Christopher Johnson is the founder of Storm Rider Solutions, a nationwide remote auto estimating company that writes CCC ONE estimates, supplements and estimate audits for collision repair facilities and paintless dent repair companies.
In the last 45 days he has written $1.6 million in added value across 114 vehicles for two hail operations, one that sent 60 vehicles and one that sent 54.
He is also a co-founder of Extreme Hail and Collision in Plano, Texas. That matters more than any certification: he is not a freelancer selling services to shops, he is an operator who runs one and writes files daily, which means he carries the consequences of a badly written document himself.
He has worked in collision repair since 2008, and has held nearly every position that touches a repair order: service writer, estimator, production manager, assistant manager, lead estimator at United Hail Pros and then Metal Majic, director of hail and collision operations at Metal Majic, and director of estimatics at Westway Collision. Since 2021 his work has focused specifically on hail. He also provides training, consulting and remote estimating for Dents Or Us and Hail Pros LLC.
That range is the point. An estimator who has only ever written files does not know what production actually has to do with the document, and a manager who has never written one does not know what a carrier will accept. Storm Rider exists because most estimates fail in the gap between those two things — the operations a repair genuinely requires get left off the page, and the shop performs them for free.
He is a United States Marine Corps veteran.
Professional background
Employed roles first, in order. The two companies he founded ran alongside the later ones rather than after them, so they are listed separately.
Employed roles
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2008 — ENTERED THE INDUSTRY
Service writer
First role in collision repair. Customer intake, repair order authoring, and the shop-side view of what a carrier will and will not pay for.
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ESTIMATING
Estimator
Writing collision damage estimates and supplements, negotiating operations with appraisers, and learning where labor premise, access operations and recoverable materials get lost.
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PRODUCTION
Production manager, then assistant manager
Responsibility for the work actually getting done: cycle time, technician throughput, and the direct experience of performing operations that were never written on the file.
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2021 — HAIL
Lead estimator, United Hail Pros
Writing hail at volume as the lead on the file rather than one of several writers, which is where the consistency argument behind Storm Rider comes from.
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HAIL
Lead estimator, Metal Majic
Same seat, larger operation. Hail volume written to a house standard, with the throughput a CAT deployment demands.
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OPERATIONS LEADERSHIP
Director of hail and collision operations, Metal Majic
Promoted to run hail and collision operations for a multi-million-dollar operation, including catastrophe volume, PDR-versus-conventional decisions, and the estimating throughput a CAT event demands.
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ESTIMATICS LEADERSHIP
Director of estimatics, Westway Collision
Ownership of estimating quality and consistency across an operation: writing standards, line-note discipline, and carrier relationships at the policy level rather than file by file.
Companies founded, and current work
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OWNERSHIP
Co-founder, Extreme Hail & Collision
Plano, Texas. Not a freelancer selling to shops: an operator who runs one, which means carrying the consequences of a badly written document rather than handing it off.
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2024 — PRESENT
Founder, Storm Rider Solutions
Remote estimating and supplement writing for shops nationwide, written inside each client's own CCC ONE or Mitchell account, with appraiser defense included.
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CURRENT
Training, consulting and remote estimating
For Dents Or Us and Hail Pros LLC. Shops bring in an outside estimator to write files; they bring in this one to fix how the department writes them.
Positions held
The named roles, in sequence.
| Lead estimator | United Hail Pros |
|---|---|
| Lead estimator | Metal Majic |
| Director of hail & collision operations | Metal Majic |
| Director of estimatics | Westway Collision |
| Co-founder | Extreme Hail & Collision, Plano, Texas (current) |
| Founder | Storm Rider Solutions (current) |
| Training, consulting & remote estimating | Dents Or Us · Hail Pros LLC (current) |
Areas of expertise
Hail and PDR estimating
Panel dent counts, PDR-versus-conventional repair decisions, roof and glass access, R&I sequencing, and the inspection conditions that determine what a count can defend.
CCC ONE supplement writing
Supplements written against shop or carrier estimates, with manufacturer procedure and labor premise reasoning attached to every added line.
Total loss and valuation
Threshold mechanics, actual cash value drivers, and documenting options and condition at the vehicle so a valuation can be challenged later.
ADAS in hail repair
Calibration requirements triggered by glass, mirror and roof operations — increasingly a hail issue rather than a collision-only one.
Catastrophe operations
Estimating throughput during a CAT event: intake pacing, scheduling writing capacity, and keeping quality from collapsing under volume.
Appraiser negotiation
Defending written operations with carrier appraisers, and knowing which lines to withdraw to keep credibility intact on the next file.
Writing
A book in progress, and articles published on the Storm Rider Solutions blog.
The first one is free. Send a vehicle and see how it comes back — written in your CCC ONE account, under your shop name, every operation line noted.