Larger text
Smaller text
Print
E-mailSteelworker's hobby became career
Fran Roberts began working on cars as a teen.
He still owns the 1969 Camaro he once raced.
His love of cars eventually developed into a successful business that has flourished for more than three decades.
"It was a hobby and it escalated from that," Fran Roberts said.
Roberts was a steelworker in the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Allenport Plant when he began Roberts Auto Body out of his Fayette City home in 1976.
He bought the Fayette City location at 1521 Fayette Ave. in December 1981, months before being laid off in the mill.
The Fayette City site had been the former Ward and Van Dodge garage, which first opened in the 1950s.
Roberts opened the second location at 243 East Main St. in Monongahela Sept. 1, 2000. It was the site of the former Eddie Gibson shop.
Fran Roberts said his friend, Gibson, was looking to retire at the same time Roberts was looking to expand into the Monongahela area.
The Monongahela location came with a familiar, albeit furry, face. Bubba, a mechanical gorilla, was displayed in the window of the Gibson shop for years before Roberts moved in.
"I told Eddie the only way I would buy the business was if Bubba came with it," Diane Roberts, co-owner of the business, said with a laugh.
Bubba was first used to direct customers to the Dairy Queen on Large Hill that is now Francesco's restaurant.
The Roberts' two sons, Neil and Mark, joined them in the business. As boys, they started working in the office and washing cars.
"I never had a job outside of coming here," Mark Roberts said.
He now does most of the towing and is an appraiser.
Mark Roberts will be the manager when the company moves its oper-ations from Monongahela to the former Sedney Olds site along Route 88 in Carroll Township.
Roberts Auto Body is like a family, Diane Roberts said. She noted that some of the employees have been with Roberts Auto for many years.
For example, Georgia Mattay, the office manager at Fayette City, has worked there for 24 years, and Bob Hornack has done body work and painting for close to 20 years.
Diane Roberts, who sometimes cooks for the employees, made building a lunch room for the employees a first priority when they moved into the Monongahela site.
She said the Fayette City location "looks like a doctor's office" with ceramic tile in the waiting room. There is also a full kitchen/lunch room for the employees.
With two locations about 10 miles apart in differing counties, Roberts Auto Body can service four counties: Washington, Fayette, Westmoreland and Allegheny.
"We can give customers their choice of which of the locations is more convenient," Fran Roberts said.
Roberts Auto is a certified appraisal location for the state of Pennsylvania and a NAPA car care collision center.
Roberts Auto Body offers direct repair from many of the major insurances. A customer can obtain an estimate and Roberts personnel will deal directly with most insurance company.
The Fayette City location is the first business in Fayette County to become green certified for using water-borne paints. When the company moves its operations from Monongahela to the site in Carroll Township and that site is fully operational, it too will go green.
The Monongahela site does collision work. Full-service mechanical work as well as collision is offered at the Fayette City business.
By August 2010, Roberts Auto Body will offer full-service mechanical work as well as collision at the Carroll Township site.
Diane Roberts said the business has been successful because it strives to satisfy the customer.
"We're like an emergency room -- the place you don't want to be, but when you come to see us, you're glad you did," Diane Roberts said.
Fran Roberts had a simple answer for their success -- "just hard work."
