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Money for a Collision Education: CREF Opens 2024 Scholarship Applications
Originally published at CollisionRepairEducationFoundation.org Tuition is expensive, especially for aspiring collision repair professionals who also need to stock their toolboxes, but the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) wants to help! Funding is available for secondary and post-secondary collision students to support their educational endeavors and help supply the employee pipeline for collision repair facilities around the country. Applications will open January 11 with a deadline of March 8, 2024. Apply for a Student Scholarship online. “Helping students pursue a collision education without accruing debt has made a huge impact for hundreds of students over the years, and CREF is thankful for the industry supporters who have made this possible by…
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Digging Deep in His Pockets to Protect the Right to Appraisal
Published in Texas Automotive – Thomas Greco Publishing It’s easy enough for people to claim they’re willing to “put their money where their mouth is” when there isn’t much money involved, but few people are actually willing to invest time, energy and money – and certainly not all three! – to stand by their convictions and do what’s right to protect others. Texas consumer Joe Collins is a rare exception to that rule. Last summer, a Rusk County District Court jury ruled in Collins’ favor in Joseph Wayne Collins v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. During the trial, 12 Texans found the insurance giant had knowingly or intentionally engaged in…
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Information Providers Inspired by SCRS Blend Study to Research Blend Times
Published in Texas Automotive – Thomas Greco Publishing “Sometimes it takes time to get people where you need them to be, to a place where they get it,” Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) Executive Director Aaron Schulenburg acknowledged during a recent ABAT webinar as he provided an “exciting” update on responses to the SCRS blend study, which was unveiled in November 2022 and revealed that blending takes an average of 31.59 percent more time than a full refinish, instead of 50 percent less time as all three major information providers (IPs) indicated by calculating blends at 50 percent of the full refinish time. Before diving into the recent progress made as a result…
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Praxis v. Practice: NJ Law Seeks to Alleviate Vo-Tech Teacher Shortage
Published in New Jersey Automotive – Thomas Greco Publishing As shops seek to fill their facilities with qualified talent, the lament about the technician shortage has been heard from coast to coast for years, but rarely does anyone talk about a related problem that contributes to the lack of qualified talent available for body shops to hire: the teacher shortage! While it seems that there are fewer teachers filling classrooms each year in general, vo-tech schools seem to suffer the most from the dwindling profession. In fact, the lack of skilled trades teachers has led to several programs shutting down once their instructors retired simply because there was no one…
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New Faces at the ADALB: A Q&A with Carl Garcia
Published in New England Automotive Report – Thomas Greco Publishing During the October meeting of the Auto Damage Appraiser Licensing Board (ADALB), two new members sat at the table: Carl Garcia (Carl’s Collision Center; Fall River) and Vicky Wei Ye (Bos Insurance Agency). The meeting ran without interruption, and the recent additions briefly introduced themselves at the end of the meeting after weighing in on Board business – and even voting on the revocation of an appraiser’s license! But who are these new Board members, and what are their qualifications? New England Automotive Report reached out to Garcia and Ye to request an interview. Although Ye did not respond to our request,…
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Lessen the Learning Curve with SOPs
Published in New England Automotive Report – Thomas Greco Publishing Training new employees can be stressful – even if you hire an experienced estimator, painter or technician, it’s unlikely they’ve ever done things the way YOU want them done at YOUR facility…after all, they’ve never worked for YOU before, and everyone does things differently. There’s always a learning curve when a new employee joins your team! Someone who is competent (or even highly skilled) could struggle to assimilate into your shop culture simply because your processes are different than what they’re used to. But what if there was a way to help them get accustomed to your way of doing…
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An Eye Forward: Does Specialization Give Shops an Advantage?
Published in Hammer & Dolly – Thomas Greco Publishing “Back in the day.” “When I opened my shop.” “Years ago.” Attend any collision industry event, and you’re sure to hear stories that begin in one of these ways and which proceed to lament the technological advances that have made it so much more challenging to run a successful auto body shop in the present day and age. After all, properly repairing vehicles requires investing in specific tools, equipment and training – all of which vary drastically depending on the vehicle make and model. But those challenges also present a unique opportunity when it comes to specialization. Because modern vehicles are…
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MNCARS: Bridging the Gap in Promoting Automotive Service and Collision Repair Careers
Published in AASP-MN News – Thomas Greco Publishing “Why can’t I find any qualified help for my business?” This question is asked repeatedly by both automotive service and collision repair shops all across the country, and fortunately, this conundrum is being tackled by multiple organizations: TechForce Foundation, the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) and Minnesota Careers in Auto Repair and Service (MNCARS) are just a few entities working to fill the void left in shops as the baby boomer generation finally starts to consider retirement. All three non-profits support future repair professionals through scholarships, in-person events and other resources. Despite the synchronicity that exists between those working on alleviating the…
