When Brandi Brydges was asked to take on her first collision centre management role, she stepped into a team facing challenges with communication, day-to-day direction and morale.
She had done her homework, talking to people in the industry and preparing for what would be her first management position. But once she walked through the doors, preparation only went so far.
“I had to jump in and roll up my sleeves,” she says.
Brydges quickly saw that the shop had the talent it needed. What was missing was direction. Ownership of the day-to-day had become unclear, communication between departments had broken down and morale was low. She knew she could not fix all of that from the top down.
“You have to get in the room, ask questions, and genuinely understand what people are seeing that you can’t see from a spreadsheet,” she says.
It is an approach that has stayed with Brydges as her career has moved through operations, business and leadership. When she walks into a new team or faces a new challenge, she tries to lead with curiosity before direction, giving the people closest to a problem the opportunity to explain what they are seeing. “The people closest to the problem usually already know the answer,” she says.
That first management experience also changed how Brydges thought about turnarounds. The operational fixes mattered, but they could not come first.
“Turnarounds aren’t really about fixing processes first,” Brydges says. “They’re about rebuilding trust first.”
Once the team felt listened to and supported, the changes came together more quickly than she expected.
Brydges’ understanding of the people side of collision repair began long before she moved into leadership. She first entered the industry through a high-school co-op at a local collision centre. She had always been passionate about vehicles, but collision repair offered something different from mechanical work. She was drawn to the transformation involved in taking something severely damaged, restoring its structural integrity and returning it to the customer as a safe, finished vehicle.
The customer was an important part of that appeal. “People come to us on one of their worst days,” Brydges says. Seeing a customer receive their vehicle back — and regain some of the peace of mind that had been lost in the accident — gave the work a personal dimension that has stayed with her.
As Brydges moved through different roles, each side of the business gave her another piece of the picture. Working on the shop floor taught her where processes actually slow down a repair and what can make work more efficient without compromising safety. The business side showed her how those decisions ripple into margins, retention and customer experience, while leadership meant bringing all of it together while making sure the team felt heard.
“I try not to make a decision from one lens only,” she says.
That perspective became particularly useful when Brydges led the Collision Center Acquisition Integration Team at ACX. Over three years, the team helped bring 12 collision centres into the organization. The work came with tight timelines, but Brydges says the biggest consideration was the people involved.
“Every acquisition is really an integration of people, not just locations,” she says.
Every shop came with its own culture, systems and way of doing things. The challenge was bringing those teams into a larger organization without making the transition feel impersonal. That meant communication plans, clear points of contact and making sure people had answers to their questions from day one. In an industry already dealing with a talent shortage, Brydges says the last thing an acquisition should do is cause good people to leave simply because the transition was handled poorly.
The most rewarding moments came later, when teams that had been nervous about an acquisition settled in and began to thrive.
“There’s nothing quite like seeing a shop that was nervous about being acquired become one of your strongest-performing locations a year later,” she says, “because they felt supported through the change rather than steamrolled by it.”
Brydges has continued to work closely with the acquisition team since becoming a Director of Operations, including when acquisitions take place in her region. She says she has been involved in 18 acquisitions to date and has played a part in ACX’s growth.
There have been people along the way who helped her get there, too. Peter Scheibler gave Brydges her first real opportunity when she was still finding her footing. Later, Arthur Crawford encouraged her toward leadership roles she was not sure she was ready to take on. Looking back, Brydges says both saw something in her before she saw it herself.
“Good mentors don’t just see your current skill set — they see your ceiling,” she says.
Mentorship has become one of the constants in her career. It does not necessarily have to come in the form of a formal program, she says. Some of the most useful guidance happens organically, through relationships built on trust. Brydges tries to offer that same support to others by checking in with people who have not necessarily asked for help, giving them opportunities to stretch and being honest with them when they need to hear it.
She has also helped create the ACX Women’s Collective, an initiative intended to give women within the organization another avenue for connection and support. The group’s monthly coffee chats are deliberately informal. One person hosts, brings a few questions to get the conversation going and, ideally, everyone leaves knowing their coworkers a little better.
For Brydges, that kind of connection matters. “It’s a small thing on paper, but it’s exactly the kind of organic, trust-based connection I think mentorship is built on,” she says.
Her own experience has also given her a clear view of some of the barriers women can encounter in collision repair. Brydges has been in rooms where she had to work harder to be heard and has encountered assumptions about her technical knowledge before she had the chance to demonstrate it.
Early on, those experiences were frustrating. Eventually, she found a different way to respond: keep showing up and let the work speak for itself. Mentors and allies helped, too. Some advocated for her in rooms she was not yet in, something Brydges says has made her more conscious of doing the same for others now that she is in a position to.
“Navigating it wasn’t about proving I belonged once,” she says. “It was about consistently showing up with competence and confidence until the question stopped being asked.”
She has also become more comfortable asking for what she wants rather than waiting for someone else to offer it.
That is part of the shift she would like to see for women entering the industry. Brydges does not believe women should be hired simply to satisfy diversity metrics. The focus, she says, should be on finding the right person for the role based on merit, capability and drive, then making sure that person has the support to succeed.
That includes a professional and inclusive workplace, access to technical training and mentorship and a clear path to advancement. It also means being able to see what a career in the industry can look like.
“When women see other women thriving in technical, management and leadership roles, it proves that merit is what truly opens doors,” Brydges says.
Brydges knows firsthand how much difference it can make when someone is willing to see potential before you fully see it yourself. Her advice to the next generation of women considering collision repair is to trust their capabilities, ask questions and find people who will support their growth.
“Don’t be afraid to ask questions, find a strong mentor, and let your work speak for itself,” she says.
And she would remind them of something else she has learned along the way: there is no need to wait for someone else to decide when they are ready.
“Believe in yourself, never be afraid to ask the difficult questions, and above all, own your path,” Brydges says. “Don’t wait for permission to lead. This industry needs your voice, your talent and your perspective now more than ever.”
