How did AGSC vice president Peter Brown go from spending his childhood extracting windshields in scrap yards to winning the 2025 Carl F. Tompkins Award for Auto Glass Safety? Brown credits several pivotal moments during his long career.
Getting Started
Brown has been working in the auto glass industry for almost his entire life. His father, James Brown, brought Peter and his brother, Ed, to scrapyards with him when the boys were still in grade school. Peter and Ed would help their father find and remove windshields from old cars to resell at his auto glass shop in Pembroke, Massachusetts. The Brown brothers never stopped working with their father, nicknamed “Tiny” during his high school football days, and the shop’s name became Tiny & Sons Auto Glass.
Peter Brown first met Carl Tompkins during those early years working for his father. He’s never forgotten Tompkins’ advice.
Ed (left) and Peter (right) Brown run Tiny & Sons Auto Glass in Pembroke, Massachusetts, together. The brothers began their auto glass careers as children, helping their father find used glass in junkyards.“The biggest thing Carl told me was the importance of family, both actual family and auto glass family,” Brown says. “We may fight and [metaphorically] throw things at each other, but we always work it out.”
James Brown decided to retire and hand over the shop to his sons about 15 years ago. Peter Brown is now the president of the company and handles community engagement. Ed Brown is responsible for the technical aspects of the business and trains their technicians. They both incorporate Tompkins’ advice by treating their staff like family.
Embracing the Industry
Peter Brown decided to expand his knowledge of auto glass even further by attending an auto glass training school in 1998, a decision he calls the “biggest moment” of his career. The federal mandate for passenger side airbags in all new vehicles had just gone into effect, and the development rocked the auto glass industry. It became clearer that proper windshield adhesion was critical for dual airbags to save lives.
Naturally, this was a big topic at the training Brown attended.
“We were all learning more about how important windshields are to the structural integrity of the car,” he says.
Brown has advocated for keeping the industry up-to-date on the latest technology and developments ever since. Once advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) began to spread, he immediately started learning about them and how recalibration works. He has also helped spearhead the AGSC’s efforts to update the Automotive Glass Replacement Safety Standard™ (AGRSS) with recalibration safety guidelines.
Getting Involved with AGSC
Carl Tompkins (right) presented his namesake award to Peter Brown (left) on September 9.Brown attended his first AGSC meeting around 2011/2012, another pivotal moment in his career. During the meeting, he stood up and discussed the challenges he and other small shop owners faced daily. In Brown’s words, he metaphorically “threw a chair.” After the meeting, Bob Rosenfield, the former CEO of JN Phillips Auto Glass in Massachusetts, took him aside and gave him some advice he never forgot:
“If you’re frustrated and want to change things, you need to get involved.”
So Brown did get involved, to the point that he’s now AGSC’s vice president and chair of the AGRSS™ Standards Committee. In addition to updating the AGRSS standard with ADAS, Brown has also been instrumental in developing AGSC’s newest certifications, Glass-ADAS Calibration Specialist and CSR. As AGSC’s vice president, Peter also looks forward to making sure companies of all sizes, but especially small ones, know that despite industry headwinds, they have a friend and supporter in AGSC.
Now, when Brown sees the frustration in the industry, he responds to it with the same advice Rosenfield gave him: “If you’re upset, join AGSC. Let’s be the change.”