In today’s business world, it’s not uncommon to have office dogs on the payroll. These loveable pets deliver stress relief as they boost morale and keep the atmosphere relaxed. It is much less common to encounter office kangaroos. At Cetus Automotive Repair Centre, customers have the pleasure of petting a joey in a pouch or watching a young kangaroo hop through the waiting area. The shop’s owners, Mike and Maureen Sheppard, are passionate about animals and the couple’s varied business ventures allow them to take incredible care of their exotic animals.
“In the long term, I would love to see this shop become part of our non-profit, so any time you get your car fixed, you know that it’s helping the animals. That is already happening, but people just don’t know it,” says Mike Sheppard.
Their non-profit, Cobb’s Exotic Animal Rescue and Education Foundation, is funded by the Sheppards’ eclectic entrepreneurial portfolio which ranges from haunted houses and corn mazes to travelling animal shows and vehicle repair. The automotive branch came out of necessity in 2020, and brought Mike back to his roots; his family ran a junkyard and started Pick-Your-Part in Calgary, so cars are in his blood. However, the only blood he and Maureen focused on previously was the fake kind they incorporated in their haunted houses at ScreamFest.
They attract thousands to the annual Halloween festival at the Stampede grounds, and it has grown considerably since it started 25 years ago. They later developed a corn maze and built Field of Screams haunted houses on the property that houses Cobb’s Adventure Park. The Park features everything from climbing walls to pedal carts with the main attraction being the animals. At a petting zoo like no other, visitors get up close with unique animals including emus, sheep, snakes, porcupines, turtles, wallabies, sloths and kangaroos. In February 2020 they were growing again, with approval to build a huge indoor adventure park, and then March changed everything.
“The world shut down. The bank pulled back their offer to finance it, and said ‘honestly, everybody in your industry is expected to go bankrupt because you can’t open’,” Mike says. “Everything we do is high volume; we’d have 4,000 or 5,000 people come to ScreamFest in a night. We sat down and thought ‘What do we do? We still have animals to feed.’”
While pondering next steps, Mike indulged his favourite pastime of scrolling through businesses for sale and he stumbled onto an automotive repair shop that caught his attention. They checked out Cetus Automotive and even brought their cars in for service on the sly to get an idea of how the company operated. They were impressed by the staff, the service quality and the company’s history dating back to 1985 so they decided to buy the business, an essential service open during the thick of COVID restrictions, in September 2020. It has proven to be a fantastic addition for the entrepreneurs and they are proud to be part of Cetus Automotive’s continued success story.
“What we’re known for is solving problems. We get dealerships that bring us cars because they can’t figure out what is wrong. Because we work on all models, our staff are much more experienced; we can service it all,” says Mike.
Cetus is a true one-stop shop, and having everything under one roof allows for quicker delivery for customers. Its comprehensive capabilities create customers out of many other shops as well, as competitors will diagnose an issue and recommend a solution to clients that they can’t provide inhouse, so they send those parts to Cetus for specialized machining services done right in the shop.
“We are the only shop in Calgary with a full engine machine shop and we have very skilled machining people,” says Mike. “We get a lot of respect from other shops because we do what a lot of them can’t.”
Cetus Automotive has earned a strong reputation for quality, integrity and transparency in the industry, and the company has 40 years’ worth of rave customer testimonials to back it up. Whether customers need something as basic as an oil change or as complex as an engine rebuild, there’s a mechanic who has seen and done it ready to help. There are no surprises for customers at Cetus either, as the team takes pictures before doing the work to show customers exactly what is going on with their vehicle, communicates how to fix it and explains next steps to ensure customers understand costs and available options.
This NAPA AutoPro shop is proud to offer the full gamut of services excluding body work, and one key specialty area is maintaining corporate fleets. The team knows that having commercial vehicles off the road is money out of their customer’s pocket, so they dedicate several of their 20 service bays to fleet vehicles to facilitate a quick turnaround to get customers back on the road.
While Cetus has been operating for decades, the team refuses to rest on its laurels. Instead, it is responsive to the efficiency expectations of a changing market and strives to be a leader in the area. To that end, Cetus uses a furnace that converts used motor oil into clean energy used to heat the shop, thus eliminating the need for disposal. They are taking the push toward greener solutions one step further with ongoing mechanic training in EV systems as they make strides in that evolving space.
“We’ll continue to do the machine shop and other services, but we’re also expanding. We’re experts in electric and we’ve created a new brand, Jetson Automotive, for our electric-hybrid arm,” says Maureen.
Between the machine shop, services and implementing electric vehicle expertise, Cetus Automotive is well positioned for success for years to come. In the five years since the Sheppards bought the company, that success has been fueled by the hard work of long-time employees like manager Fred Tucker and automotive service writer Tammy Hyde who have become part of the Sheppard family. And there is actually family sprinkled in, too; Fred’s son, Cam, and the Sheppards’ daughter, Riley, work at Cetus. With such a skilled and dedicated team in place at the shop, Mike and Maureen were able to continue to grow their Halloween enterprises with a partnership in Pumpkins After Dark as well as taking on Wildlife Festival, a travelling show comprised of exotic pets that have been rescued or surrendered. At present, they care for around 370 animals between the farm, their home acreage and the park, and the festival, animal and automotive businesses all help provide food and vet care for their beloved animals.
Customers know they not only get excellent, honest service and quality repairs at Cetus Automotive Repair, but they also support exotic animal rescue at the same time. And if they are lucky, they might get to visit with a baby kangaroo while they wait.
3005 23 ST NE, Calgary, AB, T2E 7A4
(825) 801-5001
