COVER STORY
A QuarterCentury Career: After 27 years of work with the automotive repair industry – which included writing more than 200 columns for AASP-MN News magazine – I want to wrap up this chapter of my life by sharing lessons I have learned during our time together. Some lessons are about the industry: You face Kevin Walli challenges on a daily basis as you strive to keep up with changes in technology to ensure that vehicles are returned to their owners in safe condition. Other lessons are more personal. I have observed a steady stream of shop owners emerge as leaders in the industry and as spokespeople for the Alliance. Our members’ leadership skills and business acumen are also evident in the transitions of shop ownership which have occurred on a continuous basis – sometimes transitioning to a family member, other times to a long-term employee of the shop. It has been rewarding to watch as the next generation steps up to serve the industry, having gained the knowledge that this service pays back many times over as they work with and learn from their colleagues. Probably the biggest take away from all these years working with AASP-MN is the necessity of affecting quality repairs in one of the most rapidly evolving business sectors on the planet. Who would have guessed 25 years ago that a shortage of computer chips would slow the production of cars and trucks as it has in recent months? It’s incumbent on every shop to bring precision to the repair process to ensure that the vehicles you are entrusted to repair and return to the road are safe for the occupants and other people who share the road with the repaired vehicle.
14 | November 2021
This marketplace necessity has become a legal imperative as the John Eagle Collision Center case out of Texas drove home the point that repair shops are ultimately responsible for the repairs they perform. The open questions that expose repair shops to ongoing risk pertain to the standards that repair shops must maintain and how that guidance is transmitted to the repair industry. Manufacturers need to provide more specific guidance, to ensure both safe repairs and to guarantee that the repair industry receives proper payment for completing repair work in accordance with manufacturers’ repair specifications. Over the years, we have found ourselves explaining the industry to an audience of policymakers who are rather clueless about how sophisticated the repair industry has become. For example, we worked to change the point of imposition of sales tax from the wholesale purchase of paint and supplies to the retail invoice prepared by the repair shops to be paid by the customer or their insurer. Previously, shops had paid the tax and had no means to recover that payment. When we accomplished that change, repair shops saw real financial benefit. This process also produced one of the most surprising and humorous exchanges between the repair industry and state agency officials in my years working in the legislative process. As AASP-MN made its case for the sales tax change, we met with key legislators and officials at the Department of Revenue. One exchange, in particular, demonstrated just how little some (or most) people understand the auto repair business. It went something like this: AASP-MN staff: “We are requesting that the point of imposition of the sales tax on paint and supplies in the automotive repair process be moved from the repair shops’ purchase at wholesale to the final retail invoice issued by the repair shop.” Department of Revenue staff: “The supplies you
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