Early adapter

Kansas shop stays ahead of the curve with niche market, technological adaptations

Bill Eveland never set out to be a pioneer, but that's exactly what he has been for most of his three-decade-plus career in the automotive industry. From delving into the foreign car niche with his fledgling repair business to taking the leap with new technology as his business grew, Eveland has always had his eye on the next big thing. His ability to combine foresight with a little good fortune has resulted in a successful shop that has become a kind of model for the collision repair business.

After spending eight years as a teacher at a vocational tech school in the 1970s, Bill Eveland was ready to get back into the shop setting. In 1978, along with his brother Mark, he opened Eveland Brothers Body Shop Inc., in Shawnee Mission, Kan., just outside of Kansas City. During the first few years, the Evelands found themselves focusing more and more on repairing imports. "Once we mastered the domestic cars, and the simple stuff, we began to take on projects, which I would do in my spare time," Eveland recalls. "And then in summers I'd do some restoration and particularly import stuff. Import cars weren't popular then. Most shops didn't like to work on them."

Focusing first on old Jaguars and other British automobiles, Eveland Brothers slowly added makes like Mercedes, BMW and Porsche to its roster—expanding its import customer base. "We moved in that direction because there was a need or a niche there that wasn't being taken care of by the average body shop," Eveland adds.

It was a small, 4,500-sq.-ft. operation with room for the brothers and a detailer. Together, they did all the body work and paint work, wrote estimates and cleaned up the cars. "It was a typical small business—a pretty good learning curve for us obviously," Eveland says. Eventually they took over the other half of their building, increasing the shop's size to 9,000 sq. ft., but a poor layout was hindering the shop.

In 1981 they relocated to an efficiently designed 8,000-sq.-ft. shop, which solved the problem for a while, but they outgrew that within five years. For the third location, Eveland knew he had to do his homework so that the shop would be able to grow with the business for a number of years. So he traveled around the country checking out other shops, comparing those that had built on additions with newly built shops. "It seemed like the add-ons, the retrofits, always had some problems," Eveland concluded.

While the economy stagnated in the late '80s, Eveland held off on breaking ground and instead kept refining his plans. Finally, in 1989, he secured the land that would become the third Eveland Brothers Body Shop. They broke ground in 1991. The waiting game proved helpful in allowing them to focus on optimal design and efficiency. "I tell you, it pays off," Eveland says. "Now there's a lot of help available—consulting groups and such—but at the time there wasn't. At the time you had to figure it out for yourself."

Part of what Eveland figured out was that environmental regulations on the horizon would transform the collision repair business, and he wanted to get there first—with a cutting-edge, environmentally sound building—before the regulators. "We looked at what was going on in California for environment stuff," he says. "We designed the building to meet and exceed those requirements at the time."

He imported efficient downdraft spray booths from Holland, installed a spill curb with holding tanks for hazardous waste and built special traps for waste waster from the car wash. A state-of-the-art exhaust system in the floor captures toxic exhaust fumes. These were "things nobody in our part of the country had at the time," Eveland says, "but we knew it was on the government's slate of things to do."

Another thing he discovered on his research-gathering trips around the country was the need for more space in the paint department. Most shops operated paint shops half the size of the body shop, which often led to bottlenecking. Eveland built his paint shop the same size as his body shop.

The shop remains incredibly efficient, Eveland says, but it's finally reached its highest capacity. In order to bring in more vehicles, he'd need to add a second shift, which would be difficult considering the lack of trained technicians in the area.

"It's interesting what you uncover if you spend time on your research. The more planning you do, the fewer mistakes you make," Eveland says. "That's why this facility has served us so long and hasn't become obsolete even after so long. We tried to look forward and see what was going to be happening downstream five to 10 years."

Over the years Eveland Brothers has looked at happenings in Europe for emerging technologies that would help refine and enhance the repair process in the business. Today Eveland has already dedicated a few stalls to aluminum repair, becoming a Jaguar- and Mercedes-certified repair facility in the process. Still, Eveland didn't set out to be an early adopter. He says there was no grand plan for the shop, just a natural process of evolution. Eveland's talent was just knowing how to adapt his business to keep up with the industry's changing landscape.