Organize, Educate, Quantify, Generalize, Hypothesize

Autumn is traditionally a season of change - saying goodbye to summer, heading back to school, accummulating new books, new clothes, new desks. The emphasis in September is on learning and efficient organizing.

This a good time, therefore, for INSIGHT to congratulate the I-CAR Education Foun-dation on its tenth anniversary.

Ten years ago, far-sighted I-CAR participants looked at labor statistics and predicted a shortage of qualified technicians looming on the horizon. They analyzed the problem and examined the available state of collision repair training and vocational education. They saw a need for a consistent, meaningful curriculum of collision repair courses nationwide, and they got to work. The rest, as they say, is history!

Far from resting on its laurels, the Foundation is already hard at work on its second-ten-years goal - improving the quantity of well-trained entry-level technicians.

I-CAR itself, despite the disappointing 25 percent decrease in attendance, declares its July meeting a success.

Rick Tuuri of ADP and former chairperson of I-CAR, attributes a huge amount of the organization's success to its volunteers. "Volunteers are the heart and soul of I-CAR," he said and calls them the industry's "best of the best."

Speaking of great volunteers, the National Auto Body Council (NABC) is asking for nominations for this year’s PRIDE awards. These honors go to our industry’s "best of the best" whose volunteer work in service to their communities fills all of us with PRIDE.

This month’s feature article is a required course for efficient auto body shop management. Organization 101 will educate you with easy-to-implement, time-saving ideas. You can become your own efficiency expert with this study guide. Time is money!

Our INSIGHT organization has undergone a change with this month’s issue. We say farewell to Marc Duvin, after just over one year at INSIGHT’s editor’s desk. Marc has moved on to work on some of his many other interests. During his watch here, INSIGHT grew bigger and better-looking, thanks in large part to Marc’s artistic flair and interest in the people behind the headlines.