Face to Face: Jason Schilling

If your vehicle has experienced hail damage — which is basically all Del Rio car/truck owners — there is a good chance you’ve made the acquaintance of PDR Pros owner Jason Schilling.
The Michigan-born and Del-Rio-raised Schilling is the owner of the successful business. And his business is prolific in scope, probably because he’s all about “customer first.”
“I guess my real enjoyment is taking care of the customers,” Schilling said. “You know, these people pay their monthly premium…to have insurance on something that they don’t want to have to pay for or have something happen. And then, when an incident actually happens, it’s an inconvenience for them. So what I like to try to do, is make the process as smooth as possible.”
PDR Pros absorbs client deductibles, eliminating any out-of-pocket expense. 
“So it’s a win-win-win situation for all my clients, and I always make myself available. So if there’s ever a warranty issue or if there’s ever a problem, I just fix it.”
A testament to his business and people acumen is that PDR Pros has taken him all over the country and to Australia multiple times.
“The traveling has been nice meeting different people all over the country, seeing different things, working on different cars, seeing different perspectives,” Schilling said. “That’s been real enjoyable as well.”
The genesis of PDR came by way of — go figure — a hailstorm.
“There was a major hailstorm in Del Rio in…I want to say it was 2002 when I got introduced to the paintless dent repair process and saw what those guys were doing,” Schilling said.
He committed himself to learning the trade, and PDR Pros was on the move. 
“And then I started traveling all over the country chasing hailstorms, fixing cars. I’ve been overseas fixing cars. I’ve fixed thousands of cars, brand-new cars for dealerships. And I’ve been doing that for quite some time now.”
Perhaps you’ve met Jason or know of him outside of PDR Pros. His involvement in Del Rio commerce is vast. His first job was with UPS before opening up a car audio/alarm store and embracing the world of entrepreneurship. Car stereos then became cell phones.
“And then I ventured into selling cellular phones, kind of like at the peak of the cell phone boom, and did really well, selling phones,” Schilling said. “And then I ended up buying a piece of property where I’m at now…and the cell phone business kind of started to fade out.”
Schilling later embarked into the digital sign space, building some of the digital billboards that are very visible in Del Rio today.  
“…the big one at the overpass. The other one at 1800 Veterans Boulevard. And then the other one down there at Thompson Tire. And so I sold those to a company called Cine Ad out of Houston.”
But it’s Del Rio that actually keeps him most busy these days.
“You can work as much as you want to work if you’re willing to drive and chase the storms,” Schilling said. “But here recently, I’ve been really, really fortunate. There was that big storm in Del Rio in 2020, which basically hit the entire county. If your vehicle was outside, it had hail damage.”
The work that resulted from that storm became so abundant that Schilling had to open his own body shop.  
“Oh, man, that was crazy. There was so much work,” Schilling said. “All the body shops that I typically do work for…they were so stacked up with work they couldn’t handle any of my work. So what I ended up doing is buying a piece of property going towards the base by that Texaco. And I remodeled that and bought some more land and turned it into a full-blown body shop.” 
So Schilling hasn’t had to leave Del Rio for work.
 “Well, I haven’t had to over the past four years because it just keeps haling in Del Rio.” 
The dent-repair specialist is grateful to Del Rio for playing a significant role in his journey. 
“And I’d like to say Del Rio has been really, really good to me. I’ve been blessed…most of the people in Del Rio are really great, great people. There’s the teachers in my life. The different authority figures in town have all had an impact and a positive influence on my life.” 

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