Rene and Leanda Rodarte met in the spring of 1992 where a friendship grew into a life journey. On September 8, 1993, they welcomed their son, Anthony Rodarte. While starting a new family, Rene started working as a porter at Northwest Paint and Body with his step-father. For the next 3 years, Rene learned how to do minor body repairs and quickly realized that this industry would provide him with a skill to support his family. In 1998, Rene sought out a full-time job as a Body Technician at Collision Specialist under Bobby Cannon. At Collision Specialist, Rene was working on larger hits and was eager to learn the estimating side to the Auto Body industry. During his time at Collision Specialist, he worked on major collision repairs, steering and suspension work, framework, electrical components and much more. He started to learn how to review estimates for re-inspections and supplements. In 2000, Rene felt that the industry had more to offer in the form of estimating and customer service. He took a leap of faith and was determined to work at Art's Paint and Body under John Bustos. At that time, there was not a position for Rene at Art's Paint and Body. Within a month Rene was working as an estimator for Art's Paint and Body. It was working here where Rene realized his natural ability to far exceed customer's expectation resulting into raving fans of Art's. During his time at Art's, Rene became engaged with I-CAR (Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair), becoming one of the youngest instructors in San Antonio. Rene was determined to learn, train and build personal relationships with technicians and insurers alike. On May 10, 2006, Rene and Leanda were blessed with their daughter, Aliana (Alley) Rodarte. By the time Rene left Art's Paint and Body in 2008, he was Operations and Production Manager of over 30 employees. In December 2008, he landed his first General Management Position at Sterling Auto Body Center. This set him on a path to help him achieve his ultimate goal. While at Sterling, Rene was tasked with turning around a center that was ranked last in CSI and Cycle time. With all his hard work, ambition, dedication and leadership, he successfully restructured and motivated his staff to peak performance levels. Within a year, his team improved CSI scores and EBITDA revenue by 8% resulting in restoring Allstate's stand as an advocate. His location achieved 2 merit awards and he was recognized at the national conference for most improved gross profit and most improved comeback ratio. In February 2009, Rene was hired as the Center Manger for Caliber Collision's flagship location across USAA. His goals were to increase overall business and deliver on all client metrics. While gaining experience in the body shop, Rene was still very active with I-CAR and in January of 2011, he decided to take the position as the South Central Regional Manager for I-CAR supporting and overseeing 86 instructors, over 70 volunteer committees across 8 states. In this position, he was able to sharpen his leadership skills learning what makes the best of the best to create and grow many vital and influential business relationships. In January 2016, Rene was ready to get back into operations, knowing that owning his own shop was still his ultimate career goal. On January 13, 2017, Rene and Leanda realized a life-long dream and picked up keys to what has become Artisan Paint and Body. Rene met his goal a month before his 40th birthday. Rene and Leanda's vision for Artisan Paint and Body is to share Rene's many years of experience to develop and work with a new generation of talent while ensuring safe and correct vehicle repairs. Their goal for their team is to use their craft to create life-long customers. This is just the beginning of Artisan Paint and Body. Stay tune and visit our Facebook, Instagram and YouTube Chanel as we keep you up-to-date with our success.
Thank you, for reading this and getting to know a little of who we are.