Family has strong staying power and this four decade business shows how vital developing the culture is.
There are some workshops where one man makes an indelible imprint and there are others where family is the presiding spirit that runs through the team and the business. Award winning SA business Mount Pleasant Crash Repairs is one of those rare outfits that has both.
Watching over the training room of Mount Pleasant Crash Repairs is the unusual sight of a full-size model of an Italian police officer, resplendent in the nineteenth century uniform of the Carabinieri. The genuine 1940’s uniform was a gift from a costume manager for the film industry who had had his car repaired at the workshop.
It is just one of a range of items, that includes a wooden model ship and indigenous art, that have been given to Tom Campaniello over the years from countless customers, in appreciation of quality work and service. These grateful relationships are indicative of the spirit of service that Tom, his family and team have applied to almost four decades of business in the Adelaide Hills.
The gratitude is generated by an ethos that has been instilled in the business from its beginning.
“I think the advice I would give is this; just do the right thing,” Tom says. “Always make sure the job is right. Look after the customer as if they were family, and then from there it just happens.”
Out of this consistent dedication to quality and service, the business has grown to employ up to 20 people with a word-of-mouth reputation that has its own rewards.
Mount Pleasant may be a small town in the southern Barossa region but Mount Pleasant Crash Repairs’ reputation has spread far wider, extending to the Victorian border and to a point where customers will come up from Adelaide seeking his help.
“When I first came here there was a lot of older people who I did work for,” Tom says.
“And now these guys have passed on and we are doing the work on their grandkids’ cars.
“The last time we saw some of them, they were in nappies but here they are with families of their own. They tell me, ‘I used to come in here as a kid’.
“We fixed their father’s car, their mother’s car or their grandmother’s car and now we are doing their car.
“Because if you do the right thing, the family talks to each other. The kid that’s listening in, it sticks in their mind and when they get older, they say; ‘My grandfather used to get his car fixed at a place up in the Adelaide Hills. We live down in CBD of Adelaide but it doesn’t matter, he did the right thing for my dad, so, I think we’ll give him a go’.
“That happens regularly and over the years you get a much wider client base of people that respect you and want their cars repaired.”
Where it began
Four decades of satisfied customers have spread the word of his business and helped it grow to the dedicated team of today but in some ways, this success belies its humble beginnings.
“I had just got married, and my wife Lucia and I were as poor as church mice,” Tom recalls. “But I was really keen to doing something for myself.
“So, I moved out of the city and in those days, Mount Pleasant was like the outback, even though it was only 48 kms northeast of Adelaide. We found this little place out here. It was only a 25 X 45-foot shed, and away we went from there.
“We had two children at the time and my wife was pregnant with our third, and she would go into Adelaide picking up parts in the Holden station wagon. Heavily pregnant, no air conditioning, no power steering and there she was running around town picking up bits, because we had nobody up here to deliver any parts.
“I would stay behind and continue working. I worked 12-hour days, seven days a week trying to pay for this place,” he says.
“There was a house here, and slowly we did that up. But the beauty of living on site, Lucia would come down when the kids were asleep, and even when they were at school, she’d be down here helping me pull the cars apart and put them back together again.
“We did that for about the first two years together, and eventually we started employing.”
Developing
This difficult start enabled the couple to employ a quality panel beater, leaving Tom to focus on the spray painting. Then as more and more work came into the business, Tom could expand his team and focus on other aspects of development.
Apart from the commitment to quality and service, Tom has also had a progressive and proactive approach to automotive techniques and technology, ensuring his workshop was equipped with the best gear available.
“When customers used to first come down here to get a quote, it was just a tiny tin shed on a block and they would turn around and get out of there. I thought, ‘We can’t have this’. So, I had to change the area and the way it was seen. You see, back then in country South Australia there were no spray booths. No one had ever heard of two pack paints or car benches or chassis straightening equipment, so I went out and bought it.
“We were one of the first in the South Australian country to have a spray booth for two pack paints and the first in South Australian country to have a bench system at a time there were only about six in Adelaide.”
“So slowly we turned that ship around,” he says. “And we could get a job done as well as you could get it done in any city. People learned this and the business just went bang from there. It just went nuts.”
This early approach to being a pioneer in new techniques and technology has been a constant with Mount Pleasant Crash Repairs. Tom has seen some phenomenal changes in those four decades in the industry and he keeps on embracing them as a business. He has also backed this up with continual training of his team with the rigorous and comprehensive training modules of I-CAR Australia.
He says the country location means they see a relatively small number of EVs but that hasn’t stopped them preparing for the future.
