Kizer adds capacity for big-rig repairs

TONY BROWN/DAILY FORUM
Dan Kizer stands inside the service bay of what will soon be the new home of Kizer Collision Repair and Heavy Towing. The 7,000-square-foot shop will nearly double the size of Kizer’s existing operation, which is being torn down to make room for planned expansion of the Tri-State Ford Lincoln car dealership.

While the expansion of the Tri-State Ford Lincoln has been attracting a lot of attention around town, big changes are also in store for the dealership’s next-door neighbor, Kizer Collision Repair and Heavy Towing.

Owner Dan Kizer talked to the Daily Forum last week about plans to move his business this spring from its current leased location at 2117 S. Main — a building that will be torn down as part of the Tri-State expansion — to new quarters currently under construction at 311 E. South Hills Drive, just a few hundred yards to the southeast.

Now entering its fifth year of operation, Kizer has created a special niche among local towing and body shop operations by specializing in large trucks, buses and commercial vehicles, though the business services pickup trucks and automobiles as well.

“If it will hold still, we’ll paint it,” Kizer said.

Kizer said he’s had a couple of opportunities to buy his current body shop, but couldn’t solve a fiscal equation consisting of purchase price, productivity and available space.

“I just couldn’t justify doing it,” he said. “There was no way the numbers would figure.”

Then, after Tri-State President Todd Hill decided to buy the property, Kizer realized he was being handed a prime opportunity to grow his business.

Moving the short distance to South Hills Drive means Kizer Collision will soon occupy a brand-new facility and nearly its workspace from 3,600 to 7,000 square feet.

“We’ll have a lot more room,” Kizer said, “and when you have more room you can be more productive.”

One thing that makes the auto body repair business unique, Kizer said, is the significant amount of downtime caused by the lag between ordering and receiving parts.

That means technicians go as far as they can on one job then move on before returning to complete projects started earlier. More space means that instead of maxing out with four of five jobs in the shop, Kizer and his crew should be able to handle seven or eight vehicles at a time, thus increasing efficiency.

“You can expand your pipeline,” he said. “The potential is there to double our volume.”

If all goes as planned, Kizer said he hopes to add a third full-time body technician, which would bring his total payroll to five people, including two part-time wrecker drivers.

In addition to creating efficiencies of scale, the new shop will offer a more orderly environment for customers and easier access — minus heavy Main Street traffic — for the big vehicles that are often hauled onto the Kizer lot.

“I knew the land was available,” Kizer said, “and after five years here, I didn’t want to be on gravel anymore. I don’t know how much gravel I’ve had to dump out there (in the parking lot) just to keep it from turning into mud. Now we’ll have a paved lot and just a much cleaner operation.”

Other improvements over the current facility will include interior fire suppression and clean-air systems, a semidetached office, a more thoroughly segregated paint booth, 95-percent efficient floor-based heating and an advanced fluorescent lighting system.

“I think we’ll be able to give better service to our customers,” Kizer said. “I want to maintain the quality of service we have now, if not get better. With the improved cleanliness and organization it should just be a lot better operation.”

Kizer said he sees the move and expansion as a natural extension of his “life’s dream” of working on trucks and other large vehicles.

“I fell in love with trucks working at Gray’s (Truck Stop & Restaurant north of Maryville),” he said. “And I’ve liked doing body work from the get-go. Also, I always wanted a big wrecker.”

Kizer can certainly check that “big wrecker” goal off the list. His gigantic “Blue Mule” machine is a familiar site in Nodaway County when mischance overtakes an 18-wheeler, bus or gooseneck rig. In addition to the “Mule,” the Kizer shop also operates a large rollback wrecker named “Donkey” and a custom trailer-towed skid steer used for retrieving vehicles wrecked or stalled in rugged, hard-to-reach locations.

Deciding to steer the wrecker end of the business toward trucks has proved a sound decision, Kizer said. Though body repair and painting generates most of the shop’s income, vehicle retrieval is of growing importance to the bottom line.

“More people are using us for the big wrecker,” he said. “Every year it generates more business.”

After graduating from Maryville High School and the auto body repair program at Northwest Technical School, Kizer honed his skills in St. Joseph and then for several years as a technician at Walker Auto Body in Maryville.

“Finally I just got to where I wanted to be on my own,” Kizer said. “It’s something that’s kind of in my blood. They say that once trucks are in your blood you can’t beat it out.”