COLONIE, N.Y. --For nearly 10 years, Coles Collision has been a go to place in the Capital Region to get your car fixed after an accident.
Owner John Cole estimated it fixes on average 680 vehicles a month, and more than 8,000 a year. Cole will tell you, however, it didn't start out like that.
"We started out with three employees back in 2007 and we've grown to about 89 employees right now at this point with four locations," Cole said.
It remains a family owned and operated business, and recently opened its new, 18,000 sq. ft. state-of-the-art facility just off the Northway in Colonie, which is fitted with custom paint booths shipped in from Italy, which use water-based paint. The entire shop is decked out with some of the most eco-friendly equipment made.
"All of our pollution is categorized and removed and I think every business today the way the world is going, you should have a responsibility to do that," said Cole.
Coles Collision also offers a mentor program to local students with the chance of being hired after graduation.
"We work with Hudson Valley (Community Colege) and the BOCES program in Albany and Saratoga," Cole said. "We put that student under our mentor and it's usually a six month to a year program with variable steps and testing out along the way to find out if we're going to be able to make a body man out of them or not."
With its 10th anniversary in sight, Cole said there's more plans to grow.
"I think we're going to continue to expand, continue to grow our business and brand our name and hopefully we're going to be able to pull the right technicians and grow the business through our mentoring program."
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