4 ON THE FLOOR

Scott Webb throttled into the office of the chief executive officer at Pep Boys headquarters a few days ago like the Road Runner on a manic mission. In his right hand:

two

BlackBerrys. In his left: a can of Rockstar Juiced energy drink. Standing before him: Interim CEO Mike Odell.

"Fifty Percent Juice," the merchandising executive said as his boss looked on with a big smile, "100 percent energy!"

The slender senior vice president all but squirted out of his tieless, GQ-meets-Miami suit as he explained how car wax, seat covers and car bling are

in

, and Chinese mini-bikes, kayaks and gun safes are

out

. He now controls the shelves at the Manny, Moe & Jack automotive retail empire.

Webb slipped out of Odell's office and disappeared down the hall, vanishing like a fast-moving tornado.

He may be the highest-energy but not the newest of the four-man crew of fortysomething executives recently hired to maneuver the legendary car-repair, service-and-parts retailer out of the back of the competitive pack.

Their goal is to jump-start a company that has stalled and seen profits sputter for years as the competition has raced away and Pep Boys stock has dropped.

They must convince Wall Street that the days of panic and executive turnover are things of the past. And that the new team isn't really just there to spruce up the company for a sale or leveraged buyout.

By the looks of things in the executive wing of the company's North Philadelphia headquarters, the new men in charge of Pep Boys are firing on all cylinders - the recipe for making money.

Odell, 45, unexpectedly became the company's fourth chief executive in two years a couple of months ago when the man who hired him abruptly stepped down.

Odell says he has worked hard these last six weeks to let everyone know he's about stabilizing things and doing so quickly.

"People, they know I move at a fast pace with a certain level of intensity," said Odell, who has been cramming in lunches and dinners with managers on days that start at 7 a.m. and end well past dinner.

"Not like an overbearing intensity," he said, "but they know that we're going to move quick to take care of things."

Odell was named interim CEO in late April when his predecessor, Jeff Rachor, announced his resignation for personal reasons. Rachor had been hired just a year earlier to be the company's turnaround man.

It was Rachor who hired Odell and the three other newbies now at the top.

It was Rachor who ordered them to craft and execute a turnaround strategy for the $2.3 billion company that operated 562 stores and 5,845 service bays nationwide last year.

Odell and Webb both started at Pep Boys last September.

"I've got seven days' worth of seniority over him!" Webb said, ribbing Odell in his office.

Odell was named chief operating officer and presumed successor to Rachor; Webb became senior vice president of merchandising and marketing.

Several months earlier, in July 2007, Rachor had brought in Troy Fee, now 40, from TBC Corp. Fee's tire-and-battery experience made him a natural draw to fire up the Pep Boys troops - 1,500 of whom are local - as senior vice president of human resources.

In November, Rachor promoted longtime Pep Boys insider Joseph A. Cirelli to senior vice president for business development.

And in April, the same day Odell was named interim chief, the company hired a new chief financial officer with leveraged buyout experience, former Toys R Us Inc. executive Ray Arthur, 49.

Odell, a former Sears Holdings Corp. executive with a background in finance and business administration, came to Pep Boys with a playbook full of retail turnaround dos and don'ts.

Odell had spent 13 years at Sears, running its $2 billion automotive division for some time before running its $26 billion Retail & Specialty Stores operation.

He was there before and after billionaire investor Edward Lampert took over the struggling retailer and left as Lampert's hoped-for turnaround unraveled instead.

Odell, who worked on crafting the strategic plan with Rachor, said he learned from his Sears experience that simplicity is key to any successful retail turnaround.

That is why his priority is to bring back the old Pep Boys that he and his colleagues grew up with as youngsters. He wants to make it even better - even "female-friendly," he said.

That means sprucing up waiting rooms, selling products that have to do with cars and fixing customers' cars so well that drivers are happy and make Pep Boys their go-to mechanic.

The money, Odell said, will follow.

"Just like a football coach would do with an offense," explained Odell, a Raiders fan (a Los Angeles native who loves the Flyers, by the way), "you build the line, you learn how to run the ball, and then you start doing passes."

It helps that he's playing offense with a cast of senior executives like Webb, 44, a lifelong carhound who dreams of cars and has spent the better part of three decades working in automotive retail.

One of the first things Webb did after coming to Pep Boys from the much larger retail competitor AutoZone Inc. was to get rid of $80 million worth of merchandise that had little, if anything, to do with cars.

Webb described what he inherited at Pep Boys as a mishmash of merchandise.

"We woke up one morning, we're like 'Where's the auto-parts store?' "

Odell chuckled as Webb gesticulated through the tale.

"You know? The legacy that Manny, Moe and Jack built?" he said, as though personally offended. "Our mission is to return that to the core automotive roots."

Rather than dump the old merchandise into the Delaware River, Webb said, they sold it, below cost, to customers.

Now, he said, "I've got the

killer

assortment in Wash 'n Wax and seat covers and floor mats."

Pep Boys had strayed into non-car merchandise years ago as a way to make up for money being lost in its parts and service business.

It did well for a while, but the bottom fell out when one of its biggest cash cows - motorized mini-bikes or so-called "pocket rockets" - were banned by towns and cities for safety reasons.

Despite their intentions, now is not the best time to win back shoppers. Expensive gasoline means fewer people are driving their cars or spending money on fixing them up.

Odell downplayed speculation that the company may be interested in going private, or that its ongoing strategy of selling stores and leasing them back is part of such an effort.

"This is really about trying to have the right capital structure to make sure we're a well-financed operation so we can withstand anything that comes our way," he said.

He has not yet moved his wife and three daughters here from Chicago, and he takes a cab every morning from his Rittenhouse Square apartment to work because his Lexus is parked at a Chicago airport.

But Odell said he hoped to have them all in a house on the Main Line by next summer.

"Right now I'm working nuts hours," Odell said. "What I don't want to do is move the family to Philly and then not be here, 'cause that's not going to work too well," he said. "I'm trying to give myself enough time."

Fee has moved his family to Downingtown from West Palm Beach. Webb said he intended to bring his wife and 10-year-old son to Center City from Memphis "as soon as possible."

"My little boy wants to live downtown so he can ride his skateboard to school," he said.

After 13 years under one chief executive officer, Pep Boys has had four CEOs in five years.

CEO Tenure

Mitchell Leibovitz April 1990-May 2003

Larry Stevenson May 2003-July 2006

William Leonard July 2006-March 2007

Jeffrey Rachor March 2007-April 2008

Mike Odell April 2008-present

SOURCE: Pep Boys - Manny, Moe & Jack