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The Women’s Industry Network (WIN) held its first-ever hybrid Education Conference, May 2-4, online and in-person in Greenville, SC.

The three-day slate of events included panel discussions, presentations, networking opportunities, a National Auto Body Council Recycled Rides giveaway, a walk to raise money for WIN’s scholarship fund and a gala to celebrate the winners of this year’s Most Influential Women awards.

Panel Discussion: Industry Changes, Challenges & Opportunities in a Post-COVID World

On May 3, a panel of people representing all facets of the collision repair process—insurers, rental car companies, parts and materials distributors, OEMs and auto body shop managers—talked about the pandemic-induced supply chain and staffing issues and trends that have increased cycle times, leading to frustration for everyone, down to the customers.

Brenda Hewitt, Guaranteed Repair Network manager for the Western U.S. for Liberty Mutual, said the pandemic put a lot of pressure on an industry that was already feeling a lot of pressures.

“Everybody was worried for several months [at the onset of the pandemic],” Hewitt said. “Fast forward to last summer, and not only do we still have jobs, but we have more than we can do. Now we’re looking at inflation.

“It’s about how to work together and not point fingers at everyone in the industry,” she said.

“Customers that maybe before [the pandemic] came in scared and frustrated but friendly, more and more are coming in angry and looking to blame somebody,” Hewitt said. “We all have to empathize and understand that everybody’s in a different spot.”

Angie Babin, vice president of supply chain for Caliber Collision, said there was already a shortage of technicians before COVID, but now everyone is recognizing it.

“The labor shortage also increases cycle time on receiving parts and materials, unloading parts, delivering them; we’re seeing [labor shortages] across the board,” Babin said. “We need to sell to people why they need to come work in this industry.”

Genevieve Dombrowski, senior vice president of human resources for LKQ Corp., said the pandemic also contributed to a marked exit of women from the labor force, as women left careers to stay at home when kids’ childcare providers and schools closed.

“Two million women exited the workforce in the last two years, and they haven’t come back in droves,” Dombrowski said. “We need to be more flexible with work times and shifts. I think it will take disruption to get women back.”

Turning to supply chain issues, Denise Kingstrom, BASF’s supply chain director for coatings solutions in North and South America, said while demand for collision repair materials initially declined, there have been big jumps in demand since, which the logistics side has not been prepared to handle.

Kingstrom said all aspects of the chain have been affected, from raw materials to transportation to production facilities.

“We have to adjust by working with the other partners in the chain, to see where you can flex to address some of those challenges,” she said, offering examples of combining shipments or using rail service instead of trucks.

Panelists discuss the ongoing challenges to the collision repair industry brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic�

Future Tech: Technology & EV Repair Trends

Jake Rodenroth, North American body repair program manager for Lucid, talked about how EVs are assembled, operated, owned and powered.

There are a lot of compelling reasons for an OEM to go all-EV, Rodenroth said, including manufacturing savings and scalability, but EVs present different challenges to collision repairers.

Jake Rodenroth, North American body repair program manager for Lucid

EVs use lighter materials that are riveted instead of welded, have much larger batteries with more voltage and use a lot more coolant to cool those battery packs — eight to 10 gallons in a single EV, compared to two gallons in a gas-powered car.

EVs will also have an increasing amount of ADAS features and the related sensors and cameras— Rodenroth said the Lucid Air sedan has 14 cameras and 32 sensors, requiring a 15-by-30-foot area to recalibrate.

EVs do not need oil changes and go twice as far between brake jobs, he said, and there is only one piece that moves—the rotor—as opposed to an internal combustion engine, which has a lot of moving internal parts.

Rodenroth said 3-D printing certain parts, rather than ordering them, could become common.

“Shops could get licenses to print out a bumper cover, for instance,” he said.

What’s Behind the Glass—Reflec-

tions on My Leadership Journey

Renee Cacchillo wrapped up the conference May 4 with a keynote speech on how her education and career path led to becoming Safelite’s first female CEO in 2021, and the challenges and opportunities both along the way and going forward.

Cacchillo was announced as the CEO of Safelite, a national company that will celebrate its 75th anniversary in June and the leading provider of auto glass for repair, replacement and recalibration, in September 2021. She officially assumed the role in December.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in business, Cacchillo worked for Dillard’s Inc. and Hallmark, while taking night classes to earn her MBA, and then Accenture, Lbrands and Bob Evans.

In 2011, Cacchillo started with Safelite. Over the next 11 years, she worked in a range of areas within the company, including service delivery, customer experience, marketing and technology, before being named the company’s CEO.

People kept telling me, ‘Renee, you’ve broken the glass ceiling,’” Cacchillo said. “Other people paved the way for me, but I’m paving the way for others.”

Cacchillo encouraged women to get comfortable possibly being alone in a male-dominated area, but to not be surprised when other women see their success and are inspired to emulate it.

To illustrate her point, Cacchillo said Safelite only had two female glass technicians nationwide before the company created a recruitment ad featuring one of them. The day after the ad started running, the company heard from 6,000 interested applicants—40% of whom were women.

“Every market has female trainees in class now,” Cacchillo said. “They are still the minority but [the ad] brought their attention to the fact they could have a future at Safelite.”

Renee Cacchillo, CEO of Safelite�

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