As a young automobile technician in the Minneapolis market, Kent Olson had a dream of opening up shop for himself, as well as being closer to his retiring parents. Settling on Wausau, Wisconsin, as the right location, Olson Tire & Auto Service started in 1987 with only three employees. Over the years, Olson’s has expanded three times, each time adding more employees, more work bays and more buildings.
Beginning as a 7,000-square-foot Goodyear store with six service bays, Olson Tire & Auto Service quickly expanded to eight bays, then 11 with 12,000 square feet of space. Over the years, their sustainable growth plan allowed them to purchase neighboring properties when the price was right. That is when they added a 6,600-square-foot detail facility to their business venture, with two additional bays. Most recently, the addition of a 10,000-square-foot body shop has “The Happy Car Place” servicing cars from start to refinish.
For their new body shop, Olson Tire & Auto Service added a custom Side-Load Finishing System from Global Finishing Solutions (GFS), complete with an Ultra XD Paint Booth, dual-bay Ultra XD CTOF, Aluminum Repair Station and Ultra XD Paint Mix Room. GFS and Chassis Liner Supply collaborated to provide a product with the performance that the customer expected.
“Investing in a Side-Load System has put us in a position to grow our business as fast as we expand,” Olson said. “In other words, we aren’t encumbered by not having enough booth space, or time. The way it’s designed and set up, we should be able to keep up with eight technicians and one painter. We intentionally invested to do so. There should be no reason why we can’t grow this business in the ways we’d expect.”
Olson also invested in two mobile REVO Accelerated Curing Systems units from GFS, the REVO Rapid MC2 and REVO Handheld.
“I was quite impressed with REVO Systems right off the bat,” Olson said. “Seeing it in action at the GFS Center for Excellence training facility made me want that for my shop. My painter can now cure 24-hour panel bonds in 20 minutes. The product they have been able to produce has been phenomenal, and that is what we’re all about.”
When your car experiences a bad day, Olson Tire & Auto Service has you covered. Each visit — whether to the tire center or body shop — ends with a car wash and detail. From the first building, to what will not be their last, this mantra has translated to the exceptional growth and customer satisfaction that will last for years to come.
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Located at GFS’ headquarters in Osseo, Wisconsin, the Center for Excellence is an innovative facility featuring an automotive refinish training center, as well as a separate space dedicated to technical product training.
GFS is continuously searching for talented, ambitious individuals to join our team. We aim to provide our employees with every opportunity to make an impact on the company and find their niche along the way — weather in a production, field services or an office position.
