When Matt Ebert talks about the Empire of his auto repair store, he does it modestly, like his beginnings.
chief executive officer CrashAnd, which reported the revenues of $ 2.75 billion last year, came from a small town in Indiana, where it was not a university degree given and no sign.
“We did not have much from a financial point of view,” he said. luck. “Great professional planning and professional planning was not a discussion in my family.”
Ebert had the spirit of entrepreneurship and began to cut the promoters of people at the age of ten or 11 years. Nevertheless, his real interest in cars was, and he could not wait to open the hood on his first car, change his oil, and take his wheels.
“For me, a car that means freedom,” he remembers. “I still remember the first time I was in a car myself, I am thinking about how to go anywhere I want now.”
But at the age of 16, he broke his first car: Ford Excellence two seats. Not wanting to file a security demand or cancel his insurance, visited a local car reformer and asked him whether he could show Ebert how to fix his car. Reformer’s verb – EBERT was launched in the car repair profession.

The accident champion is a way of courtesy
Six numbers jobs without a degree
Ebert took a job with the reformer after high school, and thus “literally, by chance” in the industry. It is now overseeing a company that has seen 130X revenue since 2019 and has been operating more than 10,000 people.
Like EBERT, 83 % of his workforce He does not have a university degree.
He said, “I really did, well in life, I didn’t go to college.” “I am not hostile to the college. I think there are definitely great things for the college. But I also know it is not a chance for everyone.”
EBERT is applying in the curve when it comes to employing people without a four -year certificate. The college was historically seen as a one -way ticket for a profitable profession, but young generations began to join it is not the only way to succeed. a lot General Zires take commercial jobs And not burdened with the students of student loans. In addition, some make more than six numbers to do so.
Ebert said technicians get more than $ 100,000 a year. In the first quarter of 2025, the American Statistics Office I mentioned The average weekly profit for the country’s 120.9 million years workers in the country was $ 1.194, equivalent to about 62,000 dollars annually. This means that the accident champion workers make about 1.6 times the ordinary American factor.
“We consider the college as a reward, not a condition,” Ebert said. Of course, there are some situations that require a specific degree, as he added, such as how its observer and chief legal officials need to scientific grades.
Although Do not require university degrees For most of its functions, Crash Chapions focuses on continuing learning. It has created a driving program that focuses on topics such as culture and retaining, financial and operational leadership, strategic leadership, communication and recognition, continuous learning, as well as mastering the mandate and employment of the team. Thousands of employees participated in these programs.

The accident champion is a way of courtesy
“We can recruit the best technicians. We can train the best technicians, (but) if they are working for bad managers, they will leave and go to another place,” Ebert said.
He said that Crash Champions also provides a vocational training program as they can “start technicians from scratch.” They were placed with one of the team members who work with him for a few years, then they are stopped on their own.
Crash heroes growth story
Ebert is attributed to its employees with many of the company’s achievements.
He said: “The key to my success was surrounding myself with better people, people more intelligent than me, and the people who did things I did not do.”
However, Ebert was the mastermind of the company. After high school, he moved to the outskirts of Chicago and stayed with his grandparents for a few years and got a job in a store for sale. At that time, he still wanted to start his own work, but “being a young child did not know anyone”, he knew that he would be a challenge, and he said that starting his private store “slightly exceeded (his head).”
With the spirit of entrepreneurship, though, Ebert searched for different works, and eventually opened his own property subway Excellence before Critical appreciation $ 100,000 on credit cards. Although this first site did not earn any money, he decided to open “thinking that it would be the way to earn money.”
But he was wrong. This one did not earn money either. Therefore, he returned to his re -lighting roots, approached a local car reformer, and opened a group of body together in 1999, when Ebert was twenty -six years old. His partner retired from the work, which was 20 years old, in 2014, and sold works to Ebelt in 2014.
That became the beginning of the Crash heroes, which was first called Lennox, a town in Illinois. Ebert changed his name to heroes, which arises from the idea that Venice is a hero at the time of the customer’s need after an accident.
“I wanted to make the stores nice, destroy some of these stereotypes, and make them a place that people want to attend, a place that people want to work,” I explained.

The accident champion is a way of courtesy
After taking over the business, Ebert knew that he wanted to expand, and gained a struggling body – which was quick to buy the third and fourth sites of the company, all in almost a year.
At that time, Ebelt was still using small business administration financing, and “somewhat mainly grew” in the Chicago region. He wanted to get more stores, but he could not finance SBA, so he worked with an investment banker who suggested private stocks as an alternative to debt. Ebelt was initially hesitant to do so, but the recognized industry trends like technical developments in vehicle repair require more capital. Covid-19 was forced to shift in the strategy, but Ebert also saw a need for his business model at the national level.
The great growth of Crash heroes came in 2021. King collision serviceAnother large company to repair car bodies, has grown very quickly and made weak work decisions, which led to a financial problem. The debt was coming in 2022 and was not able to pay. The bond holders in the company mainly CLEARLAKE CAPITALIt is possible that it takes it, so Clearlake is proactively contacted to combine King Service with Crash heroes to expand his business.
They turned into 330 sites from 650 sites for Crash Champions, and the company saw its revenues increased from 327.1 million dollars in revenue in 2021 to $ 2.1 billion in 2022. This year, it is offered about $ 3 billion and plans “UP) next year”.
“I don’t want to stop until we are first. We are the third biggest in the country today,” Ebert said. Creation caliber and Clash and Glass Jerber. “There is a lot of growth in front of the company. We have slowed a little here in the past year or two, because we have grown very quickly, and we wanted to be more sophisticated and more willing to be greater.”
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