCamp is general manager, automotive refinish sales and marketing, United States and Canada, of PPG Industries.

He joined PPG is 1985 as an industrial sales representative for the Delaware, Ohio, automotive refinish plant and then progressed through various sales, marketing and management positions in the industrial coatings, architectural coatings and automotive refinish businesses. In 2006, DeCamp relocated to Australia as managing director, PPG coatings, Australia and New Zealand, and general manager, automotive refinish. He returned to Pittsburgh to assume his current role in 2012.

DeCamp earned a bachelor’s degree in Marketing in 1985 from Indiana University.

About Randy Cremeans
Randy Cremeans is the Director of Marketing, Collision Segment USCA in the Automotive Refinish Division of PPG Industries.

He joined PPG in 2000 and his prior roles in PPG Refinish include Global Director of Product Collision Segment, and Collision Segment Manager, USCA. He is also a member of the PPG Corporate Marketing Leadership Team.

Cremeans earned a bachelor’s degree in  Marketing Management and Marketing Information Systems  in 1986 from Syracuse University.

Sponsored Recommendations

ZEUS+: The Cutting-Edge Diagnostic Solution for Smart, Fast, and Efficient Auto Repairs

The new ZEUS+ simplifies your diagnostic process and guides you through the right repair, avoiding unnecessary steps along the way. It gives you the software coverage, processing...

Diagnostic Pre- and Post-scan Reports are Solid Gold for Profitability

The following article highlights the significance of pre-scans and post-scans, particularly with Snap-on scan tools, showcasing their efficiency in diagnosing issues and preventing...

Unlock Precision and Certainty: TRITON-D10 Webinar Training for Advanced Vehicle Diagnostics

The TRITON-D10 lets you dig deep into the systems of a vehicle and evaluate performance with comparative data, systematically eliminating the unnecessary to provide you with only...

APOLLO-D9: Trustworthy Diagnostics for Precision Repairs

The APOLLO-D9 provides the diagnostic information and resources you need to get the job done. No more hunting through forums or endlessly searching to find the right answers. ...

Voice Your Opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of Vehicle Service Pros, create an account today!