Rides — Going strong after 44 years in auto industry

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This article was published 13/04/2018 (2910 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

From his early childhood in Hartney, there was never a chance that Jamie McKenzie would not spend his professional life in the automotive industry.

His mechanic father got him into rebuilding motors from the age of 10, and both of his older brothers were also mechanics.

“You grew up and because your dad was in the industry, you had a foot in there already because of the contacts and the information I got from my dad and my brothers,” he said.

Although he followed in their footsteps, McKenzie also forged a path that diverted from the one set out for him by getting into auto body work instead of mechanics.

“I did not like working with the grease,” he said.

Now with 44 years in the industry, the entirety of which has been spent at Brae-Mar Auto Body Ltd., McKenzie said there’s little chance of him retiring any time soon.

He has built up a good thing over the years, and currently works alongside his wife, Lynne, and their sons Jay and Scott.

There’s a lot to be proud of, he said, pointing to not only the work that has been done at the shop during the past 44 years, but also the wealth of employees who have moved on to bigger things.

Offering employees little by way of upward mobility, McKenzie said he’s proud to see people move on to other shops and businesses of their own.

Assiniboine Collision & Glass owner Jamie Hertzog is one such example, McKenzie said, adding that Hertzog started out in Brae-Mar’s paint department.

McKenzie entered the auto body field in the mid-1970s, when he took part in a now-defunct program at Assiniboine Community College.

Brae-Mar owner Raymond Bayne took him on as an employee at his newly opened shop in downtown Brandon, where McKenzie learned the ins and outs part-time during evenings.

Named after the Braemar Castle of Scotland, McKenzie stuck around the shop, and took over ownership when Bayne retired.

Now, McKenzie can reflect on a career that has served both him and his family well.

Even so, he said there was no lack of hard work, with his first few years upon taking ownership of Brae-Mar requiring a number of 15-hour workdays, with people calling him back in at all hours of the day and night.

Ever-changing products, technology and regulations have required McKenzie’s continued education, with the stress of everything requiring he find a hobby he can chip away at during whatever down times arise throughout the day.

While the bulk of work done at Brae-Mar relates to modern vehicles, there’s always a couple of classic vehicles in the shop that McKenzie likes to work on whenever a client doesn’t show up, or there’s a blank space in his schedule.

Right now, he’s working on a 1963 Chevrolet Stepside struck and a 1934 Chevrolet Coupe.

“It’s relaxing for me,” he said. “I’ll go over there and work on them, and it’s relaxing to work on the old cars that I used to work on.”

In addition to finding stress relievers, McKenzie said the key to his business’s longevity has been its reputation for providing close-knit customer service.

Straightforward honesty is a key to customer service, he said, adding that he will never add to a client’s work order without getting their approval.

“Even if it needs to be done —the person has to do it no matter what —I still don’t do it without contacting them and getting their approval first,” McKenzie said. “I don’t believe in a customer coming in and finding out it’s $1,000 more than they were quoted for … It’s not fair for them.”

Having his family on board, a group of employees he trusts, a dedicated client base, and a passion for the work, McKenzie said he’s living out the entrepreneurship dream he’d set at an early age, and it’s not something he intends to step away from.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB