Giovanna Tanzillo, Co-Owner
Giovanna started her career “keeping books” for an auto body shop in downtown Oakland in 1978. She started Uptown Body & Fender with her business partner Lisandro Allende in 1992. Together, they have built one of the best auto collision repair shops in town. Giovanna runs the office, interacts with customers and makes customers comfortable about the repair process. She is committed to providing the highest quality workmanship and customer service to every customer that comes to Uptown Body and Fender.
Mike Tran, Co-Owner
Mike has a background in the insurance industry, as well as hands-on mechanical and collision repair experience. He brings this skillset to his work at Uptown Body & Fender. Mike is a gifted diagnostician, solving issues that may arise during the collision repair process. Mike enjoys knowing he has done his best work on his customer’s vehicle.
Lauren Gonzalez, Office Manager
Lauren has been working at Uptown for 4 years. She is passionate about helping others and looks forward to helping every person who walks into the shop. Lauren schedules appointments, arranges rentals, contacts insurance companies and processes payments, starts estimates and makes sure your time at Uptown includes a good cup of coffee or tea and your time here at Uptown is not wasted.
Steve Villa, Estimator and Customer Service Specialist
Steve has worked as a customer/shop liaison in the insurance industry for many years. He brings to Uptown Body & Fender a keen understanding of how insurance claims work and how to best assist a customer who has just been in involved in a collision. Steve’s commitment to eliminating snags in the repair and claims process and getting the customer’s car back on the road expeditiously is his top priority.
Teresa Maria Chavez, Parts Manager
On a typical day, Teresa deals with parts availability issues, hunts down the best deals for our customers and makes sure vehicles move through the various phases of production with maximum efficiency. Her dynamic attention to detail adds to the overall workflow of Uptown Body & Fender.
Blanca Flores, Shop Engineer
One of the many duties Blanca performs is the meticulous intake of all vehicles that arrive at Uptown Body & Fender. She physically moves cars through their stages of production and acts as liaison with the office if unforeseen issues arise during production. Blanca oversees the physical condition of the shop, ensuring the comfort of both customers and employees.
Rodrigo Serpas, Estimator
Rodrigo Serpas is a new addition to our team. Rodrigo has worked in the insurance side of collision repair and brings to Uptown 18 years of experience in navigating through the insurance side of the collision repair world. As an appraiser for all those years he writes a clear and concise estimate of the damages that need to be repaired. Rodrigo is fluent in Spanish. If there are questions about coverages, Rodrigo is the best person to ask.
Faviola Abendano-Ramos, Estimator
Faviola Abendano-Ramos is the latest addition to Uptown Body and Fender. Faviola is an Oakland native who studied criminal justice but was swayed by the lure of collision repair work. She is the mother of two children and comes to us from the collision repair world as an estimator. She is knowledgeable and can answer questions about the step-by-step repair process. She is fluent in Spanish.
The Talented Team in The Shop
Uptown Body & Fender is proud of the highly skilled, dedicated and long-time members of its auto body and collision repair crew. They have been skillfully trained to provide the highest quality craftsmanship and service to all our Uptown Body and Fender customers.