This car-repair chain’s revenue skyrocketed 130x in the past five years, and 83% of its workforce doesn’t have a college degree, including its CEO
Matt Ebert, founder and CEO of Crash Champions, grew up in a small Illinois town where college was never expected or discussed. Coming from modest means, Ebert’s early life revolved around hard work and entrepreneurial hustle.
“I’ve done really, really well in life not having gone to college,” Ebert told Fortune. “College and big career planning weren’t ever a discussion in my family.”
His entrepreneurial spirit emerged early. At age 10 or 11, he was mowing lawns for neighbors. But his real passion was cars: he loved opening the hood, changing the oil, and taking the wheels off.
“For me, a car meant freedom,” he said. “I still remember the first time I was in a car by myself, thinking about how I could go anywhere I want right now.”
At 16, he crashed his first car—a two-seater Ford EXP. Not wanting to file an insurance claim and risk higher rates or cancellation, he turned to a local repairman and asked for help fixing it. The repairman obliged, teaching him hands-on skills that would shape his future.
After high school, Ebert went to work for that same repairman. He jokes that he entered the collision-repair industry “literally, by accident.”
Building Crash Champions
Today, Ebert oversees Crash Champions, a company with over 650 locations and more than 10,000 employees. It reported $2.75 billion in revenue last year—a remarkable 130x growth since 2019.
Like Ebert himself, 83% of Crash Champions’ workforce doesn’t have a college degree.
“I’m not anti-college,” he said. “I think it’s great for some things. But I also know it’s not an opportunity for everyone.”
Crash Champions is at the forefront of hiring and training people without four-year degrees. While college has often been viewed as the default route to a good career, Ebert’s company proves there’s another path. Many Gen Z workers are choosing trades over traditional degrees, avoiding student debt and sometimes earning six-figure salaries in the process.
At Crash Champions, technicians can make over $100,000 annually. For context, U.S. Census Bureau data show the median earnings for full-time workers are around $62,000 a year, meaning Crash Champions’ technicians earn roughly 1.6 times that average.
Training and Advancement Without College
“We view college as a bonus, not a requirement,” Ebert explained. Certain roles, like the company’s controller or chief legal officer, do require degrees, but most positions do not.
Despite this, Crash Champions emphasizes learning and development. It offers a leadership development program covering topics such as culture, employee retention, financial and operational leadership, strategic thinking, communication, and delegation. Thousands of employees have participated.
“We can recruit and train the best technicians, but if they’re working for bad managers, they’ll leave,” Ebert said.
The company also runs an apprenticeship program, training new technicians from scratch by pairing them with experienced mentors for several years before they work independently.
Ebert’s Entrepreneurial Journey
Ebert credits much of his success to surrounding himself with talented people.
“A key to my success has been surrounding myself with better people, smarter people than me, people who have done things I haven’t done,” he said.
After high school, he moved to the Chicago suburbs and lived with his grandparents while working at a body shop. Although he dreamed of owning a business, he knew it would be tough as a young newcomer with no connections.
He explored different ventures and eventually used $100,000 in credit-card cash advances to open a Subway franchise. When the first location failed to turn a profit, he opened a second, hoping to make money that way. It also lost money.
Realizing he needed to return to what he knew best, Ebert partnered with a local repairman to open a body shop in 1999 at age 26. Originally called New Lenox Auto Body (after the town in Illinois), the shop would eventually become Crash Champions. The name reflects the idea of being a hero for customers in need after an accident.
“I wanted to make the shops nice, tear down some stereotypes, make it a place people would want to come to, and a place people would want to work,” he said.
Scaling the Business
After buying out his partner in 2014, Ebert began expanding aggressively, acquiring struggling shops in the Chicago area. Initially, he financed growth through Small Business Administration (SBA) loans, but eventually hit the program’s limits.
To keep growing, he turned to private equity. Though initially hesitant, he realized the industry’s rapid technological changes would require significant investment.
Crash Champions’ biggest leap came in 2021. Service King Collision, a major competitor, had over-expanded and was facing financial distress. Its bondholders, primarily Clearlake Capital, were preparing to take control. Ebert saw an opportunity and proactively approached Clearlake about merging Service King’s operations with Crash Champions.
That deal added 330 locations and helped drive Crash Champions’ revenue from $327 million in 2021 to $2.1 billion in 2022. This year, it’s projecting around $3 billion in revenue.
Looking Ahead
Today, Crash Champions is the third-largest collision-repair chain in the U.S., behind Caliber Collision and Gerber Collision & Glass.
“I don’t want to stop until we’re number one,” Ebert said. “There’s a ton of growth ahead. We slowed a little in the last year or two because we grew so fast and wanted to get more sophisticated and ready to be even bigger.”
For Ebert, it all goes back to his roots: hard work, a love of cars, and the belief that opportunity shouldn’t be limited by a college degree.