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Proactively Growing the Industry’s Technician Pipeline
Proactively Growing the Industry’s Technician Pipeline
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About this episode
Lou Olivier, Director of Outreach at the Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence, shares his unique background and deep involvement in growing the technician workforce pipeline. He discusses the importance of early engagement through programs like NitroX camps for middle schoolers, the critical role of industry-education partnerships, and challenges such as instructor shortages and curriculum updates for emerging technologies like EVs and ADAS. Lou emphasizes proactive, long-term strategies to sustain the industry and highlights the need for better compensation and support for educators to maintain vital training programs.
Topics:
technician workforce pipeline
industry-education partnerships
middle school outreach programs
nitrox camps
electric vehicle training
adas technology education
instructor shortages
curriculum development
long-term industry sustainability
educator compensation
Lew Olivier, Director of Outreach at the MN State Transportation Center of Excellence, joins us to discuss growing the next generation of technicians. Lew explains how events like Nitro-X spark student interest in technical careers, what shops can do as a first step to get involved with schools, and how small actions today can have a lasting impact on the technician workforce.
Check out the full video version of the podcast on YouTube!
About the Episode
- Host: Jay Goninen, WrenchWay, [email protected]
- Guest: Lew Olivier, MN State Transportation Center of Excellence, [email protected]
Links & Resources
- Get notified of new episodes --> Join our email list
- Nitro-X Summer Camps
- Investing in the Future: Measuring Employer ROI in Early Talent Development
About WrenchWay:
- For Technicians & Students: wrenchway.com/solutions/technicians/
- For Shops & Dealerships: wrenchway.com/solutions/shops/
- For Instructors: wrenchway.com/solutions/schools/
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You're not going to hire that middle schooler to replace a transmission next week, and we understand that.
But the reality is we have to create these pipelines along with our educational partners to have the complete pipeline.
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Beyond the Wrench. My name is Jay Ganinen, and I am your host. Today,
we've got a special guest, Lou Olivier. Lou works as the Director of Outreach for the Minnesota
State Transportation Center of Excellence, where he partners with schools and the industry to help
shape the future of the technician workforce. We're going to dig into Lou's background,
what he's seeing in technician training, and the evolution of technicians as a whole, and really how
shops can use this to be able to maybe grow their workforce in a little different way.
So, Lou, thanks for joining us. How are you?
Phenomenal. Thank you so much for having me on, Jay. I really appreciate the time and the platform.
And I just want to kind of give you guys props as Beyond the Wrench, Wrenchway, School Connect,
the amazing things that you guys are doing across our industry and our education system, too.
So, I just want to kind of start off with that side of things. I'm very excited to be part of
this conversation, and thanks for having me. And right back at you guys, right? You're doing so
much good for the state of Minnesota, and we'll dive into all of that as we go through this
podcast. One thing that as we were kind of kicking things off before we hit record that I thought was
kind of funny was we dissected your last name a little bit, right? Or your whole name, your
entire name, because it's a unique name. And I wanted to make sure that as I do with all guests,
make sure I have the last name right. And I clarified Olivier. And then you kind of
dove into the rest of the name. There's a lot going on there.
Yeah, I'm a little kind of abstract a little bit, a little off the beaten path a little bit when it
comes to a lot of people seeing my name. And it's a little intimidated by it. I've experienced to
somebody after they've known me for half a year or so, and they come up to me and say like,
I saw your name the first time, Lou Ellen, and all the elves really intimidated me. And so
I didn't talk to you for the longest time. And so yeah, I'm a little bit of a mutt when it comes
to things that I got a French last name Olivier. I'm originally from South Africa. So I got the
little bit of the accent going on there too. And then my mom gifted me the Welsh name of
Lou Ellen. So yeah, we're navigating it, we're figuring it out along the way. So Lou has been
a wonderful way of just kind of kicking off and making people feel a little bit more
comfortable for sure. Well, tell me a little bit about your upbringing, because that is definitely
unique compared to most guests that we have on not growing up here. What was it like?
