Chief Operating Officer - Multi-Location Automotive Repair

PBAS, LLC

is seeking a Chief Operating Officer to lead our automotive repair operations across Tennessee. We are looking for a steady, people-focused leader who enjoys building teams, solving problems, and producing measurable results. The right person wants to win but does not need to dominate the room. They are approachable without avoiding accountability, competitive without creating unnecessary pressure, and organized enough to keep multiple locations moving in the same direction. The COO will oversee our full-service automotive repair, exhaust, preventive maintenance, fleet, and USPS vehicle operations. This person will work directly with shop managers, service advisors, technicians, administrative employees, vendors, fleet customers, and ownership. This is not a desk-only position. The COO must be visible in the shops, understand what employees need to succeed, recognize problems early, and follow through until they are resolved. Primary ResponsibilitiesLeadership and Employee Development Build strong relationships with employees throughout the organization. Coach shop managers to become capable, confident, and accountable leaders. Establish clear performance expectations for managers, service advisors, technicians, and support employees. Conduct regular performance reviews and employee-development conversations. Address attendance, communication, conduct, and performance concerns promptly and professionally. Create a culture of professionalism, teamwork, coachability, accountability, and continuous improvement. Identify high-potential employees and develop future managers and company leaders. Create succession plans so individual locations are not dependent on one person. Recognize strong performance and provide direct, constructive coaching when improvement is needed. Maintain a positive work environment while consistently enforcing company policies and standards. ASE Certification and Technical Training A major priority of this position will be building a structured ASE certification and technical-development program.

The COO will:

Review each technician's current certifications, skills, and training needs. Create individual ASE certification plans with clear goals and timelines. Help employees register for ASE testing and obtain appropriate study materials. Coordinate training courses, testing schedules, reimbursement, and certification renewals. Track certifications, expiration dates, test results, and continuing education. Hold employees accountable for completing agreed-upon certification plans. Recognize and reward technicians who earn certifications and improve their skills. Work toward stronger ASE participation and Blue Seal recognition where appropriate. Create an annual training calendar for technicians, service advisors, managers, and apprentices. Coordinate specialized training for diagnostics, electrical systems, diesel vehicles, exhaust, fleet maintenance, and emerging vehicle technology. Support technical training for Grumman LLVs, Mercedes-Benz Metris vans, RAM ProMasters, and other fleet and USPS vehicles. Build relationships with technical schools and industry training organizations. Multi-Location Shop Operations Oversee daily operations and performance across all PBAS Tennessee locations. Visit locations regularly and remain accessible to managers and employees. Ensure every shop is clean, safe, organized, properly staffed, and prepared for business. Review scheduling, workflow, technician dispatch, bay utilization, parts availability, and vehicle turnaround. Identify bottlenecks and correct them before they affect customers or profitability. Establish consistent operating procedures while recognizing the different customer and vehicle mix at each location. Ensure repairs are completed correctly, documented accurately, and verified before vehicle delivery. Review open repair orders, aging vehicles, delayed parts, outstanding approvals, and unfinished work. Reduce preventable comebacks and identify patterns involving employees, procedures, parts, vendors, or repair types. Ensure managers complete their assigned responsibilities and follow through on company decisions. Lead regular management meetings with clear action items, responsible parties, and deadlines. Develop and maintain written standard operating procedures for essential shop functions. Recruiting, Hiring, and Retention Forecast staffing needs before a location becomes critically understaffed. Write and post accurate, appealing employment advertisements. Recruit technicians, service advisors, managers, apprentices, and support employees. Review applications, conduct interviews, check references, and recommend hiring decisions. Evaluate candidates for technical ability, work habits, communication, leadership potential, and cultural fit. Maintain an active pipeline of qualified candidates instead of recruiting only when a position becomes vacant. Prepare offers and coordinate consistent onboarding. Establish clear 30-, 60-, and 90-day expectations for new employees. Monitor retention, turnover, attendance, compensation, morale, and development needs. Conduct stay interviews and exit interviews to identify preventable turnover. Ensure hiring decisions support workload, productivity, payroll goals, and future growth. Develop relationships with technical schools, ASE programs, trade organizations, and recruiting sources. Financial and Performance Management The COO must understand how an automotive repair shop makes money and be able to explain why each location is—or is not—performing.

