LYNN ― When Arthur and Irene Stefanidis bought an auto-body business in their early 20s, they joked that they would give it a good 25 years.
This summer, Olympic Auto Body and Sales LLC turned 30 years old, and they remain at full speed 17 months into COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s incredible to think that we’ve been here for 30 years and survived so many difficult times with, you know, recessions, COVID and everything. We’re still here so it’s a good feeling. I guess we’re doing something right,” said Arthur.
The business is located at 174 Broad St. in Lynn, occupies 5,000 square feet in total. All the body work is done upstairs; offices and parts storage is downstairs.
Olympic also employs eight full-time employees.
Keith Soares, a damage appraiser, started working there almost a year ago.
“The biggest thing I think here is that we all treat each other as family, I guess, you’d say. All respectful of one another,” said Soares.
Soares knew of the quality of work at the Olympic Auto Body when he worked as an insurance appraiser years ago.
“I didn’t want to go to (just) any body shop and work there because I know the quality of work of some other shops,” said Soares.
Olympic Auto Body fixes domestic and foreign cars of “any make.” They also do some custom work, including airbrushing. The shop serves up to 500 customers per year.
Arthur also said that the shop constantly tries to keep up with the latest technologies and equipment.
For instance, their computerized paint-mixing system allows them to match any vehicle color. The shop paints the vehicles in a large downdraft spray booth then bakes it to let the paint fully cure.
They do detailing and cleaning once they put the car back together. An appraiser on staff does a quality control check after the repair.
Ronni Polack of Lynn, who previously repaired two of her cars at Olympic Auto Body, recently brought her sister to Arthur.
“They helped me out greatly. Their service is impeccable. They go out of their way to help their customers,” said Polack.
“We stay fairly busy all year round. I think our reviews help a lot,” said Arthur about the shop’s five-star reviews on Google, “Because a lot of customers come in, and that’s the first thing they say, ‘I looked at your reviews.’”
Arthur said he once heard at a seminar that an accident was the third most stressful thing humans go through.
“So once I heard that, my goal was to make sure that I help the customers and take all the stress away from them as much as possible and try to handle all the aggravating parts,” he said. “We try to do it so they don’t have to worry about anything.”
Both born in Lynn, Arthur and Irene met 29 years ago and, together, they bought Olympic Auto Body in 1991. Arthur came up with a slogan “We make friends by Accident” in addition to the existing name of the business.
“It’s just like a relationship. You have to work together. And we know that we are on the same team,” said Irene. “We don’t take anything home with us. Once we leave the body shop we don’t talk about customers or problems or anything like that at the dinner table.”
They lived in Lynn for 25 years, until they moved to Boxford to raise their children, Alex, 24, and Anna, 22. When their children started school, Irene began working with Arthur full-time, doing accounting downstairs.
When the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, Olympic Auto Body stayed open.
“It was very slow but Arthur wanted to stay open even if it was to help just a few customers,” said Irene.
They kept all the employees, and now they are back to full force ― but both had to step it up. Irene now runs the front office, and Arthur now mostly manages the business and does estimates.
The couple gives it at least another 10 years before they might be ready to retire.
“We both love what we do,” said Irene.
