Donny Seyfer the executive officer of NASTF  (National Automotive Service Task Force) and Partner in Seyfer Automotive in Wheatridge, CO. Listen to Donny’s previous episodes HERE.

Chris Chesney is the Senior Director of Customer Training, CARQUEST Technical Institute, and a NASTF board member and a member of the ‘Road To Great Technician’ project.  Listen to Chris’s previous episodes HERE.

Jill Saunders is Curriculum Developer, Toyota Motor Sales, North America and a member of the ‘Road To Great Technicians’ project. Listen to Jill’s previous episodes HERE.

Kyle Holt is the President of S/P2 (sp2.org). S/P2 serves businesses and career tech schools in the automotive service, collision repair, heavy-duty/diesel, welding, construction, cosmetology, and culinary industries. S/P2 is used by over 175,000 students and employees every year across North America. Listen to Kyle’s previous episodes HERE.

Key Talking Points:

• “There is nothing like a crisis to pull everyone together.” Donny Seyfer
• The entire industry needs to participate in growing and keeping technicians. Dealers are having the same challenge.
  • Churn is not good or acceptable to grow our industry.
• Losing a key technician can cause a big gap in revenue. Finding someone if you are behind the eightball is an expensive problem. Growing talent beforehand and on-going will
• Toyota needs 1400 technicians per year to keep their dealer network supplied. Aftermarket heeds this.
  • Military veterans are a consideration for Toyota.
• It starts at the dinner table. We need to get the word out to everyone who wants to listen.
• When kids are involved in a STEM class and or a youth automotive program they will cross-pollinate their friends. We need to get them involved so we can gain that advantage. Just one tactic to build it from the entry level.
• There is a video game to work on cars now.
• We need to remodel how we educate our students (all trades) from an outcome-based education to a more competency-based or master of a skills-based education system.
  • Give the student to move when they are ready not as a project group.
• Career pathing is to have all students to have the same competencies. All they would have to learn about their new employer is their culture.
• Industry and education need to be attached at the hip.
• Mentoring will be a big part of this plan.
  • We’ll never find mentors if they don’t know how and are paid appropriately.
  • Find a mentoring program at SP/2. Go to SP2.org, send an email and ask for the mentoring system. It is in beta.
  • We need the structure from a mentoring program, but outlining a career path is as important to the next generation of technicians.
• Career-pathing is an industry problem.
  • Entry level technicians need to know how to move up to B tech and A tech and what other directions, such as parts, service.
• Competencies must be identified across the entire industry.
• In the early ’70s, ASE helped keep the government at bay and to engage industry and to create a standard to gauge the knowledge-based of the technician.
• We need to get an electrical diagnosis as simple as righty tighty lefty loosey.
• The industry needs to take its rightful place to support ASE and education.
• The educators need the tools to teach the competency-based skills.
• NASTF’s goal is to connect everyone.
  • There are multiple initiatives going on across the country.
    • Mentoring, Apprentice programs everywhere.
• Service Quality Specialist is a new program being developed by Toyota
  • Creating a new role. Their highest level is Toyota Master Technician (TMT)
  • Make their TMT a salary position so they can mentor and coach technicians. This position will monitor the quality of work they do.
• Our technicians are being poached by other industries that need technicians.
• The entry-level technician developed by NASTF
  • Top shop operators looked at the outline and asked to adopt that person. In other words, they felt the outline was a home run.
• The FAA model of competency may be a perfect choice moving forward. How does it get done is the challenge. The technician gets a new certification from, for example, ASE.
• Jill Saunders is in charge of the Skills USA competition. We can learn from Skills USA which is a hands-on competency based test for secondary and post-secondary students.
  • As an industry, we can support it at a local industry
  • Students also are learning soft skills, like interviewing and writing a resume.
  • Not all who come in our industry do not have support from home.
  • We need to be there to lift the instructors, students and provide ‘in-kind’ donations and support to these institutions who are molding our future technicians.
• The onslaught of technology is putting us at risk because all of that technology is focused on safety. Who’s watching? NHTSA. (Safety and Cybersecurity) We need to get our act together before the government gets involved.
• The collision industry has been told that they will need to have a quality technician working in their shops because of the high tech nature of collision repairs. Consider that the collision industry will be looking to find the best technicians in the industry.
  • There is an opportunity for mechanical shops to partner with collision shops to support their diag needs and mechanical work.
• ADAS technology has the training industry and equipment industry up in arms over what it takes for calibration of ADAS systems.
  • The supplier of the technology in concert with the OE creates the calibration specifications.
  • You must read and have the willingness to follow the directions and the discipline to read all of the OE specs.
  • Technical reading skills will become an important part of training.
  • You must follow OE directions to the letter.
• We need to support education to a higher degree than we’ve been doing. Industry and education must align.
• Anthony Williams has a dream of building PTECH (pathways to technology) School in Colorado Springs. A six-year public high school in partnership with public schools and the automotive industry. Need to build a consortium to build the school.
  • Will include project-based learning models (STEM/STEAM)
  • No traditional classrooms.
  • Will have English, Math and History weaved into projects.
  • Automotive Technology, Business, and Engineering will be the areas of focus selected in their sophomore year.
  • The three R’s: Rigor, Relevance to the automotive industry, Relational (working together in partnership)

Resources:

• Join NASTF (National Automotive Service Task Force) Link to NASTF.ORG
• Thanks to Donny Seyfer, Chris Chesney, Jill Saunders, and Kyle Holt for their contribution to the aftermarket’s premier podcast.
• Link to the ‘BOOKS‘ page highlighting all books discussed in the podcast library HERE. Leaders are readers.
• Leave me an honest review on iTunes. Your ratings and reviews really help and I read each one of them.

