COVER STORY

State of the Industry

Prior to Bradshaw’s presentation, WMABA Executive Director Jordan Hendler updated attendees on some of the association’s key initiatives, such as representing its membership at national meetings including the Collision Industry Conference (CIC) and SEMA, and highlighted the value of WMABA’s affiliation with national organizations like SCRS and the Alliance of Automotive Service Providers (AASP). She gave a nod to the SCRS benefits package that “lowers fees like you’re a corporation, even though you’re a small business.” Get more details about SCRS’ 401(k) plan and health insurance offerings on page 16.

sees something in the database that looks wrong, they’re probably right…and they will feel vindicated and supported when it’s adjusted in their favor.” File an inquiry with the DEG at degweb.org.

In addition to plugging the 2022-2023 Labor Rate Survey (see page 14) and reminding attendees to mark their calendars for the 2023 Southeast Collision Conference (more details on page 8), Hendler provided information on a new initiative to increase industry outreach to vo-tech schools, which WMABA is piloting with NVCC and Center of Applied Technology (CAT) North in Severn, MD.

“We want to come up with a solid, easy-to-follow plan for shops to not only get involved with local schools, but also to help students assimilate into a shop. We know that’s a huge gap because shops are busy and struggle to pair these students with seasoned techs; you don’t know what to do with them, so it becomes, ‘I don’t know… why don’t you go wash this or sweep that?’ And that’s discouraging. We want to prevent that from happening by building a blueprint of how to grow your own technicians in the shop to help them become productive as technicians, painters and estimators.”

WMABA also sponsors the DEG, where collision repairers can submit inquiries to the database providers about inaccurate times and missing operations, parts, numbers, procedures and more. “Even if the inquiry only results in a 0.2 hour difference, if that applies to thousands of jobs, the industry could be leaving millions on the table,” Hendler noted. “Inquiries often result in changes while the car is still in the shop, so that goes right to your bottom line. People assume those guides are tested, but YOU are the guinea pigs. The shops are the testing ground. When a technician or painter

WMABA’s Annual Membership Dinner also included a tour of the host’s facility as well as a brief presentation by Automotive and Collision Program Head Laura Garcia at NVCC, which is “the only post secondary collision program in the area,” as she shared. During COVID, the campus considered closing the program, but Garcia rallied industry voices who promoted the need for the program, keeping it alive; in fact, enrollment for the 2022-2023 school year was completely full by July, demonstrating increasing student demand. (Learn more about NVCC in last month’s Hammer & Dolly, available at grecopublishing.com/ hammer-and-dolly-january-2023.)

Although NVCC has already begun teaching I-CAR curriculum for the first time,

“we have a lot of work to do to resurrect this program from the ground up,” Garcia said. “We need to take that next step by establishing a solid system so we’re doing the training we need to do, but we also need to make sure these up-and-coming technicians are paired up with shops that know how to train them.”

Garcia also identified NVCC’s current needs, inviting industry professionals to join the program’s advisory committee and expressing the need for a part-time adjunct instructor. Those interested in helping in either capacity can contact Garcia at lgarciamoreyra@nvcc.edu H&D