A few years ago I did a study comparing the construction materials of a space shuttle to the construction materials of a late-model vehicle, and I found amazing similarities. Both vehicles used high-strength and ultra-high-strength steels, aluminum, magnesium, reinforced plastics, computer-controlled systems, safety restraint systems, navigation systems, communication systems, vehicle wellness monitoring systems, even hybrid propulsion systems. The results of that study led me to the following question: “If I wrecked my space shuttle, who would I want to fix it?”
My first thought was NASA, of course. I want people who were trained by the engineers who built my space shuttle working on my space shuttle, and I want them to follow the written procedures to the letter when completing the repairs. Yet it never fails that when I picture the vehicle being repaired in my head, I still see Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High saying he can fix it because his dad has this “ultimate set of tools” (for the millennials reading this who don’t know who Jeff Spicoli is, I recommend doing your own research). The difference that stands out to me is that I have never heard one of my engineer friends say, “My dad has this ultimate set of tools,” nor have I heard them say “I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I don’t need to read the procedures.”
I tell all of my students that when a customer puts the keys to their car in your hand for you to repair, they have already come to the conclusion that you are going to repair their vehicle correctly. In fact, as customers, there is only one person and one place we visit with the expectation they will get it wrong — our local meteorologist and the drive-thru at McDonalds (and we still go back to both). When we are talking about our vehicles, however, we would never intentionally take it to someone we knew might not repair it correctly or, worse yet, did not have the training or education to repair it at all.
Creating those future "NASA engineers" for the collision repair industry is not an easy task, but it is incredibly rewarding when we can get it right. It just takes time, which is, unfortunately, something our industry has run out of in regard to well-trained technicians. Let me clarify — if I want someone who can fix plastic, tear down and rebuild a vehicle, or fix a dent, I can create that very quickly. If, however, I want someone who can do all those things but also understands the collision repair industry, knows how to read and apply OEM repair procedures, knows how to deal with insurance companies and customers alike, and will ultimately be the person who will continue to help our industry grow and develop in the future, that takes time.
Not only does it take time to train those individuals, but there are a myriad of road blocks we must navigate in order to be successful. Some of these roadblocks are as formidable as the perception the collision repair industry has among the parents of the young men and women who might otherwise consider a career in automotive. We have to contend with the high school counselors pushing students toward four-year colleges and the way our society looks down on men and women who work in the trades (regardless of how much money they make). We also have to understand that the passion for working on cars has been lost on many young people today because vehicles are too complicated to work on in your garage.
If we can get past those roadblocks and actually get young men and women into the trade schools, we then have the obligation to train them correctly and completely. This presents an entirely new set of roadblocks because training these individuals takes vast resources and instructors who are ahead of the technological curve. Public trade schools such as community colleges struggle with funding and individual programs have to compete with each other for every dollar. For-profit trade schools are able to focus on one trade, but are expensive and have to spend time training in areas that will draw students in, such as custom painting and building street rods, in addition to basic collision repair skills, which can seem lack luster in comparison. In short, everyone wants to be the next Chip Foose but no one wants to be the next Scott Kaboos (one of the most talented people working in the collision repair industry today). I am a huge fan of Chip Foose and have a tremendous amount of respect for his talent and the attention he brings to the automotive industry; however, for every one Chip Foose in our industry, we need 10,000 technicians like Scott Kaboos.
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When facing these roadblocks, the challenge of recruiting, training and placing new people in our industry seems daunting, if not impossible, particularly in an educational system that seems to be broken. Unfortunately the system is not broken, it is simply worn out. What’s the difference you ask? When something is broken, it can be fixed; but when something it worn out it must be replaced. We need to build an entirely new educational culture when it comes to automotive training in the United States.
It is that exact type of culture change that we are starting to see take place in collision repair education in the state of North Carolina. It started with the creation of the CollisionU program at Fayetteville Technical Community College, which was a strategic partnership between college administrators and the collision repair industry. A culture was created where students were taught using a curriculum that led to the same I-CAR certifications required in the industry, and held accountable to OEM repair procedures, quality standards and professionalism. In short, a culture that created an employable graduate. From there, we engaged the state high schools through a partnership with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction to align the high school curriculum with the CollisionU curriculum. CollisionU took on the technical training responsibilities for all the high school instructors in the state to make sure that they were well versed on technology and understood how to most effectively utilize the I-CAR curriculum they were teaching. The end goal was providing students with a direct pathway from high school to post-secondary technical education, which would lead to gainful employment immediately upon graduation. The best part? It is working.
I compare this cultural change to the first step of a child; it is small but significant and it can be repeated, but only if we are committed. That child is going to fall, he is going to bump into things and occasionally he is going to get bruised, but as the child grows, he learns new ways to navigate his environment so as to avoid the bumps and bruises. We are just starting to learn to navigate our educational environment under the umbrella of this new culture, but only persistence and innovation will generate continued success.
Imagine a world where technical education was compensated solely on the number and quality of the technicians it placed in the industry. Imagine a system where technical educators were required to maintain industry and manufacturer certifications and were required to spend one month a year working in the industry they support. Imagine an educational program where students were held to the highest standards of quality and professionalism, where showing up on time every day was just part of the culture. Imagine a world where you could take your damaged space shuttle for repairs and know that it was repaired correctly because it was worked on by well-trained and educated technicians whose only concern was your safety attained through correctness of repairs. Imagine an industry where the older, experienced technicians support those new technicians instead of trying to run them off because they are threatened.
As an industry we must insist that automotive trade schools stop using gimmicks like custom painting, restorations, building race cars and custom fabrication as the motivator to get butts in the seats. We must use careers as the motivator because the promise of a career attracts and motivates a different type of person; the type of person we want working in our industry. Our industry needs to insist that the educators teaching the next generation of technicians are both qualified to teach advanced technical topics and understand the technology they are teaching. It is my opinion that we should have fewer automotive trade schools in the country so we can focus our limited resources on schools that are producing quality professionals. Regardless of how it is viewed, education is a free market enterprise that produces human resource as a product subject to the laws of supply and demand. Educators must understand that the human resource they are producing must be of the highest quality in order for them to be successful, and the industry as the customer must understand that it takes time and resources to produce that person.
So there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not the front of an oncoming train, or at least it doesn’t have to be. It will, however, not be quick or easy, and it will take our industry pulling together for the benefit of our industry, instead of individuals. It will take the insurance companies understanding how a well-trained technician in the shop leads to better customer service and retention scores. It will take the shop owners understanding that well-trained and educated insurance adjusters will help with correctness of repairs through a clearer understanding of what it really takes to fix a vehicle today. It will take technicians who are willing to embrace and mentor this new generation instead of seeing them as a threat, and it will take educators engaging with the industry to ensure they are teaching students what they really need to know to be a collision repair professional and holding those students to a standard.
