Veteran Body Shop Instructor and Industry Leader Bob Magee Retires

Bob Magee never stops. At 6am, he is already on the go, setting up the auto body shop at Bergen County Technical School in preparation for classes which start promptly at 8am. Most days, he doesn’t leave the Teterboro campus until 3pm. He spends long days teaching the ins and outs of auto mechanics and engineering while simultaneously trying to motivate and inspire young minds into considering careers in this profession. Despite frustrations over the years, his passion has never worn.

Prior to life in the classroom, Magee spent more than 20 years running a successful body shop in Pompton Lakes before stepping away from the shop floor into the classroom to give back to the field he loves as an automotive instructor. He’s also devoted years to helping the industry as an AASP/NJ Board member.

Now, at age 75, with a well accomplished career under his toolbelt, Magee has decided to retire – or in his words: “I don’t even call it retiring; I see it as moving on because basically, every time I see people retire, they just sit around doing nothing…I’m 75 years old, and I don’t stop.”

Unfortunately, his decision to retire stems from health issues. Since having surgery on his back more than a year and a half ago, he’s suffered from chronic pain that therapy and other methods have not been able to relieve.

“It’s to the point where I don’t know if this pain is going to get any worse. I don’t want it to affect my job. I could be laying on a creeper with 20 students in front of me, and it’s hard for me to get off the creeper. I have to roll on my shoulder because it’s so painful,” he shares how his condition is affecting his movement on the school’s shop floor.

When it comes to working, Magee always puts in his all. Fixing things is in his DNA.

“My father was a flight mechanic working on B-17s in the 1940s while in the Army Air Corps. In the 1970s, he was a flight mechanic. When I was a kid, I’d go to work with him every weekend at the Chrysler Corporation dealership. I basically grew up around cars, and I’d get to clean and fix parts. Growing up, I didn’t have any money, so I’d go to a junk place and find something just to fix it up. I would buy bicycles, spray paint them and do whatever I had to do to fix them.”

During his four years in the military, Magee found himself working on cars, rebuilding engines and doing body work. When he returned home, life pretty much drove him right to the door of his lifelong career.

“When I got out of the military, I rode my Harley down to see a friend’s car that was in a body shop in Pompton Lakes. A guy comes out and asks if he can help me. I tell him I’m there to see my buddy’s car. He saw me in my white sailor suit and asked how much longer I had in service. I told him I had two weeks. He asked if I needed work and what I could do. I told him I can paint, do body work and everything. This was 1969. I told him I’d need to make $100 a week, and he said, ‘Let’s see what you can do, and then I’ll let you take home $100 a week.’ I worked for him for about 11 years. I did go to some other places after that, but I came back and bought the place, and I’ve owned it ever since.”

Magee’s time on the AASP/NJ Board of Directors led him to develop lifelong friendships and a knowledge of the industry that went beyond his shop’s walls.

“The main complaint I heard from everybody was that more people were needed in the industry,” he recalls. He decided to step up and take the call to help shape the next generation of repairers by accepting an opportunity to teach.

“I was an industry person. I wasn’t a teacher. So, I had to go to William Paterson University for a year and a half. Twelve subjects with homework. It was pretty rough starting college at 50-something years old, but I’ve been teaching ever since. This has been my 21st year.”

Magee eventually went on to help shape the curriculum with his expertise by editing and reviewing four auto body repair and technology textbooks; he was the main contributor for a fifth book, Collision Repair continued on pg. 34