The Bernie Story (How I Kicked Bondo Dust at a Mentor and Still Got Life Advice)

There’s a saying: when the student is ready, the teacher appears.

I was ready.

And Bernie Obry appeared—with a red pen, a calm demeanor, and an uncanny ability to turn damage estimates into life lessons.

I met Bernie in Poughkeepsie, back when the shop was bursting at the seams with talent, sarcasm, and Olympic-level dysfunction. Bernie managed the GEICO account and oversaw the overall flow of the shop. I handled State Farm, a rotating cast of misfit insurance companies, and cash-paying customers who “knew a guy” and wanted to settle up in quarters.

From the jump, I was told to run my estimates by Bernie before finalizing them. He didn’t just review them. He graded them—like a junior high English teacher burning through a stack of overdue Huckleberry Finn essays. Out came the red pen. Lines were slashed, totals adjusted, margins filled with comments like SEE ME AFTER CLASS.

It was humbling.

But it made me better.

We were opposites. Bernie read GQ. I read invoices I dropped mustard and spilled coffee on. He had the steady calm of a Buddhist monk. I had the patience of a guy stuck in the DMV line behind someone paying with a bag of pennies and an expired fishing license. He quoted Emerson, Frost, and random trivia. I appreciated that kind of brain and that I could drop any weird fact and he would get it.—but mostly I just wanted to get my Altima into the damn paint booth.

And yet, despite our differences, I liked him. A lot.

Bernie didn’t just understand the work—he understood people. One of his greatest strengths was turning estimates into jobs. He could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves. Meanwhile, I was over here with a 65% close rate, wondering if I should start offering free oil changes and a firm handshake.

One day, Bernie pulled me aside and served up one of his now-legendary feedback sandwiches.

“Nate, you’re writing solid estimates,” he said. “But you don’t need to prove to the customer that you’re an expert. They already assume you know what you’re doing—otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. So stop trying to dazzle them with part names and technical terms. Build rapport. Learn their coffee order. Ask about their bumper stickers. If they feel like they have something in common with you, they’ll trust you. And if they trust you, they’ll leave the car.”

Years later, I was at a high-volume corporate shop in Hackensack. I was out on the floor selling jobs to a Wall Street exec, a union ironworker, a frazzled mom in a minivan with four screaming kids, and a guy who either was in the Sopranos or thought he was.

The director came over, shook his head, and said, “I just watched you sell four jobs to four people from four different planets. How the hell do you do that?”

Rapport.

Bernie Obry.

The impeccably dressed whisperer of wisdom.

But don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all sage advice and warm fuzzies. The shop we came up in had enough dysfunction to make a therapist retire early. At some point, the owner started telling me, “Nate, you’re responsible for your jobs. Once they’re in the shop, they’re yours. Handle it.” Then he’d walk across the building and say to Bernie, “You’re in charge of the whole shop. Everything that happens is on you.”

That’s not leadership. That’s sabotage with a smile.

You didn’t need to watch Titanic fifteen times to know a collision was coming. I’d assign my jobs, push them toward the booth, and Bernie would be doing the same—with a different set of priorities. It was like two chefs trying to run one kitchen with one oven during dinner rush. If everything’s a priority, nothing is.

One day, it boiled over.

We were by the frame machine. I stomped over, hot under the collar, asking why my Altima wasn’t headed to paint. Bernie calmly explained that other jobs were ahead of it. But I was in my prime—full of fire and bad ideas—and I took it personally. I thought I was getting bumped because I didn’t matter.

Voices rose. We were nose to nose.

Then I snapped.

I kicked a massive pile of Bondo dust all over him—like a big-league manager arguing balls and strikes. Only instead of dirt, it was filler powder. And instead of an umpire, it was Bernie—a man with catcher’s mitt hands and banana-thick fingers who could’ve folded me like a lawn chair if he’d wanted to.

We ended up in the office.

The owner—fresh off giving Bernie complete authority—looked him dead in the eye and said, “Bernie, you’re not in charge of Nate.”

Classic.

Looking back, I’ve found myself in similar messes since—confusing directives, vague leadership, and the creeping sense that you're being set up to fail. And it hit me: Bernie wasn’t the enemy. He was stuck in the same bad system. He wasn’t trying to undercut me—he was just trying to keep things from unraveling.

Here’s what still gets me: Bernie never used that moment against me. Never held a grudge. Even after the literal dust-up, he kept trying to make me a better estimator, a better teammate, and a better human.

One day, I handed him an estimate and waited for the red pen.

No marks.

I said, “No red pen?”

He smiled and said, “Nope. Uncle Bern is proud of you.”

When I figured out how to game the State Farm RPM metrics and we cracked the top ten in the county, there was Bernie again—smiling and saying, “Told you you were smart.”

Eventually, Bernie told us he was leaving. Bigger things were calling.

Before he left, he said, “If you ever need anything, call me.”

It sounded like one of those polite exits. The kind of thing people say on their way out and forget before they hit the parking lot.

But Bernie meant it.

Over the last thirteen years, I’ve called him—when I left jobs, when I got promoted, when I was negotiating salary, Figuring out where the Ebita was going, or when the GM got fired midweek and I had no idea how to keep the place from burning down. Bernie always picked up. Always texted back. Always gave me a feedback sandwich… and ended with, “Love you, kid.”

He went on to do big things. Tour buses. Cement mixers featured in paint calendars. Spray booths the size of small warehouses. He sent me pictures of massive equipment sawed in half and rebuilt like something out of a sci-fi movie. In that world, Bernie became a force—a respected, influential voice in the industry.

But no matter how far he climbed, he always had time for me.

So now, when one of my classmates who has never been around cars, asks what caster and camber are, or where the Panhard bar lives, or why bump steer isn’t something from Mario Kart, I take the time. I give them more than they asked for.

Because Bernie did that for me—and still does.

Even after I treated him like a chalkboard and blasted him with dust.

Thanks, Bernie.

For the lessons.
For the patience.
For the mustard-free guidance.
And for not folding me like a lawn chair that day.

P.S. There’s no way all of this fits in one blog post. So stay tuned for more Bernie in a future post—featuring sage wisdom, fashion advice, fifteen kinds of German sausage and why they’re all good, and a collection of Bernieisms. I’m pretty sure he carried at least a few of them down from a mountain on stone tablets.