Responsibilities include:

Reviewing sales, profitability, car count, and average repair order. Monitoring labor sales, effective labor rate, billed hours, technician productivity, and efficiency. Maintaining a parts gross-profit goal of at least 60%. Monitoring front-of-house payroll with a target range of 7-11% of sales. Monitoring back-of-house payroll with a target range of 12-15% of sales. Reviewing discounts, overtime, purchasing, outside services, inventory, and unnecessary expenses. Helping managers understand their financial results and how their decisions affect profitability. Creating corrective action plans for locations that are missing expectations. Comparing location performance and sharing successful practices throughout the company. Assisting ownership with budgets, equipment purchases, staffing investments, facility improvements, and expansion decisions. Protecting profitability without sacrificing repair quality, employee development, or customer trust. Marketing and Business Growth Create location-specific marketing plans based on shop capacity, seasonality, customer demographics, and revenue goals. Develop promotions that generate profitable work without relying on excessive discounting. Oversee social media, websites, Google Business Profiles, email, texting, loyalty, review-generation, and community-involvement efforts. Ensure advertisements contain accurate branding, offers, expiration dates, addresses, phone numbers, and disclaimers. Monitor marketing calls, leads, appointments, car count, customer acquisition costs, and return on investment. Use CallRail and other reporting tools to determine which advertising sources produce actual customers. Help underperforming locations generate additional car count during slower periods. Coordinate with marketing vendors and hold them accountable for performance. Protect the individual identity of each shop while maintaining PBAS standards. Identify opportunities to expand fleet, USPS, commercial, and community relationships. Ensure managers understand their responsibility for answering calls, converting leads, following up on estimates, requesting reviews, and retaining customers. Customer Experience and Shop Standards Ensure customers receive honest recommendations, accurate estimates, quality repairs, and dependable communication. Maintain consistent customer-update standards throughout the repair process. Monitor unanswered calls, unsold estimates, declined work, warranties, and customer complaints. Ensure unsold estimates and declined services receive appropriate follow-up. Support customer retention, referrals, reviews, and loyalty-program enrollment. Review online feedback and help managers resolve legitimate concerns professionally. Maintain a digital vehicle inspection completion goal of at least 96%. Require clear inspection notes and at least five useful photographs when applicable. Review inspection quality, customer view rates, and estimate-conversion opportunities. Ensure safety recommendations are accurate, documented, and clearly communicated. Confirm that completed repairs are properly verified before the vehicle is returned to the customer. Protect the reputation of every PBAS location and the company as a whole. Fleet and USPS Operations Oversee fleet and USPS repair operations throughout the Tennessee market. Maintain professional relationships with USPS representatives, fleet customers, vendors, and partner organizations. Monitor fleet workflow, open vehicles, approvals, vehicle downtime, and turnaround time. Ensure preventive maintenance inspections, fluid checks, repairs, and quality-control procedures are completed correctly. Maintain accurate documentation, invoicing, reporting, and customer approvals. Coordinate mobile repairs when appropriate. Ensure fleet and USPS work remains within authorized contractual and geographic limits. Support technical development for Grumman LLVs, Mercedes-Benz Metris vans, RAM ProMasters, and other fleet vehicles. Protect the company's reputation as a responsive and dependable fleet-repair partner. Systems, Reporting, and Executive Communication Ensure consistent and accurate use of Tekmetric and other approved company systems. Monitor repair-order accuracy, inspections, estimating, technician time, parts ordering, customer communication, and reporting. Coordinate the proper use of Steer CRM, CallRail, RepairPal, AAA, review platforms, loyalty programs, and marketing systems. Prepare weekly and monthly operating reports for ownership. Create a weekly operating plan covering priorities, problems, staffing, training, marketing, warranty issues, and decisions needed at each location. Report sales, car count, average repair order, gross profit, billed hours, productivity, efficiency, payroll, and profitability. Report digital inspection completion, customer view rates, approvals, declined work, comebacks, warranties, and reviews. Track marketing leads, calls, appointments, advertising