Building a successful business is one thing, but building a business with heart is a game-changer. Donzel Dubel has founded a successful automotive hail damage repair company that is committed to giving back to the community it serves
Donzel Dubel is the Founder and CEO of Storm Solutions, which specializes in automotive hail damage repair and is the largest retail automotive repair company of its type in the USA. They are raising the bar to what it means to be a customer service-centered automotive hail restoration company. Using a specific type of repair process called paintless dent repair, in which they mold the damaged metal back to its original form with their hands. This isn’t your usual dent repair company. Not only do they operate with purpose, but their work is an art form, which sets them apart from their competitors.
“It’s very artistic. We use different metal length rods anywhere between three inches and 10 feet long. We go underneath the fabrication of the vehicle and slowly massage the dents out,” explains Dubel.
Dubel started his career by getting a Master’s degree in Economics and Political Science from Indiana University (IU). He was set to start his journey to becoming a lawyer after that. “I passed the LSAT and I got accepted into IU law. Then I got around my peers and decided that I didn’t really want to be like them. The energy of the area and the culture just wasn’t for me. So I took a couple of months off, did some soul searching, and decided that I wanted to be able to do three things in my career – travel, take some time off and make good money,” he says.
When he discovered the hail damage repair industry, it immediately piqued his interest. The industry offered the possibility of his three prerequisites for a career and offered him the opportunity to work with his hands.
“I always like doing stuff hands-on, and I’ve always wanted to start my own company. My dad was a construction builder and built custom homes. I was always around the construction sites, working with my hands,” says Dubel. In addition, due to the nature of the industry being weather-dependent, it is seasonal and offered him the opportunity to take time off, as well as the financial incentive he was striving for.
While a career in law made sense on paper, he decided to move in a completely different direction, live a life of design, and get his hands dirty in the process. “I was never afraid to get dirty,” he says. “And this is a dirty thing. You have to take parts apart, stick metal pieces inside the metal and mold the metal back. You’re pretty much a metal sculptor.” The decision to move into automotive repair felt like it answered part of a greater calling in himself. “I feel like it’s important to take personal accountability for one’s self and to take charge of your own destiny,” says Dubel.
To get started in the industry he worked as a technician and spent three months with a mentor, proclaimed pdr master technician David Horany, following him around, and even sleeping on his mentor’s hotel room floor, to learn as much about the business as he could. It was during this process that he fell in love with the craft and art of the work that goes into getting dented metal to look like it has never been damaged.
“I’ve been an artist my whole life,” he says. “I learned how to play instruments and paint growing up. But I always say this trade is the hardest art I’ve ever had to accomplish. Not just because it’s so demanding physically – you’re literally pushing metal with your bare hands – but the technicality between going from dented to flat without ever seeing that it was dented before is very difficult. You’re pushing it 1,000 times, in micro millimeters. You’re talking surgical precision. It took me about three years to fully perfect, which is a long time when you’re working on it every single day, for hours at a time.”
It’s About More Than Just The Work
Talking to Dubel about his craft is fascinating. He’s charismatic and bright and speaks with incredible passion and energy about what he does. What makes him even more interesting is his fervor to give back. He runs a business that is not just customer-centric. It serves people – the people he works with and does work for, and people less fortunate. While he runs a very successful business, he’s adamant that he has a bigger purpose.
For every piece of revenue that he gets from a customer, one percent is given to charity. Storm Solutions selects certain local charities to give back to and then lets the customer pick the charity of their choice so they are donating to a cause they are passionate about. “At the end of the day, I’m committed to giving back. I think it’s super important,” he says.
Dubel comes from humble beginnings, and from a family who were devout Christians. Having a background of faith has influenced him deeply. It’s part of the foundation for what he does now and has been formative in the way he has set intentions for his life and the way he works with others. When asked about his background and the life he has built for himself now, he finds himself getting emotional: “It’s been a long journey from helping my family out, food stamps, and always knowing that I was destined for more. I always had faith that we were going somewhere, even as a kid, and moving through it. I’m now at a point where my actions are speaking louder than my words. It’s super gratifying and I hope to share this message of perseverance and faith with as many people as I can.”
Creating A Space For People To Reach Their Dreams
Dubel founded The DreamWeaving Foundation in 2019, which teaches young people the fundamentals of believing in one’s self. Like traditional school subjects like Mathematics, English and History, Dubel believes that cultivating faith in a systemized way is just as important as any of these. The focus is not only on teaching them the subject of building confidence in one’s self, but also teaching them basic psychological skills for life. They learn to translate what they have been taught into everyday living and to believe in the power of dreams. “It’s my calling to use certain psychological skills to be able to talk to people and to be able to give them the right to dream, give them the freedom to believe that they can. We help build them mentally so that they will be able to have the foundation of faith, instilling belief in themselves and giving them permission to reach their highest potentials,” he says.
The DreamWeaving Foundation is set to expand into the future as Dubel focuses more of his energy in growing it and seeing his dreams for the foundation come to fruition. “I have big visions for it,” he says. “I think it’s very important to be able to instill the concepts of having faith-based actions within your own personal life.”
To find out more about Storm Solutions, visit their website or follow them on Instagram.
Follow Donzel’s journey on Instagram
Media Contact:
Clive Vanderwagen, Writer
