A new chapter

After 34 years in business, Dave’s Body Shop of Waseca is changing hands. 

A handshake agreement nearly a year ago set in motion the decision by Dave and Paulette Krampitz to sell their business to Willy and Ali Malecha. 

“Dave wouldn’t have sold to anyone else,” Paulette smiles. “We needed someone who had the passion to carry on the legacy. These two will do that.”

“We shop guys do a lot of stuff by gut feeling,” Dave said. “I knew at the end of our first conversation together that this would work out.” 

A banker in Faribault who knows both parties was the link. The mutual friend was chatting with Dave one afternoon about a body shop owner looking to build another shop. “I told him, why build another shop when he could just buy mine?” 

Maybe it was a joke, but maybe not. The mutual friend asked Willy if he would be interested in purchasing the Waseca business. The two met for lunch at the Pheasant Cafe and afterwards visited Dave’s shop. Within an hour Dave and Willy had shaken hands. 

“Our first purchase agreement was handwritten on notebook paper; Ali couldn’t even read it,” Dave laughed.

“We would have used a napkin if we had one,” Willy grins.

The similarities between Dave and Willy are striking. Their compatibility is a strong factor in the decision to move ahead with the transition. 

“These two will bring new energy to Waseca,” Paulette insists. “And Waseca will love them–if they don’t already.

“God totally orchestrated this,” Paulette praises. “He has totally blessed our business for 34 years. I met Dave at 16 years old and he was already married to his work.” 

In August of 1988 Dave started his own shop next to the one owned by his father, Dave Senior. A month later Dave and Paulette were married. The two generations ran businesses side by side for many years. A plaque hangs on the wall of the shop celebrating their first day in business. A more detailed story about Dave, his wife, and their time in Waseca will be featured in a later edition of the Pioneer. 

Regarding how the business will be run once the changeover is complete, Willy observes, “The general public is really not going to see any changes. Really the only thing that will change is the technology that we have access to.” Willy explains it’s very important to him that jobs are completed by his staff, rather than being sent elsewhere. “We have the equipment to do everything in house. We want everything put back together to the manufacturer's specs. That’s what makes us stand out in Faribault. We follow procedures. We do things the way they’re supposed to be done. And we have the state-of-the-art equipment to do it.”

Helping Willy is his wife Ali. “We worked side by side for the last five years and now we see each other passing on Highway 60,” Ali jokes. The couple divides their time between their two businesses. 

Willy and Ali own Malecha’s Body shop in Faribault and are currently constructing a new building there to house that operation. Willy started his first body shop in the garage of his house in 2000 after having gotten his first taste for body work in 1995, as a junior in high school. In 2015 he and Ali moved the shop to its current location in Faribault. 

Continuing to work in the shop will be Dave and his staff. 

“We are blessed with great people,” everyone agreed. 

Both couples–Malecha and Krampitz–stated numerous times the importance of their technicians. “I don’t even want to call them employees,” Willy argued. “They’re family.” 

Both Willy and Dave compared their right-hand men to an extension of themselves. “They can read my mind,” both said at different points. Paulette compared the relationships they have with their staffs as similar to the connection Willy and Dave have. “They’re like brothers from different mothers,” Paulette says with a straight face. 

Among the updates planned at Dave’s Body Shop is a new paint booth being brought in to replace an older one. Beginning in January of 2023, the Malechas plan to have loaner cars available, free of charge to those whose insurance doesn't cover the cost, for their customers. 

Otherwise, the same great service which has earned Dave’s Body Shop numerous accolades, landing them as one of the top-rated body shops in Minnesota, will stay the same. As will the name, “Dave’s Body Shop.” The shop will continue to offer collision repairs, frame straightening, painting, calibrations– typical auto body services and repairs. 

“There’s no rhyme or reason to us body shop guys,” Willy explains. “We just do what we gotta do to make it work.” 

As for the future of the business, and themselves, Dave and Paulette are flexible. “We’ll go wherever God takes us.”