McKenna, Wash.--Konni Norbeck acknowledges that launching her new collision repair business about sixteen months ago has not been without its headaches.There was the morning, for example, that she said she learned that some of the building supplies going into the new 13,500-square-foot shop she was having built had been stolen from the site.
There was the fact that the contractor didn't finish the building until spring of 2006 when Norbeck said she'd hoped to open the preceding fall, heading into the traditionally busiest time of year in the industry rather than just before the summer slowdown.
And it doesn't help a fledgling business when your location is on streets too new to show up on "Mapquest" or "Google Maps," or that your company name gets listed in the "white pages" with an incorrect city–and left out of the "yellow pages" entirely, she said.
"And I'd gotten such a great phone number," Norbeck said, handing out her County Line Collision business card with its 360-400-8000 phone number.
But despite those setbacks, Norbeck is clearly still excited and optimistic about the new venture.
"The start-up year is challenging, but I still have that unconditional passion to just keep on trying," she said. "I can't help myself."
Norbeck said her career in the industry began when she took an office position at a shop in Lacey.
"I took that job because it was three minutes from my son's school, and I thought I could do anything for a little while," she said, laughing.
That "little while" turned into 18 years, and by the time Norbeck left, she said she had become general manager of the 24,000-square-foot facility, essentially running the business for absentee owners.
In recent years, as she began looking for a business to buy, she said she met someone with a parcel of land about 17 miles east of Lacey near the Fort Lewis Military Reservation. She said she recognized it as a good location: the 30,000 people a day who drive by on the highway about a block away can see it; it is near the post office in an area with no rural mail delivery; and it is one of very few sites in the area zoned correctly for a body shop.
So Norbeck said she decided to build the business literally from the ground up, working with a body technician, a painter, and an estimator that she knew from various shops to design the new facility; they would eventually be among the first of her current seven employees.
"It's a little different, a drive-through concept," Norbeck said of the production area. "We thought it would work well."Overhead doors allow vehicles to enter the shop from three directions and from there move straight ahead through the metal department and right into the paint department. Every stall in the body department has an in-floor lift and access to the in-floor Wedge Clamp anchoring and pulling system.
"Then we have a larger, Kansas Jack frame rack with the Tru-Point Sonic measuring system and a larger Global (Finishing Solutions) paint booth," Norbeck said. "I bought a booth that is a few feet longer because out here in more of a rural area you have a lot of big trucks. Then I have a (Global) double prep station so we can put big trucks diagonally in it."
In addition to six covered parking spaces out front, the shop has a two-bay inspection area with a two-post Forward lift.
Norbeck said Wesco Autobody Supply was particularly helpful in getting the new facility ready to go.
The equipment part went so smoothly, with them helping me decide and get things done," she said, adding that she is particularly pleased with the shop's Kaeser compressor.
"It is so quiet," she said. "Others you have to build a house for because they are so loud. But I just love this thing, and Wesco helped me find the right place to get it at such a good deal."
Norbeck said her estimator and Shop Manager Gerold Trusty was the parts manager at another shop and has helped her develop great relationships with Tacoma-area dealers including Titus-Will Toyota, Parkland Chevrolet, and Mallon Ford.
Norbeck said she has taken several approaches to getting work to the door despite the problems with the phone directory. She was able to secure a couple of insurer direct repair agreements almost immediately, she said, the one with USAA being particularly helpful given the military presence in the area. She added that she has been active with the local chamber of commerce, has gotten signage on the main highway pointing toward the shop, and advertises in the local weekly newspaper.
Norbeck also sees the Wal-Mart opening this summer just a mile from the shop as a potential boon.
"Already when I drive by it on my way to work: rear-enders," she said, smiling.
"Culture" and "comfort" are two words Norbeck uses frequently. For customers, for example, the shop's immaculate reception area includes leather furniture, kids toys and even a small kitchen with a refrigerator stocked with soda and water.
Similarly, the employee "lunchroom" on the second floor above the shop's offices is almost a small apartment, complete with a full kitchen, a couch, and a bathroom with showers. Norbeck said she also hosts a barbecue lunch for employees every Friday.
Because most of her employees had worked with her at some point, they arrive almost "like family" and already "knowing my rules and kind of how our organization will do things," she said of developing the "County Line Collision culture.""We have a code of honor between us," she said. "The code of honor is really to stick together and help one another and keep away from backstabbing. So far we have been able to do that, and that will be one of my challenges as we grow, to keep that culture I want. And I think in the long term I want my guys to buy the business."
But in the meantime, she said she is enjoying overseeing the start-up business.
"It's been a little bit of a hardship having to spread myself pretty thin," Norbeck said. "But I tell you what, it's still been fun. It is rewarding."
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