Our Story

Recon Express was co-founded by Vern Day and Gary Tumblin. Together they bring 50+ years of industry experience. Here’s how it all began…

Vern Day

Vern’s career in the automotive refinishing industry started with trade school. He quickly gained recognition from employers as being a highly qualified and knowledgeable employee in his field. In his 12 years in the auto body industry he acquired skills in and outside his employment. During this time he learned and performed windshield repair, collision repair, estimating, refinishing, and customer service. In 2002 his career took a shift. Vern joined forces with an USA company, Dent Wizard, where he was trained in PDR repair. Vern quickly became a Master 5 Star technician and was given the responsibility to expand operations into NB and excelled. Wanting to be his own boss in 2006 Hail Damage Solutions was born and was very successful which allowed him to retire in 2014. Not being able to set still, Vern and Gary pursued their passion of wanting to build a SMART repair company and Recon Express was born.

Gary Tumblin

Gary’s career has always been in customer service. His first twenty years was in the business forms industry where success was primarily measured by customer satisfaction. Finding his passion in the automotive service industry came in 2000, Gary built the first SMART repair centre in Atlantic Canada and later managed Canadian operations for a large USA PDR company. This is where he met Vern and the two always knew they could build an all Canadian SMART repair operation focusing on customer service and satisfaction. Gary is also one of the founders and part owner of HaiLink which is the leader in hail catastrophe repair business in Canada.