I-CAR EDUCATION FOUNDATION CELEBRATES 10 YEARS OF WORKING TO IMPROVE ENTRY-LEVEL TECHNICIANS

In 1991, “Silence of the Lambs” was winning Academy Awards, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won their first in a string of NBA Championships – and a new organization was established to address a predicted shortage of qualified collision repair technicians.

“It’s hard to remember that back in 1991, finding technicians was nowhere near as tough as it can be today,” said Massachusetts shop owner Chuck Sulkala, one of the founding trustees of the I-CAR Education Foundation. “It’s really thanks to the foresight of the people who suggested the creation of the I-CAR Education Foundation back then that the industry has a great head-start on addressing what we now all see is a significant issue.”

As it marks its 10th anniversary this year, the I-CAR Education Foundation is reflecting back on that decade of history, highlighting its many accomplishments, and looking ahead to the work still left to be done.

Back in the late 1980s, according to Jeff Silver, at the time executive vice president of I-CAR, a national organization of association leaders was reporting efforts in various industries to address what they foresaw as forthcoming “people shortages.”

“I looked at the demographics and trends and numbers these other groups were seeing, and thought if it’s going to affect all these other industries, I bet it’s going to affect ours as well,” Silver said.

After more research, brainstorming sessions with I-CAR board members, and industry focus group meetings, the non-profit I-CAR Education Foundation was established in early 1991. Silver, Sulkala and others involved early on point to a one-day symposium held in Chicago as the launching pad for the Foundation.

“We invited all the segments of the industry along with educators and government representatives – anyone who might have anything to do with the problem or with the solution,” Silver said of the Chicago symposium. “We laid out what we knew about the statistics and what we thought was going to happen in our industry. We then asked for feedback from the group, and came away with a lot of really good ideas that shaped the direction the Foundation would take.”

“One of our biggest challenges at the beginning was just convincing people there was a technician shortage looming,” Gene Klompus, who served as the Foundation’s first executive director, recalls.

“Not too long after we formed the Foundation, there was a downturn in the economy,” agreed Frank McGiboney, another of the Foundation’s founding trustees. “There was less work in the body shops and the frequency of claims dropped. So it didn’t appear that what we were projecting was going to happen would actually happen. Those first few years were a bit of a struggle.”

But, McGiboney said, I-CAR had generously provided seed money (as well as ongoing annual support for its first 10 years), and the Foundation soon was receiving donations from companies within the industry – insurers, shops, automakers and industry vendors – who became convinced the Foundation was poised to address what was becoming a very real problem.

One of the first steps in addressing the need for quality entry-level technicians was improving the quality and consistency of collision repair vocational training throughout the country.

“You couldn’t have a degree of faith that the information they were teaching was relevant for the times,” Sulkala said. “Some of the instructors and programs were excellent. Others were still teaching what they knew when they left the industry, using antiquated equipment.”

In June of 1992, the Foundation created the Collision Repair Instructors Network (CRIN) to improve communication among instructors. CRIN members now gather at meetings – which include workshops and speakers – twice a year, and a new bulletin board on the I-CAR Education Foundation website allows CRIN members to post ideas, ask questions of fellow members, and share information.

The Foundation also realized that many schools were either closing their collision repair training programs – or struggling to maintain them. Thanks in large part to a $40,000 grant from Allstate, the Foundation created “How To Establish and Operate a Successful Collision Repair Training Program,” a comprehensive handbook that offers schools advice and ideas on everything from student recruitment to obtaining equipment and vehicles, and organizing an industry advisory committee.

Perhaps the Foundation’s biggest undertaking, however, was the creation of the ADVANCE-TECH curriculum.

“We knew that at some schools the collision repair curriculum was so out of date that anyone who took the course was really of little value to a future employer,” McGiboney said. “We wanted to create an industry-accepted curriculum that would help improve the quality and consistency of training throughout the country.”

Klompus and the Foundation were determined to raise the funds necessary to underwrite the cost of developing the curriculum so that it could be made available to schools at a very affordable cost. Dozens of contributors rose to the challenge – including a $60,000 donation from State Farm – to help raise more than $600,000.

The 43-unit curriculum, which includes easy-to-use print and audio visual materials and written and hands-on performance measures, was completed by mid-1995. By the following year, already 300 schools around the country were using it. Now nearly half of the nation’s 1,400 collision repair training programs have adopted the curriculum. The complete curriculum was substantially updated in 1997 through a grant from the Car-O-Liner Company.

“That is the most important thing that we’ve done at the Foundation,” Sulkala said. “We now have a course that can be put into any school system with a credible teacher and credible equipment to help students learn the things they need to know and understand about this industry. If I know that someone has graduated from a school using the ADVANCE-TECH curriculum, I know there’s a certain level of competency that I can expect from that technician. Before that it was hit or miss.”

The Foundation has also taken on a variety of projects in the past 10 years including:

• Creation of a “Smart Jobs/Smart People” speakers’ kit and campaign to assist with recruiting people into collision repair training programs and improve the image of the industry as a career choice. Much of this product was developed through in-kind contributions by USAA Insurance.
• Creation of “Props for Collision Repair Training CD,” describing 350 props and training aids to assist instructors, a project sponsored by U.S. Chemical and Plastics.
• Development of a CD entitled, “Youth Apprenticeship: A Partnership that Works,” a step-by-step guide to helping schools and shops work in partnership to train entry-level technicians. This project was sponsored by State Farm, Chrysler Corporation Fund, Meguiar’s, ICI AutoColor and Valspar.
• Completion of industry surveys in 1995 and 1998 to provide a valuable “snap-shot” of the collision repair industry, including trends in average wages and benefits for technicians, how shops recruit employees and what they look for in entry-level technicians.
• Sponsorship and training of “Team USA” for the 1997 and 1999 International Youth Skills Competitions. The Foundation used support from DuPont, PPG Industries, Sherwin-Williams Automotive Finishes, Snap-On Tools and ASA to prepare top-ranked collision repair and painting students to compete at the events.

As the Foundation celebrates its 10th anniversary this summer, Ron Ray, who became its executive director three years ago, is reporting on some of its most recent activities, including a 2001 update to its earlier “industry snap-shot” surveys; and a student scholarship program funded through cardholder use of a MBNA Bank credit card with the Foundation’s logo.

“Is the industry better off today because of the Foundation’s work over the past decade? I think so,” Silver said. “The students coming out of the hundreds of schools that are using the ADVANCE-TECH curriculum are much, much more ready for the industry, and I think the general quality of vocational education has improved from what I saw back in the late 1980s.”

But Ray and many of those who have helped enable the Foundation achieve its successes say there is still much work to be done.

“By necessity, I think, the Foundation has focused during its first decade on the first half of its mission statement: improving the quality of entry-level technicians,” Ray said. “It’s difficult to get hard data to determine what impact we’ve had on the quantity. But because of the work we’ve accomplished, as we start our second 10 years, our focus can now shift to that other half of the mission statement of improving the quantity of those industry-ready, entry-level technicians.”