Teaching Teachers at the ASE Instructor Training Conference Workshop

It was a bustling day at the 3M Skills Development Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Monday, July 15, as part of the ASE Instructor Training Conference. The day-long event was filled with informative sessions led by industry experts, providing attendees with valuable insights into various topics.

Instructors begin arriving at the 3M Skills Development Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, for the first day of the ASE Instructor Training Conference on Monday, July 15, 2025.

Instructors and officials from ASE were given a tour of the facility led by Jason Scharton, the senior manager of global enterprise delivery for 3M. The instructor training event wasn’t the only activity happening in the facility that day. The Nitro-X Summer Camp by the Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence was also held by ASE, where middle schoolers and high schoolers build radio-controlled cars with the goal of getting them interested in an automotive career. Just like the instructors, the campers also got a tour of the facility.

Instructors were welcomed to a clean room with a polished floor, 24 personal workstations, Car-O-Liner and Pro Spot equipment, and an array of 3M products. The workshop began at 8 a.m. with a 30-minute introduction to shop tools, equipment, and layout, led by Senior Technical Service Engineer Shawn Collins. This was followed by a session on panel removal, where Collins identified the proper abrasives and procedures for weld grinding and panel removal.

At 9 a.m., Collins led a 45-minute session on weld bonding, focusing on the replacement of panels and the proper cleanup of adhesive. After a short break, the workshop continued with a deep dive into the science behind weld-through primer.

Shawn Collins, an application engineer for 3M, leading an instructor training session on Monday, July 15, 2024.

To the untrained eye, there might not be a noticeable difference between collision repair students and instructor students. Collins explained to FenderBender that the difference lies in the education of the instructors, which is based on the science of why. Some students need to understand why they must do things in a specific way to retain the information. Often, instructors don’t know how to answer the why, which is where ASE and 3M step in.

“I just went through weld-through primer issues and I explained the science behind it. How weld-through coating has electrons that are more active than the steel and the coating donates electrons to the steel,” Collins explained. “We just notice that typical training does ‘Do this do this, don’t do this,’ but they don’t explain why. So unless you can explain there’s a scientific reason, they don’t buy into it sometimes. But once they understand, they’re more inclined to do it correctly.”

The morning sessions concluded with a one-hour deep dive into the science of primer and E-coat replication and bare metal application cautions. This session, led by Ryan Marrinan, an application engineer for 3M, compared 1K Primer vs. 2K Primer.

Ryan Marrinan, an application engineer for 3M., teaching an instructor class.

Marrinan wanted instructors visiting 3M that day to also move away from what he called “tribal knowledge,” defined as a lack of desire to change practices, even for newer vehicles.

Newcomers to the field might find it humbling to see seasoned repairers learning new tactics and methods for common practices in the field. They might even review high school-level science, such as why it might be a bad idea to weld magnesium. If any young readers are considering entering the collision repair industry, they should pay attention in their chemistry classes.

It wasn’t all note-taking and practice. Instructor trainers and instructors got to exchange stories, jokes, laughs, and the entertainment coming from children with growing interest in cars. At one point, Marrinan had trainees share “aha!” moments with each other where their students had a moment of clarity in understanding something they struggled with.

There were also serious chats; after all, it’s impossible to avoid talking about the tech shortage when you gather multiple seasoned veterans in the collision repair industry.

After a 45-minute lunch break, the afternoon sessions began with a two-and-a-half-hour session on OEM bead replication techniques in seam sealer applications, led by Marrinan. Following a short break, Marrinan led a one-hour session on the application and performance of cavity wax.

The biggest “wow” that came from the instructors came from Marrinan’s demonstration of the OEM Match Sprayable Air Supply Kit.

“So when the OEMs build the cars, the seam sealer would be laid down by a robot, and there could be a half dozen appearances by those robots,” Scharton explained. “Replicating that is important. We want to match that as much as possible so it doesn’t look like it’s been in an accident.”

The ASE Instructor Training Conference is taking place in the Twin Cities metro area from July 15 to July 18.