Forty years of working towards the perfect fit

SEELEY LAKE – After 40 years of body work, owner of Seeley Lake Auto Body Randy Reinitz sold his shop and retired. He built his reputation on customer satisfaction using his artistic ability to repair and restore vehicles, offering compassion for his customers, building relationships with insurance adjusters and maintaining a level of professionalism and honesty in his work. In retirement, he and his wife Carol Ann are looking forward to more free time and working on their property north of Seeley Lake.

Randy started doing body work when he was 20 years old. He lived in Buffalo, Minnesota and worked part time for a body shop as a sander.

"I didn't want to go to college, I didn't know what I wanted to do," Randy said. "I basically worked my way up. It was something I could do."

Randy worked at the first company for three years before he was laid off. He ran his own shop at home for a couple months before another shop in Albertville, Minnesota hired him. He worked there for 17 years.

Randy took a lot of I-CAR classes to become certified to work on insurance claims for collision repair. In one of his first classes the instructor told the class that eventually manufacturers want the customer to buy the car from the dealership, return to the dealership for all service needs and then trade it in and get a new one from the dealership.

"They want complete control over the vehicle," Randy said. "I've seen that with the progression of time with computers and stuff they are installing [with seven -10 computers per vehicle]. A lot of these computers aren't really necessary...it all comes down to control."

Randy and his wife Carol Ann married at Morrell Falls in 1997. They returned to the area in the fall and purchased 33-acres east of Seeley Lake. As his working environment in Minnesota continued to deteriorate, they decided to relocate.

"I'd had enough. When you go to work every day and you are going to have to do battle it was time to leave," Randy said.

They came to Seeley Lake in the spring of 1998 to look for a shop so Randy could start his own auto body shop. While they focused their interest along Highway 83, they found a shop on Larch Lane and made an offer. They were finally were able to purchase it. They did not realize that it was not for sale before they placed an offer on it.

It took only three days to sell their home in Minnesota getting $10,000 more than expected. They loaded up a Ryder truck with their two, 100-pound Chesapeake dogs and household items. Carol Ann drove a van with a two-wheel trailer behind. The three-day journey turned out to be very challenging with the trailer breaking and the van stalling near Deer Lodge along with many other bumps in the road. However Carol Ann remembered seeing signs that said "Trust Jesus." Even though they had driven the route before, she did not remember seeing them before.

"The way everything happened [we knew] we are supposed to be here," Carol Ann said.

Randy added that they are Christians and they realized that everything was happening in God's timing.

"It's all God's hands, I don't take credit for any of it," Randy said.

When they arrived in Seeley Lake Aug. 31, 1998. While they were moving in, their children told Randy someone was looking for them. He found that curious since they didn't know any one in town other than their realtor.

Randy walked out and met John Miller. John knew they were opening a body shop because his sister Cheryl Lewis and husband Gary sold them the property. He told Randy he had a 1964 Chevy Truck he was interested in restoring.

"He got us started," Carol Ann said.

While he was working on the 1964 Chevy, Randy finished the interior of the shop. Carol Ann worked as a nurse's aide doing in-home care.

John introduced Randy to the community and he built his customer base through word of mouth. He often traded and bartered body work with other professionals that helped him do work on his shop. He added onto the shop three times in more than 20 years.

"I'm not afraid to ask," Randy said.

Randy said insurance claims are the bread and butter of the body shop. He built relationships with the insurance adjusters and fixed collisions on everything from horses and cows to deer and elk.

"You wouldn't realize that hitting an animal would damage so much in a vehicle," Carol Ann said. "It is not just what you can see and there is hair in places you wouldn't believe."

The most challenging job Randy did was fixing a Ford Econoline Van that hit a horse. He had to replace everything back into the dash. Every panel in the van was purchased individually and then he had to fabricate it.

Randy has seen a lot of advancement in paint technology in his career. When he started, they were using lacer.

"That is about the oldest technology there is when it comes to painting a car," Randy said.

Randy went from using lacer to acrylic enamel and then spraying base coat/clear coat. He set up his own paint mixing bank a couple years after he opened in Seeley Lake. He learned the best way to match colors was by sourcing the manufacturer of the color since paint manufacturers use their own metallics, the metal flakes that float in the resin with pigment.

"He is a perfectionist," Carol Ann said. "He's good with the colors."

In addition to the paint technology, Randy said there has also been a big shift working with insurance adjusters.

"I built relationships with the adjusters out of Missoula or whatever," Randy said.

Now that everyone has a smart phone, clients can take photos with their phones and send them in to the insurance company.

"That is not always accurate and eliminated many of the adjusters," Randy said adding that now this is highly impersonal.

Randy said now insurance companies will often only pay for after-market parts instead of genuine parts from the factory.

"That vehicle didn't come with after-market parts," Randy said. "I've had enough. I've been doing it for 40 years. I've come to a point that I'm done."

"He wanted to do what was right," Carol Ann said.

While Randy did a lot of collision repair, restorations were his favorite. A few of Randy's favorite restorations have been a Plymouth Barracuda, a 1972 Pantera and the Seeley Lake Fire Department's first fire engine, a 1929 GMC.

"When you get done you have something to look at," Randy said.

Over the years he had several employees, employing up to five at one time. However controlling the quality of work and cost to have employees got to be too much. Randy eventually worked by himself. His family helped where needed. He had thought that one of their four children could take over the shop. After all the changes in the industry, Randy said he doesn't want his kids working with vehicles "because I'm seeing where this is going. I'm seeing over the progression of time how right that instructor was."

Carol Ann added that for being "the body man," Randy was always more concerned about his family's safety than the vehicle. His first question if they were in an accident was, "Are you ok?"

"Vehicles are replaceable," Randy said.

Randy is enjoying retirement after they sold their property this spring.

"I'm just enjoying being home, not answering the phone or talking to adjusters," Randy said. "It's all in God's hands, he saw us through this. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, trust in the Lord and He will make your paths straight."