Business Profile: Toalson Glass/Dents Unlimited

Toalson in Transition
Auto glass, body repair shops join, help tinting business evolve

When longtime Columbia auto glass dealer Carl Toalson decided he wanted to try something new, he forged an agreement with the owners of Dents Unlimited that benefits both businesses.

He gets to try something new, a glass tinting business, and they get to expand and find new customers.

“I was tired,” Toalson said. “I had done auto glass here for 32 years, 22 years on my own, since I was 18 years old. It was time for me to get out, to change something.”

So he called up Marc LaFerriere and Ryan Garrett of Dents Unlimited, a paintless dent-repair company, and told them they ought to be in the auto glass business. After looking at his business, they agreed, and since Jan. 1, the partners have owned Toalson Glass, which is now housed in the Dents Unlimited building on Big Bear Boulevard. Toalson will serve as a consultant to them for five years while working at his new business, Tint By Toalson, which specializes in window tinting work for residential and commercial building clients.

Originally from Springfield, Mo., LaFerriere and Garrett opened Dents Unlimited in 2002 on Nebraska Avenue. They leased their current building on Big Bear Boulevard after Columbia’s huge hailstorm in 2006. Given the opportunity to buy the building on Big Bear from the Harmon Sheet Metal Co., they officially moved to the new location in November 2006.

Their specialty is fixing cosmetic damage on cars—quickly and, usually, at a lower cost than the competition charges. The company refers all hardhit collision repair or major body work to other body shops in town. The automotive glass repair was a natural complement to Dents Unlimited’s other repairs, the partners said.

“We are not a body shop; we handle all types of cosmetic repairs,” LaFerriere said. “If you can’t drive it in, we don’t want it.”

The company does between $1 million and $1.5 million in business each year. In addition to taking walk-in retail business, Dents Unlimited performs wholesale cosmetic reconditioning work on used vehicles for Joe Machens BMW, Toyota and Ford; Legend Automotive Group; Albert Buick Honda; Perry Nissan; Smith Suzuki; Saturn of Columbia; University Chrysler; Dodge City Motors; Rick Ball Auto Mall in Boonville; Forest Chevrolet in Centralia; and Pearl Motor Co. in Mexico.

The Dents Unlimited pair said they plan to stay in Columbia for a long time. “We thought about chasing hail, but we’ve got families now,” Garrett said. “We want to stay put.”

Toalson plans to stay put too. He’s working out of his house now, which means much lower overhead costs. Without the cars, there’s no need for a big facility. The work has to be done on site anyway, he said.

Tints By Toalson installs films on residential and commercial windows that keep out as much as 100 percent of the heat and light, according to Toalson. The windows in his walkout basement use a film that he said stops 64 percent of the heat coming through and substantially reduces glare, but you’d never know the windows are tinted just by looking at them.

Toalson said he plans to do about $150,000 in business this year. Half of his customers want window tinting to slow the fading of drapes and furniture, and the other half wants to cool rooms that are not too hot in the summertime.
The films cost anywhere from $4.75 to $13.50 per square foot.

He also sells specialty films for decorative purposes, and sells some to businesses that use tinting for security. One of his products is a thick, bomb-resistant film that stops glass from shattering during a blast. “Every federal building has windows treated with it,” he said.

Another specialty film combats graffiti. It goes on the outside of a surface and peels off to remove the unwanted artwork.

The Toalson Glass and Dents Unlimited founders say the merger energized both businesses, and both are preparing for future growth even in a slower economy. Now at 14 employees, Dents Unlimited plans to hire a salesperson in the spring, and Carl Toalson said he may need to hire an employee in the near future as well.