North Plains, Ore.--After 24 years of operating All Terrain Auto Body & Paint out of a leased shop in Beaverton, Kelly Meagher said he realized it was time for a change.
"We had moved our residence out here about seven years ago, and the drive into town every day, the traffic, and the number of shops that were right next to us in Beaverton just got a little too chaotic for us," said Meagher, who moved the business 12 miles to the small community of North Plains three years ago this summer. "A lot of our customers had commented on how difficult it was to get through Beaverton," he said. "It just made us think more and more about making a change. We moved out here and picked up right where we left off. Our first year here was probably as good if not better than before we left."
The change also allowed Meagher to build something besides a customer base: He purchased a vacant lot and erected his own shop rather than continuing to face increasing lease payments every three years at the Beaverton shop.
"It just seemed like the best thing for me was to start from scratch rather than trying to take a building and adapt it to my needs," he said.
The new 4,000-square-foot building, which is immaculately clean and organized throughout, is nearly a clone of the company's former facility in terms of size and layout.
"It just worked out based on the square footage of the lot and as big a building as we could put on it that everything is real familiar," Meagher said. "You don't have to worry about sideswiping a car pulling into the booth or something like that, trying to get used to new things."
Indeed, much of the shop's equipment also made the move to North Plains, including an "older but reliable" Viking paint booth, two Snap-on scissor lifts, and a Duz-More frame rack that Meagher said has proven very versatile.
"It lifts the vehicles three or four feet so you can work underneath it, but it also has overhead capabilities," he said. "The first car we had in after we got it was a Cadillac that needed a cradle and a frame rail. With this, you can pull the engine up, put the car in a jig and take the frame rail out while you're holding the engine up, and there's nothing in your way. So it makes life much easier when you have those types of jobs. You don't have to go to a mechanic to have them pull the motor out; you can just suspend it. And the high holes on the towers mean you're not limited on roof pulls. It's a nice machine."
When it comes to parts suppliers, Meagher said he is particularly loyal to the Tonkin Parts Center.
"They've got no problem running out here a few times a day if they have to, while some other dealers say it's too far," he said.
All Terrain has stuck with the PPG paint brand since opening its doors in 1980, and currently uses PPG's Global line, Meagher said. Like Tonkins, he said, paint jobber APS also provides multiple daily deliveries when necessary.
Meagher said that type of service is particularly appreciated because he recognizes that he is not among those vendors' largest customers. As part of his effort to maintain his quality of life, he said he has chosen to keep the business relatively small, employing only himself, his wife, Jodi, body Technician Roger Burdick, and at times a shop helper.
"I'm real conscientious about providing the type of work I would expect as a customer," Meagher said. "There's just not a whole lot of fat in this business to do things over and over and over until you get it right. So we've really scaled back as far as employees. It's easier to keep control of the quality and the time and the cost. "Fortunately or unfortunately, I have high standards and I really don't want to compromise or experiment," he said. "I guess that's why it's hard to try new people and just hand them a customer's car. My parents taught me that if you're going to the do the job, do it right or don't do it at all. Sometimes when you're entrusting other people to do these things, you either get disappointed or embarrassed. As much as I don't want to necessarily be doing everything myself, I find myself doing a lot of things because finding people even to wash a car is a challenge."
"It's hard to find anybody in the younger generation right now who actually wants to work in a blue-collar field," Jodi Meagher said. "Everyone seems so computer- and technology-oriented. Very few of them want to come in, and once they do, they realize it's a lot more work than they thought it would be."
But the Meaghers said their preference is to avoid the overhead and other concessions that expanding the business significantly--by adding direct repair agreements with insurers, for example--would entail.
"We're still keeping with our beliefs that you can't serve two masters," Kelly Meagher said. "So we don't have agreements with any insurance companies. We pride ourselves on being independent and being kind of an advocate for the customer. Even though we work with insurance companies, we don't want to compromise our quality of work or our ethics to accommodate them."
Instead, the Meaghers said they still rely largely on word-of-mouth marketing.
"We still have customers who come from Kaiser, Lake Oswego, Oregon City, and Vancouver and LaCenter, Wash.," Jodi Meagher said. "They've told Kelly it's like finding a good doctor; once you do, no matter where they move, you always go back."
And the Meaghers said they are getting more involved in the local community, supporting local high school athletic teams, joining the Chamber of Commerce, and helping sponsor the annual "Garlic Festival" in North Plains.
"We may have lost some customers in the move, but others comment on how much nicer it is to get here, plus we've picked up so many customers locally," Kelly Meagher said. "There's not really anybody else right around here that's addressing the need. They're building more houses out here, and that's one of the things we're banking on.
"We wanted to get in on the ground level here and grow with the community," he said. "It feels more neighborly here and more our style. I'm a businessman, but at the same time, we want to have some kind of quality of life and not any more stress than we have to have. And we really like it."
