ABRA Auto Body & Glass Named 'Great Place to Work'.

Business Editors

MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 14, 2000

ABRA Auto Body & Glass, a Minneapolis-based damaged vehicle repair company, has been named one of the 10 Great Places to Work in Minnesota by Corporate Report magazine.

"Although we have been striving since our inception in 1984 to be an extraordinary place to work," said Rollie Benjamin, ABRA's President and CEO, "it's still somewhat shocking when our commitment is reinforced by this type of honor. This acknowledgement by Corporate Report, however, does not mean that our job is complete. We truly recognize the value of our team members, and we will continue the ongoing work of providing them with an environment of which they can be proud."

To select the companies, Corporate Report surveyed 403 public, private and nonprofit companies with 500 or more employees. Two types of surveys were initially distributed to the companies - a company benefits survey and employee attitude surveys that were randomly distributed to the companies' employees. The best places to work were those companies that scored high percentages on both surveys. Finally, ten additional, randomly-selected employees were interviewed by phone to verify the results from the initial surveys.

Tim Adelmann, Vice President and COO of ABRA, also commented: "With our focus so clearly on team member recruitment and retention, we offer benefits that are not readily available within our industry. One of those benefits is our extensive in-house training, which is available to all employees to help develop their skills and support their professional goals. We never want to lose someone because they feel frustrated or "dead-ended". With our open door policy, any individual can approach a manager to talk about career pathing. We will then work with that individual to assist in achieving his or her goals."

ABRA Auto Body & Glass was judged against similarly sized companies, and shares this year's tribute with ADC Telecommunications, Carlson Companies, C.H. Robinson, Imation, Lawson Software, Macalester College, Medtronic, Minnesota Power, and Wells Fargo.

ABRA Auto Body & Glass is a national damaged vehicle repair company specializing in collision repair, paintless dent removal, and auto glass repair and replacement. Started with one repair center in 1984, they have grown to sixty-eight facilities in ten states. Their plans for accelerated national growth over the next several years include acquiring existing facilities and building new locations.