Hudson Shop Owner Praises Assabet Students as Shining Stars Dream Team

Auto body veterans often voice their fears that collision repair is a dying field with few young people interested in learning to repair cars – and even fewer committed enough to stick with it long enough to actually get into a shop – but if that’s even remotely true, it seems that Tom Ricci (Body and Paint Center; Hudson) has hit the jackpot thanks to what he calls his “Shining Stars Dream Team” from Assabet Valley High School (Marlborough).

“For the first time ever, we have Assabet students from four years in a row who are working in the shop,” Ricci explains that co-op students came to work for him full-time after graduating in 2020, 2021 and 2022, while a current Assabet student is doing a phenomenal job in her current co-op. He quips, “It’s like a UFO… something you may hear about, but you never actually see it.”

Ricci’s oddly good luck began in 2019 with co-op student Garrett Monteiro who came on board full-time after graduating from Assabet in 2020. “He loves doing body work, and he treats his own car immaculately,” Ricci shares. “He also really enjoys riding motorcycles and going fishing.” advisory committee since the mid-1980s. He currently serves as chairman of both the Program Advisory Committee and the General Advisory Committee. “Over the years, I’ve hired a number of students, and although some are still with us, others go on to college, the Army or different trades.”

Although Ricci claims, “We just have an unusual situation currently where three students who graduated are still with us and haven’t gone on to other adventures because they like doing auto body repairs,” his knowledge about each employee clearly demonstrates that there’s more to this story than sheer dumb luck; it’s about an investment.

Brett Barrett, a 2021 graduate, “loves the Bruins and hates haircuts, so we always tease him about how we’re going to cut his hair,” Ricci chuckles good-naturedly, while observing that 2022 graduate Mike Castro Jr. “loves cars, especially trucks.” Current coop student Brenda Darnobid is “pretty quiet around here, but her favorite sport is field hockey, and I understand she’s pretty aggressive on the field, so I wouldn’t mess around with her.”

Monteiro performs body work and paint prepping, while Barrett works in the dismantling area, processing and scanning damaged vehicles. Castro is a body tech who also performs some paint prepping, and Darnobid has been doing a good job in the paint prepping department, according to Ricci. “They’re all doing a good job, and they all have a great attitude which is even more important.”

Body and Paint Center is no stranger to hiring Assabet graduates; Ricci has been involved with Assabet Valley High School for around 40 years since Arthur Balthazar, the auto collision instructor at the time, reached out to ask if he was interested in hiring a student. “That student worked for me for 40 years, until recently,” recalls Ricci who has been involved with the program’s

“There’s often this perception among shop owners that these kids should know a lot when they come into our shops through their co-op. They want to stick a student in the shop and put them right to work, but in reality, that’s not how it works. In the 40 years since I graduated from vo-tech and started my business, the hours that students spend in the auto collision shop programs have changed, eroded by mandates issued by the Department of Education. We used to spend the whole day in our shop, but now, there’s a certain amount of academics that are required, and that cuts into the hands-on experience that these kids are getting in school.

“We think they’re supposed to know everything when teachers don’t have enough time to teach them all of it,” Ricci continues. “Meanwhile, we also forget how little we knew when we started. Most of us graduated 20, 30 or even 50 years ago, and we’re still learning! So, why do we expect these kids to know everything as soon as they walk in the door? When we set such a high expectation, we get pessimistic about all they don’t know…and that’s discouraging to them as well. We’re setting them up for failure.”

At Body and Paint Center, students participate in a “full-blown mentoring program,” led by past Assabet graduate, John Resendes, who has worked at the shop since 2012. “John excels at mentoring and teaching, so he takes each new student or employee under his wing for several months. That student works side by side with John for months until he feels comfortable allowing them to start working on their own once we’re confident they’ve developed the continued on pg. 39