expenses, and return on investment. openings, applicants, interviews, new hires, turnover, attendance concerns, and employee-performance issues. Track ASE certifications, scheduled tests, upcoming expirations, completed training, and individual development plans. Report fleet volume, open vehicles, turnaround time, documentation issues, and outstanding invoices. Identify trends, risks, and recurring problems across the company. Clearly explain what happened, why it happened, what needs to change, who is responsible, and when the action will be completed. Follow up on action items until they are resolved. Give ownership the information needed to make decisions without requiring them to search through multiple systems. Compliance and Risk Management Ensure compliance with company policies, employment requirements, safety procedures, environmental regulations, permits, insurance requirements, and customer contracts. Monitor vendor performance, pricing, warranties, service levels, and purchasing practices. Maintain organized employee, customer, vendor, and operational records. Protect confidential customer and employee information. Protect company pricing, vendor relationships, marketing materials, processes, and operational procedures. Address safety, liability, personnel, and customer-service risks before they become larger problems. How Success Will Be Measured The COO will be evaluated based on measurable improvements in: ASE certifications and completed employee training Employee retention and leadership development Recruiting results and time required to fill open positions New-employee onboarding and 90-day retention Shop manager accountability Technician productivity, efficiency, and billed hours Parts and labor gross profit Payroll efficiency Car count and average repair order Marketing lead generation and return on investment Phone-answering and lead-conversion performance Digital inspection completion, quality, and customer view rates Estimate approval and declined-work follow-up Customer communication, reviews, referrals, and retention Repair quality and comeback reduction Fleet vehicle downtime and turnaround time Accuracy and timeliness of weekly and monthly reports Completion of assigned action items Overall shop organization, consistency, growth, and profitability The ideal candidate: Genuinely enjoys working with people and developing employees. Is competitive and motivated by measurable improvement. Is friendly and approachable while maintaining clear expectations. Can have difficult conversations calmly, directly, and respectfully. Listens to employees without allowing excuses to replace accountability. Is organized enough to manage multiple locations without losing sight of details. Enjoys investigating problems and improving systems. Can move comfortably between the shop floor, employee coaching, customer concerns, marketing, and financial reports. Creates structure without becoming rigid or disconnected from people. Is confident enough to make decisions while remaining open to better ideas. Follows through and expects others to do the same. Wants the team and company to succeed more than they want personal recognition. Understands that strong results and a healthy workplace culture should support one another. Qualifications At least five years of automotive repair operations or leadership experience. Experience leading shop managers, service advisors, technicians, and support employees. Multi-location leadership experience strongly preferred. Strong understanding of shop workflow, labor profitability, parts margins, technician productivity, payroll, and customer retention. Experience recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, coaching, and evaluating employees. Experience creating and reviewing operational and financial reports. Experience with Tekmetric or a comparable shop-management system preferred. Working knowledge of ASE certification and automotive training programs. Fleet, commercial, or government vehicle experience is a plus. Strong written, verbal, organizational, and problem-solving skills. Ability to travel regularly among PBAS Tennessee locations. Valid driver's license and acceptable driving record. High level of professionalism, discretion, integrity, and personal accountability. Our Leadership Philosophy We believe people perform best when they understand what is expected, have the tools and training they need, and know their leader will follow through. Accountability does not require intimidation, and kindness does not mean avoiding difficult conversations. We want a COO who cares about people and performance equally. If you enjoy developing employees, improving automotive shops, solving meaningful problems, and building a company that wins together, we would like to speak with you.

Pay:

$99,785.57 - $135,000.00 per year

Benefits:

401(k) 401(k) matching Employee discount Paid time off Retirement plan

Work Location:

In person