Sam Mercanti ‘rises’ — to challenge of making a memoir

Reading Risen," you can almost picture a teenage Sam Mercanti, immigrant, high school dropout, disappearing behind the dust he is sweeping up off the floor of a Hamilton body shop.

Body shop floor sweeper, the job he left Grade 10 to take.

People born into poverty, prejudice and struggle, with parents not knowing the language of their new home, can easily become obscured, weighed down, under heavy clouds of disadvantage, ultimately vanishing into lives of desperation.

But here's what happens with Sam Mercanti.

When the dust clears, as the expression goes, he is still standing, not on the shop floor but on top of the world. He is more than standing. He is striding out from the dimness of those origins half a century later in a dapper blue suit, with carnation-coloured shirt and pale gold and blue striped tie, on the cover of a book he has written.

The book, fully titled Risen From the Shop Floor: Lessons from an Entrepreneur," is the memoir of a man who rose.

Now one of this city's most successful businessmen, a philanthropist and entrepreneurial mentor, present-day Sam Mercanti is who young Sam Mercanti became. Up from those origins, humble as they were, but lit by a dream, one he couldn't help groping toward even though he didn't know what it was. A dream he had little cause for optimism about achieving.

Little cause except his own irrepressible drive, work ethic and love of family.

Sam worked and worked, up from the shop floor. He started his own body shop. Ontario Auto Collision.

Then, as you find out upon reading the book, Sam got another company and another after that, and with a vision sharpened by foresight, he jumped all over the idea not just of franchising but of computerization and data compilation for insurance purposes. He eventually started up CARSTAR Canada, a nation-wide chain of body shop franchises.

The book recounts Sam's journey from fitting out and painting cars for friends and acquaintances to building relationships" with insurance companies, expanding his business, surviving the gas price hikes of the 1970s and branching into other businesses, not always successfully.

Through it all he kept expanding the reach and service of his auto collision business to the point at which, with CARSTAR, he oversaw more than 240 franchises across Canada.

But it wasn't easy at first," says Sam, 75. Out west (when he was trying to interest body shop people in franchising with him) they looked at me like I had two heads." Who was this guy from the east telling them what to do? Out east and in Quebec it was the same. But Sam persisted, hired local people in each area to help him sell franchises. It worked.

How well? In 2011 CARSTAR was named one of the 50 best managed businesses in the country (by the Canada's Best Managed Companies, Canada's premier business awards program, run by Deloitte professional service network). Winning that award was the highlight of my career," says Sam.

In 2015, he sold the business to Driven Brands, with conditions, one being that they keep on Michael Macaluso as chief operating officer, a measure of Sam's loyalty to his people.

Sprinkled throughout the book are glimpses at successful business and human relationship strategies and tips. They aren't just lessons for business, though; they're also lessons for life, and for family.

Some of the best stories in Risen," are those to do with that family, a driving force in his life - and the happiness his parents instilled was a great source of strength. He tells of coming to Canada as a child - he was born in Castelli, Italy - and of the early difficulties, his father having to return to Italy after suffering a health breakdown.

There are anecdotes about meeting his wife, Roma, their first date at an A&W drive-thru, about his colourful handball days at YMCA, his first cars, which he'd soup up, including the '67 Corvette, which he rigged up so that the glove compartment was a bar with the wiper fluid mechanism pouring out orange juice and vodka for screwdrivers.

There are also stories of his deep faith, the prayer and discussion groups he helped start, still going to this day, and his relationship with hockey legend Paul Henderson who helped start him on that road.

There is as well his philanthropy, the founding of Charity of Hope, and travelling to Haiti. What I saw there makes your head shake," he tells me. By contrast, he adds, We're living in Disneyland."

The book ends with page after page of touching thanks to the people in his life, concluding with Roma, but also including his children, one of whom, Samantha, has also written a book recently, about her struggle with schizophrenia and her inspiring successes and emergence from the worst of it. She now works for her father.

Family permeates this book, as one imagines it would, the Mercantis being who they are, and with Sam's siblings (Peter, the late Morris Mercanti and Rose) being so accomplished, the Mercanti name also being so closely associated with such Hamilton successes as the Carmen's Group and C Hotel through Peter, who has also done a book - could the Mercantis be turning themselves into a writing dynasty like the Bronte sisters? Smiley face - It All Started With Lasagna."

Sam is promoting the book with several appearances, one being June 8 in Moncton, New Brunswick, addressing the Canadian Collision Industry Forum and one later in Italy addressing the International Bodyshop Industry Symposium.

Risen from the Shop Floor: Lessons from an Entrepreneur," is written by Sam Mercanti as told to Romy Terkel. It is available on Amazon Canada for $30 paperback and $36 hardcover.

Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator.jmahoney@thespec.com