From a very young age, Chantel Daniel-Atkinson knew what the pinnacle of her career would look like – her signature on the T&T currency. But as fate would have it, she was redirected into running the family business, with her signature on the cheques and documents associated with the Laventille-based Professional Garage Ltd.
Daniel-Atkinson holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of New Brunswick, and a master’s in strategic leadership and management from the University of the West Indies, which she explained to WE Life and Culture was in preparation for her dream career.
“I was actually paving the way to be the Central Bank governor. I thought my name was going to be on all the dollars in Trinidad and Tobago. But what’s that saying? ‘When men make plans, God laughs.’”
The garage was established in 1967 by her father, James “Strong” Daniel. But when he got ill and was unable to continue running the business, she, at 21, had to step into a position she had expected one of her brothers to fill.
“My father started the company in Tunapuna and then moved it to Pashley Street.
He bought up a few of the properties in the area, so that’s why we have four different departments scattered around the area.”
Then, the garage dealt mainly with collision repair, such as straightening, painting, and mechanical work for collisions.
“He made great partnerships with the insurance companies and the banks. At that time, we were the preferred garage for all the major insurance companies, and then we used to do repossession with the banks as well.”
Since stepping into her father’s shoes, Daniel-Atkinson has added some new departments and has brought the company into a more modern technological space.
“I didn’t like that I only got to see my clients when they got into an accident… So I developed a mechanical department where we do maintenance of the vehicles, and I joined the Association of Vehicle Inspection Stations because we are an inspection station as well. But I ended up being on the executive and I lobbied for doing heavy-T vehicles. Not every garage could do T and H.”
Eventually, the garage went into automotive paints, and is now the distributor for PPG Deltron NXT paints.
“So if people come to our garages to get a paint colour mixed, we can do it…Right now I’m working on creating a parts department where we scrap vehicles and sell the parts to people who need required parts. So now our clients are not only the insurance companies; they’re not only the government agencies and the inspection stations.”
Daniel-Atkinson said that although growing up she spent time in the garage, she never paid much attention to what went into its operations. So when she was thrown into the running of the company, she had to learn, and learn fast.
“So in 2019, I got this entire company in my hands. And to me, I think that was the hardest thing because then it was me running a company in the worst time in the world, during COVID-19. I had to make sure staff was getting some kind of income; I had to manoeuvre it all on my own.
“Growing up, I had a general idea of what was going on in the business, but to say that I knew the actual operations; I didn’t.”
In hindsight, she said, she would have invested more time into it if she knew she was going to be running it. But she has no regrets about her decision.
“I did it with a kind of backbone support from my brother. He was always in the company and he understood the straightening, painting and other aspects of it.”
She handled the administrative part, which she said gave her some time to work on the books. “My dad used to be writing things down, and there was no software, no systems were in place. So I used that time to really put things in place so that we could manoeuvre in a modern way.”
Her postgraduate degree became very useful during that period, as she was able to put the information from her thesis on change management and succession planning into practice.
“Carrying on my father’s legacy is very important to me. I have a three-year-old son, and I take him to the garage ever so often. And it’s not because I want to push that on him. He can choose to become the prime minister or a doctor or an engineer. But I want him to know that this is an option, that this is what it entails to carry on a legacy.”
She said women often limit themselves when they get opportunities in industries that are traditionally not for them.
“I did it at the beginning because I always thought it would be my brother running the company when my father retired. I should have opened my mind to it earlier on so that I could have gotten a better understanding of it.”
For her entire life, she said, Professional Garage Ltd was what put food on the table.
“It doesn’t mean that my dreams or my goals will be set aside permanently. It just means that I have to ensure that it is in a strong enough place to be able to function if I separate myself from it.”
The now 32-year-old said she is looking into opening a second location, even if it’s just an express space.
“My challenge with this garage is our location. When people hear the type of service we offer, the things that we do, the pickups, the drop-offs, the courtesy vehicles, the interaction, how we work on their behalf to the insurance companies, things like that, their eyes open up. As soon as I say tell them we’re located in Laventille, you see them pull back.”
She explained that with an express location, people can drop off their vehicles.
“We can take it to Laventille and return it to the express location when the job is completed.”
She also plans to have a location in Tobago as well.
“I think I owe it to my father to carry his business to where he is from, where he was born.”
