Nathan Verplancke
In Town: Nathan owns Dent Boys, Inc., an auto body repair shop in Mountain Home, Ark. “Mountain Home is a great town where our business has been able to steadily grow,” he said. Nathan was raised on a dairy farm in West Plains, Mo., where he resides now. “We retrofitted the dairy barn into the body shop when I was 15. I started doing work in Mountain Home in 1999 when I was 21, doing paintless dent repair for several dealerships. Then, I saw the need for quality paint work, and started hauling cars to the house from Mountain Home. We got a place down here in Mountain Home in 2000, to continue providing paintless dent repair. We also added collision repair and painting, so we closed down the dairy barn and moved (the business) down to Mountain Home.” Nathan also got a partner in 2000 as well, his close friend Matt Williams, who runs the back of the shop, while Nathan runs the front. Now Dent Boys, Inc., employs 15 people and is a family business, as Nathan’s parents, Greg and Carolyn, both work full time in the shop. Also Nathan’s wife, Mandy, and Matt’s wife, Dana, are involved in the behind the scenes of the shop in their spare time.
In The Country: The Verplancke’s farm is in Gamaliel, Ark. The farm is also a joint partnership between Nathan, his parents, and his body shop partner Matt. Together they run between 60 and 75 head of beef cattle. “We have to take care of the day-to-day chores involved with the farm, plus there’s lots of clean-up from last year’s ice storms, like getting fences put back up, and getting trees cut off the roads and trails.”
How does your business and the farm complement each other?
“Being raised on a farm and owning one now has helped me create a work ethic that has made our business a success. We use it for a lot of avenues. We’re big into hunting and we like to bring people out and go on hunts. We’ll take reps and sales guys on the farm. We incorporate the two, it’s good to have a place to take people and kids who don’t have a place to hunt or ride four wheelers.”
What is one improvement you’d make at the farm?
“I would add some more ponds, and open the woods up a little bit through timber management.”
By OFN Staff
