From 'Humble' beginnings

Jan. 1, 2020
The Dallas business that eventually became Herb's Paint & Body started out in 1956 as a Humble Oil station. Realizing his dreams of entrepreneurship, owner Herb Walne eventually added on an automatic car wash as well as a 10-bay auto shop. When E

Son relies on established partnerships to carry on father's legacy

The Dallas business that eventually became Herb's Paint & Body started out in 1956 as a Humble Oil station. Realizing his dreams of entrepreneurship, owner Herb Walne eventually added on an automatic car wash as well as a 10-bay auto shop. When Exxon took over Humble Oil around 1968, Walne took a detour into collision repair, building a freestanding auto body repair center near a busy interstate in the heart of Texas.

Fast forward nearly 40 years — Herb's Paint & Body has become a mini-empire in the Dallas area, with five collision repair centers and one satellite facility. Taking over the business his father left behind after a brief struggle with lung cancer in 1996 wasn't easy at first, admits Alan Walne, but he had a strong foundation from which he could build the business.

Central to the shop's success are engaged, hands-on part-owners at the wheel of each repair center. Their involvement made things easier when it came time to transition the business to the second generation. "Dad took care of most of the public relations, business relations with insurance companies, and he left the operations to the managing owner," Walne explains. "As long as the operation was running fine, he didn't really have a lot of interaction with the day-to-day running of the business."

The part-owners also have been an important factor in the business's continued growth and success, and Walne attributes this to their strong stake in the company. "There's more than a passive relationship in the business — it's essentially theirs," he says. "There's a little difference when they put the key in the door every day to unlock it because it's actually their business. They're building equity in it each year. You don't really lose management [this way] either. These people are here for the long term.

"It's important that you have people who are like family. When you're taking on a partner it's kind of like a marriage. You want to make sure it's something that's going to work."

Adding on to his father's three successful shops in Dallas, Richardson and Plano over the years, Walne added two additional collision repair centers — one more in Dallas and a fifth in nearby Frisco. The sixth location is a satellite facility north of downtown Dallas, across from Love Field, serving the affluent neighborhoods of Park Cities and Uptown. It was a perfect location because the surrounding neighborhood, a high-per-capita spending area, is experiencing rapid growth, Walne explains. However, building a full collision repair facility there would be difficult because of the high property values. Instead, Walne decided to put in place a drop-off location — local residents can bring in their cars, get an estimate for repair and pick up their cars when they're ready. The repair work itself takes place at the Dallas location on the west side of town.

The Dallas shop hasn't been doing business to its full capacity, Walne says, so this satellite drop-off spot serves as a feeder location for that shop. Its function is to increase the profitability of the other shop. So far it looks poised to fulfill expectations — it's already doing good business with no advertising whatsoever. "Thirty days into the venture they're taking in two to three cars a day and business is really robust," Walne says. "So we're ahead of schedule, quite frankly, at this point."

That's good news considering that the past two years have been difficult for the shop. According to Walne, Dallas has been experiencing an economic downturn since Sept. 11, 2001. He has seen recent improvements, however, and the satellite shop has been a huge boon to business as well. "This new satellite location has made a dramatic impact," he says. "That shows you can't wait for something to happen. You have to go out and make something happen. The Dallas market has an oversaturation of shops. You have to do things differently and be willing to take risks."

But maintaining steady business with increasing profits is only one side of the coin for Walne. Like his father, Walne believes if you take something from the community you have a responsibility to give back. "That's something business has gotten away from somewhat as businesses have gotten bigger and companies have gotten bigger," he says. "We feel that's where there really is a keen responsibility to make sure that happens."

So the shop recently collaborated with the Injury Prevention Center of Greater Dallas and the Citizens for Traffic Safety on a safe driving booklet published this past spring. And each year Herb's Paint & Body sponsors a golf tournament for Mothers Against Drunk Driving. There may not be a huge payoff in terms of advertising, Walne admits, but it may have an even greater value — continuing his father's legacy. "There are givers and takers," he says. "Well, there's no reason you can't be both."

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