Dallas-based Service King Collision Repair Centers says it plans to take on a national expansion effort led by new president Cathy Bonner. The company told the Dallas Morning News that the expansion could double revenue over the next five years.
The collision repair chain, founded in 1976 by company chairman Eddie Lennox as a three-bay building in West Dallas, recently opened seven shops in Houston. After some showed strong profits after only three months, Lennox considered expanding beyond Texas, according to the newspaper.
Most of Service King’s 31 shops and 1,000 employees are in the Dallas area. The privately held company, which has a 20 percent market share in the area, expects to repair about 70,000 vehicles and earn $150 million in revenue this year, according to the newspaper.
"We were able to experiment with a lot of things in Houston that might work for us nationally," Lennox, 57, told the Dallas Morning News.
Bonner, who is Lennox’s sister-in-law, has no experience with auto repair but knows Service King’s culture. She will primarily be responsible for creating a strategic growth plan for Service King, determining which markets the company should enter and overseeing that plan, the newspaper reported.
"This relates to growth and getting someone who can help us achieve it – and not ex-technicians like myself," Lennox said, expressing his belief that planning a major expansion requires knowledge that he and his managers don’t have.
Bonner served as executive director of the Texas Department of Commerce from 1991 to 1994, founded The Women’s Museum in Dallas, and has started and managed three marketing and communications firms, according to the newspaper.
"Eddie approached me and convinced me I don’t need to know how to fix a car," said Bonner, 60, a finalist in 2007 for The Dallas Morning News’ "Texan of the Year" award for her work to pass legislation creating the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas. "I just get to build on their success."
Bonner says she plans to have a growth strategy completed by the first of the year.
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Read the full article from the Dallas Morning News
