40 Under 40

When Joe Medina took over as managing partner of Castle Rock Ford, he prioritized resolving some issues in the service department.

It was February 2021, about six months after Foundation Automotive Group had acquired the Colorado dealership. The Ford dealership was losing money, struggling with low customer satisfaction rankings and had only five technicians working across 24 service bays.

Aside from the staffing challenges — Castle Rock Ford also had just two service advisers — Medina discovered process problems. For one, it was taking longer than 24 hours to give customers a diagnosis.

“As much as you want to give somebody an update, it’s hard when you can’t get to their car, when you can’t get their car finished fast enough,” he said. “It just turns into chaos.”

His solution? Making Castle Rock Ford a workplace where people wanted to be, he said. One big change was to rework pay plans for service technicians and advisers.

In the dealership’s Quick Lane department, for instance, the average market rate for a technician was $17 to $18 per hour. The dealership was hiring technicians with little experience and had a lot of turnover, he said. One day in 2021, Medina said he wanted to advertise a $25 hourly flat rate and a minimum of one year of experience at an auto repair facility.

“I remember my service manager looked at me and said, ‘Are you sure? That’s going to be really expensive?’ ” Medina said. “I told him, ‘Well, I don’t necessarily want to be like the rest of the market.’ ”

Early on, the ad attracted two experienced applicants already earning $23 an hour who were drawn by the higher pay Medina was offering. They are now Ford-certified technicians and train the dealership’s newer hires.

“We probably pay in the most competitive price range for Quick Lane technicians,” he said. “But we haven’t had to replace a technician in 18 months for any reason other than they get promoted.”

In the main shop, some technicians now receive a salary with productivity bonuses based on the number of hours they work, rather than a flat rate, Medina said.

Within nine months, Castle Rock Ford grew its technician count to 25 and boosted its service adviser ranks to seven, Medina said. The dealership added a Quick Lane bay and now has 26 technicians — in addition to a shortlist of interested job candidates and plans for a 10,000-square-foot expansion and 12 more service bays.

Castle Rock Ford’s fixed operations gross profit increased to $4.6 million in 2022 from $3.5 million in 2021, in part because having more employees allows more work to be completed, Medina said. A customer’s vehicle now is diagnosed within 24 hours “in the mid-to-high” 90 percent range, he said.

And last year, the dealership won Ford Motor Co.’s President’s Award, recognizing top performance in customer service.

“It certainly didn’t happen by a fluke,” Medina said. “All the credit goes to having the right people in the right place. Once you create a good environment, everybody wants to be a part of it.”

— Lindsay VanHulle