“We have already got certification to do this,” Tom says. “As soon as the opportunity came about to do the training, we sent three of our team away to do it. It’s because we know that’s going to happen tomorrow, no matter what. More and more models are coming out as hybrids, you can’t ignore that. You’ve got to go forward and don’t look at life in the rear-view mirror; just keep choosing forward for everybody else’s sake.”
While he understands people embrace change at different speeds, he believes you can recognise the passion in people and you need to both utilise and be inspired by it.
“Going forward, you need to keep embracing what is going on in your business, you’ve got to constantly monitor, look and tweak any issues that you may come across in the business.”
Teamwork
But Tom is also quick to point out that it is the value of his staff that have made the business a success, many of whom are long-standing loyal employees.
“The longest serving staff member we have here is a chap called Brett Stagg and he’s been here about 35 years,” Tom says. “I’ve had guys who have been in the team for 20-plus years as well, but they have since retired. It’s sad to see to somebody like that go, because it was a journey we were all on. These guys got me where I am today. Because it was a journey not just for me but for the whole team of us.”
This team approach extends to his apprentices, of whom the business currently employs three, and giving them the best support and opportunities possible.
But Tom reserves his special praise for his manager Ross Papalia, who has embraced and refined so many areas of the business.
“I think, primarily that you need to have great manager and amazing foreman and leading hands in the workshop,” he says. “If you get that combination right, get those three guys in place and look after them, you’ll find that the rest falls into place, because they actually look after the back end perfectly and the front end even better. “
If there has been a hard part for Tom, it has been allowing Ross a free hand to manage Mount Pleasant more independently. But it’s a step that he has adapted to and reaped the rewards from.
“He and his foreman once bailed me up, about three years ago,” Tom recalls. “And they said to me; ‘Tom, Could you do us one little favour? Could you keep your nose out of the business for a while?’”
At first Tom thought they were crazy but gradually he came around to the idea.
“I sat down with my wife and talked about it. I was almost in tears.
“But we reconvened and I said, ‘I’m going to give you three months, to see if you can do as good or better.’
“And they have. They just knocked it for six and it’s been fantastic.”
This step back has enabled Tom to address one of the few regrets of his career.
“I can do things that I should have done when I was younger, and embrace the family more,” he says.
“I can see my grandchildren more now. I do whatever I can to be at their school grandparent days or other school functions. I also still have a mum and Lucia’s mum is still going, so we visit them and stay with them as much as we can.”
But this hasn’t meant he doesn’t keep a close eye on things, including a fascination with new equipment and tools and taking an active role in promoting the business with an idea of taking it to the next level.
On his long journey, Tom has known the difficult periods of a growing business.
“I think some of the low points are sometimes when work providers change the goal posts and you’ve had to adapt to their way of thinking and it goes against your grain. I find I have come to terms with that and we do.
“A lot of people know that I’ll tell you how it is, but sometimes you’ve got to hold back,” he says.
“But it’s a beautiful industry, it’s a rewarding industry and there’s a lot of heartache that goes with it. Again, without my wife Lucia and Ross and my guys, my son Carmen that helps out the workshop as well, I don’t think I’d still be here. I would have moved on a long time ago.”
Among the many highlights of his long career in collision repair, he says he has a special place for the recognition of his peers and the wider industry.
“I was nominated as large repair shop for South Australia in 2021. And I went to the awards and then I was honoured with the National Repairer Award and that just blew me away.
“I wasn’t expecting that. I was up against some serious contenders, some serious, beautiful shops and great people and all of a sudden, this tiny little shop in the Adelaide Hills cops this great accolade. That was a highpoint.”
Giving back
But he also believes a business that is supported by the community should reciprocate with support and quietly help when it is needed.
“I think you genuinely need to show your enthusiasm to the community and district by working with them, whether it is Lions, or Rotary or Apex or some sort of fundraising club.
“We still support sports communities and Blaze Aid or men’s sheds. You work together with these people, for whatever they are trying to build or purchase. But you don’t need to have your name up in lights, you just help them out.”
If his familial approach to his team and the business has helped him build over these forty years, it is also guided by the same philosophy of service to his community and the customer.
“Somebody comes in here, even with something minor, you make sure it’s safe and it’s drivable until they can get their things together and get their policy through,” he says.
This includes wheel alignments, they have often not charged for to ensure the car is safe.
“Primarily, you make sure they’re okay. Make sure they’re not too inconvenienced and try and make the repair process as seamless as possible.
“That’s what I’ve always done from day one, and I’ve embossed that into everyone here. If the customer comes in and needs something done; check it out and make sure it’s 100 per cent.”