A Love for Collision Repair
Chuck Dabler grew up in an era with a love for cars, and collision repair. He graduated from OTI with degrees in collision repair and business. In 1967, he started a Volkswagen dealer shop on Lancaster Drive, with the help of the Eyerly family. Rapid growth from the Volkswagen-Porsche-Audi shop necessitated the need to build a state of the art, over 8,000 square foot facility. In 1977, he moved to this current location and Chuck Dabler Auto Body became the family-owned business it is today!
An additional 8,000 square feet was added later, making us one of the largest independently owned auto body facilities in the Salem area. Our reputation of using skilled craftsmen and quality materials has generated word of mouth and return customer satisfaction, and has been our primary advertising medium for many years.
A New Future
Chuck Dabler opened the original body shop in the Eyerly Volkswagen dealership in Salem in 1967. A decade later, he branched out and established Chuck Dabler Auto Body. Over the years, Chuck built a stable base of clientele and a reputation for excellent service. When he retired in 2002, his son Dennis ran the family business and Mike Brockway came on board in 2007 as the head painter for several years.
Brockway briefly left to work as a technical representative for BASF, traveling up and down the coast teaching people how to use the products. During that time, he attended training classes and learned about the benefits of running a body shop using management software. “If you want to be in the top 10 percent of body shops these days, you really have to understand software and how to run a business much the same way an insurance company runs their business,” said Brockway.
Today Dabler Auto Body is the leader in high tech, quality collision repair in not only the Salem, Oregon area, but stretching well beyond into the Portland/Eugene markets.