Eric Dawson bought his first collision repair shop, an existing facility called Double A Collision Repair, in 2004. In 2008, he built a new facility in a different part of town, next to the Shadow Lake Towne Center in Papillion, Neb., the shopping center that gave Shadow Lake Collision its name.
He said he had no plans to expand beyond one or two locations at the time, with young children at home. That changed when his sons, both graduates of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with business degrees, joined the company. They’re now part owners of Shadow Lake’s second location, in Omaha.
That second facility, a 22,000-square-foot shop on four acres, has been open about a year. Dawson said he built it around customer-pay work rather than direct repair program volume…