Ramirez worked at the shop before he bought the company from its second owner in 1979, a process so informal that he laughs about it now.

"He gave me the keys to the shop and took me to the bank, and took his name off the checking account and put mine on," Ramirez said. "I asked him, 'What about the money already in the account?' He said, 'Don't worry about it.' 'What about the jobs in progress?' 'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'How much down payment do you want?' 'Zero.' 'How much a month?' 'Pay me later when you have the money.'

"That was it. Simple. No attorneys. He'd stop by every few months to see if I had some money saved up to pay him, and after about a year, I started making monthly payments until I had the $30,000 paid off, no interest."

Ramirez said he subsequently moved the business several times, settling in 1997 in two buildings, separated by an alley, that give the shop about 20,000 square feet. He said he also operates a towing business at a nearby facility, which came with the purchase of the building and now includes contracts with several law enforcement agencies.

Dan McCullough is the manager of Johnnie's collision repair business He said he joined the company about a year ago after more than a dozen years as an insurance claims appraiser.

"I see now how much money gets lost by body shops because of what insurance won't pay," McCullough said. "For example, color sand and buff. It's something that's got to be done. But some companies won't pay for it. So being on this side now, I see all those areas where the shop is actually doing things that they're not getting paid for and losing money."

McCullough said the shop participates in Mercury Insurance Co.'s direct repair program and is on a shop list for another insurer that doesn't have a direct repair program but sells some policies that require insureds to use a "preferred provider."

"We're currently trying to establish one more direct repair contract," McCullough said. "We'd like to have two, and then the rest of our business is walk-ins. That's where we're comfortable."

To drive that walk-in business, the shop has done some radio advertising in the past year but is switching to print advertising, McCullough said, adding that a new Web site for the shop is also in the works.

"We just purchased a new management system, Mitchell's ABS Enterprise, and it will be linked to the Web site so that customers will be able to check on their vehicles and get progress reports that way," he said.

Johnnie's has 11 employees at its collision repair facility, and McCullough said he's quickly learned that keeping good employees requires keeping them busy with steady work coming in the door and also creating the right work environment.

"We try to make it as stress-free as possible," he said. "We like to get things done but also keep it kind of laid-back as long as everything is getting done."

 The shop's production area is amply equipped to ensure that technicians aren't waiting for a piece of equipment to be available, McCullough said. The body department, for example, has five in-ground Car-O-Liner frame racks, and the shop's painters, who shoot DuPont Chroma System, have access to two paint booths, he said.

"FinishMaster does our paint supply and is very good about getting us whatever we need," McCullough said when asked if any of the shop's vendors stand out. "If we need something in an emergency, they'll get a delivery guy over here right away."

He has similar praise for one of the shop's parts vendors, Winter Ford.

"If we have a problem, maybe there's a small clip or just something we can't figure out or a part that's not in the system, their wholesale coordinator comes right out, checks into it, locates what we need, and gets it out here as quickly as possible, sometimes bringing it out personally," he said.

McCullough said that once the company has another DRP onboard, it plans to remodel the front office. It currently has a nice area for customers, including comfortable leather furniture and a large cooler stocked with soda and bottled water.

"But we're going to remodel the space to give each estimator a cubicle, so they can bring the customer to their desk and get the customer more involved so they have a better understanding of the process," McCullough said.

For his part, Ramirez said he hopes to eventually turn over the reins of the company to what would be its fourth owner: his daughter, Desiree Ramirez. Now in her mid-30s, she has worked at the shop since she was a teenager and is now the office manager, he said.

"I'm hoping she will be interested in taking over some day," Ramirez said.