Be socially involved and in touch with the show:
Facebook   Twitter   Linked In   Email    Events    Speaking

This episode is brought to you by Federal-MogulMotorparts and Garage Gurus. With brands like Moog, Felpro, Wagner Brake, Champion, Sealed Power, FP Diesel and more, they’re the parts techs trust.  For serious technical training and support – online, onsite and on-demand – Garage Gurus is everything you need to know. Find out more at fmmotorparts.com  and fmgaragegurus.com

The National Automotive Service Task Force, NASTF, is a cooperative effort among the automotive service industry, the equipment and tool industry and automotive manufacturers. 

There is no cost to participate in NASTF. If you are a professional auto service technician, shop owner, OEM service employee or any other automotive industry professional supporting the mission of NASTF, please enroll here on our website. Click HERE to Join NASTF.

Mission & Vision

Mission: The National Automotive Service Task Force will facilitate the identification and correction of gaps in the availability and accessibility of automotive service information, training, diagnostic tools and equipment, and communications to automotive service professionals.

Vision: Driving a professional, well-resourced vehicle service industry by uniting competent and diverse teams to solve industry-wide problems and effectively communicate solutions.

The panel:

• Chris Chesney is the Senior Director of Customer Training, CARQUEST Technical Institute and a NASTF board member and a member of the ‘Road To Great Technician’ project.  Listen to Chris’s previous episodes HERE.
• Donny Seyfer is the Executive Officer of NASTF. Listen to Donny’s previous episodes HERE.
• Jill Saunders is Curriculum Developer, Toyota Motor Sales, North America and a member of the ‘Road To Great Technicians’ project.

Link to the Road To Great Technicians project HERE.

Talking Points:

• A stake in the ground to move this project ahead. The project is in the ‘Stop Talking – Start Doing’.
• Milestone for the industry in 2018:
  • Mission and Vision for the program has been created.
  • To framework a career path for the technician.
  • They are excited to share the program and get the entire industry involved.
  • NASTF attended a Tech Force Meeting recently in Phoenix, AZ in early 2018.
• PIPS: Parents and Influencers of Peripheral Student
• Once the student gets out of school there is no plan for a career path. That is the focus of this program.
  • Mentor them and apprentice these students into the industry/shop.
  • Create a framework of education.
  • The college’s and OE can hang their curriculums on this program.
• Our current in-service technicians will come later. They want to start with new graduates of automotive technology courses either at secondary or post-secondary level.
• Key to the entire program is mentorship. Mentoring is a core skill and needs to be taught, learned and fostered year after year. Mentoring may not be a perfect match for the oldest or most senior person in the shop. The person selected must know how and want to be a mentor.
  • There will be a program for Mentor and Mentee through SP2.org with ASE.
• The Road To Great Technicians is about lifelong learning all the way through your career.
• You can’t buy a master technician anymore. You need to build your own.
• Standards will be developed.
• Donny feels that the ASE will be a pre-cursor to your practical exam.
• It is the job of the industry to set the standards.
• Mark Saxonberg, “Regardless of where you work, you need to be at the same skill set.”
• The consumer expects a certain skill level and because they don’t receive it consistently, we have a poor reputation.
• As consolidation persists, the bigger corporations are process driven and career paths and requirements of skill will be necessary.
• Like the FAA process: The competency exam will be a two-part practicum. A verbal/oral and a practical exam; to show you can accomplish the skills to a standard.
  • Chris Chesney feels that the oral exam will solve most of what we see today as a problem. For example, many techs could not explain a voltage drop.
• The way it works, as Donny Seyfer says, “It will be an extinction event.”
• Shop owners are business people and you need to make a business decision to get on board with this next level of career pathing and standards.
• Toyota has different entry points for technicians.
• Technician standards and requirements can be entered in a consolidated database.
• Chris is going to be an evangelist for this message.
  • The Chicken and the Pig Analogy. The Pig is committed, and the Chicken is involved.
  • Independent shop owners must pay attention to this movement because the larger groups who will develop career pathing will take the talent. You need to play in this sandbox.
  • Everyone must work toward these standards. If not the government will step in. We can monitor ourselves.
  • You cannot grow your own technician; just in time (when you need one). You’ve got to develop new young talent with the thoughts that they may leave you someday.

Be socially involved and in touch with the show:
Facebook   Twitter   Linked In   Email    Events    Speaking

This episode is brought to you by Federal-MogulMotorparts and Garage Gurus. With brands like Moog, Felpro, Wagner Brake, Champion, Sealed Power, FP Diesel and more, they’re the parts techs trust.  For serious technical training and support – online, onsite and on-demand – Garage Gurus is everything you need to know. Find out more at fmmotorparts.com  and fmgaragegurus.com

Download the Remarkable Results Radio listening APP for your smart device: