By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
Two men who hail originally from eastern Europe have come to Mesquite to go into business together. Darko Roskar, of Slovenia, and Dario Slukan, of Croatia, recently purchased the A.C.T. Auto Care and Collision shop at 546 Commerce Circle and are already doing a brisk business there and seeing rapid growth.
Though the two men come from neighboring countries in the Balkans, they didn’t actually meet until they had both immigrated to Calgary, Canada several years ago.
Dario has been working as an auto body technician and auto mechanic since he was about 13 years old. Darko was experienced in the business and management side of things. Both came to Canada separately to find new opportunities in their industry.
Darko was working as a manager in a large body shop operation in Calgary. Dario came in 2016 seeking a job there as a technician.
“I hired him right away and I never regretted it,” Darko said in an interview last week. “It was the best hire of my life, really!”
“We have been unseparated ever since – both as friends and as business partners,” Dario added.
Later, another friend purchased an existing shop that had reportedly been run rather inefficiently. He invited the Darko and Dario to join him in trying to turn the shop around.
“It was a bad shop and we built it up to the level that it was very good,” Darko said.
“It became a ‘high society shop’,” Dario agreed. “In less than one year we built it from $100,000 per month up to a $400,000 per month business.”
Both men said that the secret to this success was in organizing the workflow of the shop, training the technicians well, focusing on quality of work at an efficient turnaround time, and always treating the customers right. The two men plan to replicate that same model here at A.C.T. Auto Care and Collision shop.
“Quality and customer service is vitally important in this business,” Darko said. “You have to be polite to people, explain to them what you are doing, and then, of course, you need well-trained technicians who do the job right. Quality is on the very top for us!”
Eventually the two men cast their eyes toward purchasing a business in the United States. Darko said that he and his wife had taken trips to visit Las Vegas in the past and they had loved the southern Nevada climate. They never had made their way up to Mesquite on any of those visits, though.
“We were always dreaming to live in someplace hot,” Darko said. “At least, we wanted someplace warmer than Calgary.”
They started to search for auto body and mechanic shops for sale in the U.S. But most of the businesses in the cities where they were looking were priced out of their range.
“One day my wife went on a website and she found this shop, can you believe it?” Darko said.
It was in their price range and they were both interested in it.
As it turned out, Darko and his wife had just booked a trip to Las Vegas last summer. It was just within a few weeks of finding the local shop. So they made plans to travel up to Mesquite and take a look.
“The first time we came to Mesquite, we fell in love with the place,” Darko said. “Everything is close and convenient, people are polite and nice, and almost every day is a sunny day. It was perfect.”
They met with previous owner Keith Browning and opened a negotiation process. By November, the men had taken over operations of the shop.
“When we took company over, we didn’t change anything,” Darko said. “We kept all the employees in place. We have a very good staff that was working well. So we kept it the same.”
The business employs a total of 10 people.
Darko began immediately to build relationships with insurance brokers in town. The body shop works well with most insurance plans including Shelter Insurance, Progressive, State Farm, Farmers and others.
They have also worked on making the repair process more convenient for the customer. They offer transportation to customers: dropping them back home and picking them up after the repairs are complete.
They will also come and pick up the vehicle and bring it to the shop for repairs. Then they return it back to the home of the customer when it is complete.
“The customer doesn’t even have to come to the shop to get the repairs done,” Darko said.
Finally, the shop even offers a courtesy car for people to drive while their vehicle is getting body work done.
In addition to full auto body and collision repair services, A.C.T. offers full mechanic services as well. This includes tires, brakes, suspension, four-wheel alignment, electrical, heating and cooling systems, engine and transmission, AC repair, engine maintenance and more.
“We are a full service shop,” said Dario. “And we offer a lifetime warranty on our work to our customers, for as long as they own the vehicle.”
For more information or to set up an appointment, call A.C.T. Auto Care and Collision Center at 702-346-1917.
