This month we kick off our annual BodyShop Business Magazine Executive of the Year nomination campaign, a ritual to honor dedicated and successful leaders within the collision repair industry. This year marks the 23rd year we’ve honored a shop owner, manager or top executive/principal. As I reflected upon this process and reviewed the names of past winners, I quickly realized what a special award this truly is. So, we decided to up the ante and build the prestige of this industry honor.
This year our winner will receive an all-expenses-paid trip for two to Las Vegas to attend NACE and receive their award. We’ll also pay their registration fee for NACE, house them at the Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, and host them at a special dinner in their honor. As you’ll see on the nomination form on pages 13-14, any collision repair shop owner, manager or top executive/principal is eligible to win. The winner will receive the award and recognition in front of their peers at the Opening Session of NACE.
This recognition and the premise behind it perfectly match our editorial mission here at BodyShop Business, to be the elite business publication serving the collision repair industry. It only makes sense that we would honor a person that best exemplifies true business success within this market. Let’s face it, the business climate today for collision repair shops is more difficult, more demanding and more rigorous than at any time in the past. And new standards of efficiency and effective performance are being raised on an almost weekly, if not daily, basis.
Today’s shop owners and operators are faced with almost insurmountable challenges, and their businesses and operating practices are scrutinized to a degree unmatched by any independent, tax-paying industry I can think of. Finding those who not only succeed but thrive in this type of environment is a necessary task, and recognizing them for the entire industry to see and learn from is inherent upon us as a trade publication serving this market.
But, we can’t do it without input from you, our loyal and trusted readers. Please don’t miss the opportunity to recommend to us the type of people who are worthy of this recognition. When you think of all of the shops that are out there, battling and performing to the best of their ability on a daily basis, you realize that there are many deserving candidates. And, shame on us as an industry if we don’t take the time to find the best of the best and recognize them for their outstanding leadership, the examples they set that we all can learn from.
Many will be nominated, and one will be chosen. But the fact that we, as an industry, took the time to find and recognize a truly deserving recipient will speak more to our well-being and passion for what we do than any individual award could ever encompass. If you don’t take the time to nominate a deserving candidate, then you’ve not only let yourself down, but you’ve also deprived the industry of an opportunity to celebrate the success of one of its own. So take a moment and tell us about someone you know who’s worthy of this recognition. It will do you some good, it will do them some good, and it will do our industry a world of good! We look forward to hearing from you.
