ABOVE: One year ago, Jared Steuber took over Nick’s Body Shop from Brian and Brad Nickerson. With some time under his belt, Steuber said he is looking to continue adding to the legacy at 302 S 5th Avenue East in Truman.

TRUMAN – Having worked in Nick’s Body Shop since 2002, Jared Steuber took over for retiring previous owners Brian and Brad Nickerson, carrying on the legacy of a 40-year old business via Steuber’s Collision Center.

For a long time, Steuber said he had already known he wanted to make Steuber’s Collision Center a reality.

“I had made the decision that at one point in time I was going to own a body shop,” he said. “Either I was going to do it on my own and off my acreage, or I was going to do it here. I wanted something with my name on it, rather than constantly working for somebody else.”

As the shop transitioned from the Nickersons to Steuber, he said his focus was on wrapping his mind around the business side.

“I was probably more curious as to what the office paperwork situation was gonna look like,” Steuber said. “I’ve done body work for 25 years, so that wasn’t gonna change, but just the actual business side of things, how that was gonna be.”

ABOVE: Cade Ekstrom of Stormline Dent Repair, who helps at Steuber Collision Center from time to time, works on a customer’s vehicle.

The first couple of weeks were what Steuber described as a whirlwind. He said it took about a month or two to get everything running smoothly, but when it did, business picked back up where it left off.

While he does get some help from time to time from Cade Ekstrom of Stormline Dent Repair, Steuber said otherwise it is a one-man operation that goes through two to 10 vehicles a week depending on the size of the jobs.

“There’s a lot of nights and weekends that I’m working,” he said. “You still got to get your paperwork done, but the jobs got to get finished in order to create that paperwork and generate revenue. It’s very, very busy.”

There has been consideration given to hiring others to assist, but it would create a bad paradox for Steuber.

“You have to be able to hire somebody and train them,” he said. “I’m kind of fussy around here the way things get done, so I would just as soon train them. If I’m training them, then I’m not getting any work done myself. If I’m not getting work done, I don’t have the money to pay that employee.”

Since he took over, Steuber has added a scan tool to handle the pre and post scanning on damaged vehicles. On top of this, he said they have a spot welder and down draft paint booth, which provide factory-new qualities.

“Spot welding, you introduce less heat,” Steuber said. “That’s the way your factory panels are put on with spot welder. You’re able to basically return the vehicle to a factory condition because of that. With the downdraft booth, most of the time the factories bake your paint. We can bake paint here because of that booth. So we’re essentially returning it back to the way it was from the factory.”

As he looks forward, Steuber said there are still areas he is looking to improve.

“A lot of the new cars have a new kind of Freon for AC,” he said. “I’m looking at purchasing an AC machine so we can actually evac and recharge them.”

After having worked for the previous owners for over 20 years, Steuber said it is really important for him to continue on what they started and built.

“They treated me very good when I worked for them,” he said. “I know it was important to [them] to keep a body shop in town. I’m very happy I could do that. I want to be able to do that. It’s been here since 1983 so people in the community are still looking for it.”

*This article ran in the Spring Car Care section of the March 12, 2026 edition of the Sentinel.