Jimmy's Paint & Body Shop: All in the Family

Jan. 1, 2020
Glenda Trawhon almost couldn't convince her parents to let her take over their Baytown, Texas, collision repair shop. But she's happy she did.

Shop owner's second career in collision repair proves good business sense

Glenda Trawhon almost couldn't convince her parents to let her take over their Baytown, Texas, collision repair shop. But she's happy she did.

Since she bought the shop in 1991, she's increased efficiency and more than doubled revenue. She did this by making incremental, strategic changes that had a big impact — including signing on to direct repair programs (DRPs), moving to a new location in a busier part of town and reaching out to the local Mexican community — while maintaining the core business philosophy of honesty and customer service her parents' shop was known for.

The elder Trawhons founded Jimmy's Paint & Body Shop back in 1948. By 1990 they were thinking about retirement, and since none of their four children was in the automotive industry, they decided to sell the shop. "It just so happened that I was in the process of changing jobs and stopped by to visit with my mom for a minute," Trawhon recalls. Spying some paperwork on a desk, "I asked what she was doing, and Mom said she was retiring and selling the business."

It was then Trawhon realized she was emotionally tied to the family venture. In the town of about 50,000 people, Jimmy's was a local landmark. "Just about everybody lived here their whole life and knew Jimmy's Paint & Body Shop," she says. "I just couldn't see them selling it to someone outside the family."

But at first her mom was reluctant to accept the offer because Trawhon had no experience in the collision repair business. "I agreed to manage the shop for one year, and if at the end of the year they felt comfortable with me managing it, they would sell it to me," she says. "If not, they could sell it to someone else." She bought the shop in 1991 and hasn't looked back since — though her siblings might regret not jumping on board with her.

The first few years, as she learned more about the collision repair business and began increasing traffic to the shop, Trawhon added on incrementally to the facility — 3,000 sq. ft. at a time — until finally deciding to move Jimmy's to a more bustling end of town five years ago. "It was ugly and dingy — really it was sad," she says about the old shop. "We had outgrown the facility. It was an old facility, and it was never designed to be a body shop. It was a tractor repair place originally."

The new, five-acre property with its 20,000-sq.-ft., custom-designed shop is on the booming north side of town, only two-and-a-half miles from the original site but worlds apart in terms of visibility and amenities. Open on both sides for cross-ventilation, the well-lit shop floor enjoys a cooling southeasterly breeze. It also has better production flow and enough space to accommodate new high-tech equipment, including a laser frame machine and two downdraft paint booths.

Trawhon says the move was just one way she's demonstrated a willingness to embrace change. "They sold it at the opportune time for them," she says of her parents. Computerized estimating and DRPs were on the horizon before her parents retired, and they were reluctant to change the way they did business. But Trawhon, sensing the industry was on the cusp of radical change, seized the opportunity to bring the business up to speed.

With the new facility and the addition of DRPs — which, she estimates, constitute about 75 percent of business — business boomed. "Our business doubled," she says. "And it doubled not because we changed ... perception. People want to take their nice car to a nice place. It doesn't matter that the same technicians worked at the other place — it didn't look nice, so it didn't attract customers."

Annual revenues also shot up, to $2.7 million from $1.2 million in the old building. "When we first moved here, and so many people came, I kept thinking it was because we were new, but it kept lasting," she says. "I ended up having to hire so many new people."

She hired several new technicians and painters, bringing the number of employees to 17 up from seven. She also hired a bilingual receptionist to cater to the community's growing Spanish-speaking population. "The growth in the community is recent, it so wasn't necessary to have a bilingual speaker two to three years ago, but now it's necessary," she says.

In 2002 Jimmy's Paint & Body Shop won the Baytown Chamber of Commerce Small Business of the Year Award. And for the past five out of six years, it's won the Baytown Sun newspaper's Readers' Choice Award for favorite auto shop.

The only regret Trawhon has is not moving the facility earlier. "I wish I'd done it 10 years ago," she admits. "I probably would be retired by now. Anybody who thinks they're saving money by staying in their old ugly building is missing the boat."

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