Keenan President and COO, Michael LeVasseur, proudly announced the successful completion and graduation ceremony of the first student to attend and graduate from Keenan Auto Body’s new Career Opportunity Program also known as C.R.O.P.
Sometimes the best ideas come out of an after-thought of previous conversations and sometimes thoughts and ideas linger with us until we reach out and take action on them. That is just what Keenan Auto Body West Location Manager, Max Sorensen did. Knowing that there is no education quite like on the job training, Max decided to do something about it. Max first had to realistically figure out the different possible scenarios that could come of such an in-house program. He then had to rely on a couple of his current employees to buy in to the idea, donate their time and mentor any new participants in the program.
“This is a major issue in the Auto Body industry today so the first step was to come up with a program which could be devised from our current career path initiative. We then formed a team and after many hours of thought and feedback we created a nine month non-paid internship.” “The next step was to create the marketing materials followed by researching local vocational schools and Technical College High Schools with Collision Repair programs.” That’s where Keenan’s Marketing Director, Craig Camacho got involved. “Speaking to the instructors and students came natural to both Max and I because we have experience dealing with young adults that age, both in our personal lives and in our business, stated Camacho.
“After just two on site presentations we were able to qualify three candidates and received full support from both instructors resulting in our first graduate, Oscar Cantoran–Corona whose graduation ceremony, scheduled for Thursday, Feb 20th includes a full set of tools, a plaque, diploma and oh yeah…full time employment.” “Oscar is an inspiration to anyone who wants to succeed and work hard”, stated Nate Tarr. Lead Painter and Oscar’s mentor in the program.
Keenan Auto body, Inc. owns and operates 11 state of the art collision repair centers throughout Philadelphia, Delaware, Montgomery counties, New Castle County in Middletown Delaware and now Southern Chester County in Avondale and Kennett Square.
For additional information on C.R.O.P visit www.KeenanAutoBody.com or contact [email protected] or 610-325-9210.
Subscribe to ABRN and receive articles like this every month…absolutely free. Click here