Yeah, well, what's normal for me is not normal for other people. So everybody's
experience is a little different. But yeah, having grown up, so I was born and raised in
South Africa. I moved to the United States at the age of 11. My dad is a computer programmer,
so it's all about the Y2K back in, you know, everybody, older generations remember the big
scare about everything's going to crash. And so that gave us ability to move to the United
States. And so that kind of gave us another opportunity. As far as my background, technically,
I'm definitely from the automotive side of things. I've been a technician in the industry
for a long time. But even from a young upbringing, I was always very mechanically inclined. I
was very good thinking about how things work together. My parents to this day still remind
me how many times I've taken their alarm clocks apart and have it to every week by a new
alarm clock. And so yeah, it kind of involved into a no brainer for me as I kind of grew up
and realized that being a technician was my future. So when I came to the United States,
I took all the tech classes, I was fortunate enough to have a lot of those tech classes
available to me at the high school level. I took the small engines course, I still
talk to this day to my instructor from high school, who owned a Volkswagen two in my background.
When I went into the industry is on the Volkswagen side. So anytime he had car troubles, he called
me up, which is kind of fun to talk to your old educators that taught you the basics, right?
And then also at the great opportunity of intermediate schools in the state of Minnesota
where on each corner of the metro area we have these high school programs available
where local high school ships their students in and have CTE courses, typically which are
very expensive to run, but having a centralized location. So I took a collision program at
that point in high school, which kind of got me the backing of the collision side
at the local campus during high school. At that time, it was very hard to employ somebody.
And so I tried getting an internship in the collision side and nobody wanted to hire me.
I think we still have that conversation, you know, that like threshold of
who wants to hire a high school student, right? And logistics behind that. And then my
the person involved at the high school level of the apprenticeship side of things
gave me an option to go on the technical side. Let's try getting your job as a
technical side. And that's where I kind of interviewed at the local Volkswagen dealership
and they hired me on. And then I went to the technical side when I was technical school at
Century College, the local community college, which I know support as part of my job as director of
outreach. So I've come full circle as far as being part of the system, having experienced
the programs along the way. And I find myself being very fortunate to have had those opportunities
for sure. Well, and it's such an interesting background. And I'm, we'll talk about that
industry school relationship here in a little bit. But I do want to ask, was there like your dad
being a computer programmer, you going into cars, was there a car culture in South Africa that like
you had brought over with you? Or was this something where as you moved to the United
States that it kind of opened your eyes to? I think it's a lot more society driven, right?
In the United States, we're very, you know, if it's broken, throw it away, move on, or call the
professional, right? In a different culture, you can't afford to call the specialist. And if
even if you could, you don't know who to call. So you have to fix it yourself to make it work,
because that's how we work. So even my dad being on the computer programming side of things,
we were the weekend warrior kind of scenario. If the car broke, and the alternator didn't charge
the battery, we wouldn't just replace the alternator, we would rebuild the alternator. So
just different perspective, I think, when it comes to what we're used to in the United States,
versus some other countries, I think it's definitely that if you cannot fix it yourself,
it's probably, you know, not worth fixing versus United States, we're going to throw it away and
replace it. And so just that aspect is a much different way of looking at the world.
Yeah. And I have to imagine that's helped you in your career, right? Because you at a young age
are learning how things work. And it sounds like we're very curious as to how things work.
And regardless of what it is, especially folks with that really, really good technical aptitude,
I feel like have that similar mindset to what you did in terms of just tearing apart that alarm clock
and understanding how it works. There's a different level of curiosity that I see with
the best of the best, where they do truly want to understand things. And I think ultimately
that leads you down a path where you're always kind of curious and you're always interested
in how things work. And I see that pattern with a lot of very, very technically talented people.
Yeah. And when I knew I was coming on the podcast, and I know you asked kind of the
background questions, I started thinking about like my background and some of the hobbies
that I had as a kid. And I was very much into model railroads, right? And now looking back at it,
I'm like thinking to myself, I was teaching myself Ohm's Law, right? DC circuits because
one side of the track is positive, one side is negative. If we don't have a good connection,
that's high resistance or open in the circuit. And like applying just those basic toys,
it has a practical impact on the greater understanding of how things work too.
Like dirty wheels on those, that's high resistance, the motor won't run. And so it is very much of,
you know, some of us are kind of born with that, but it does not mean you cannot teach it.
I think a lot of individuals we have at the high school level and middle school level right
now, they're not getting introduced to these pathways or these concepts of working with our hands
because they don't see mom and dad doing it because they went for a four year degree because
that's what the school system was encouraging at the time. Mom and dad doesn't know how to
check tire pressure. So we don't know our garages as storage units, not being utilized for
tinkering anymore. So I think being engulfed in that definitely is the benefit, but I think there's
a lot of opportunity as far as the industry standpoints to kind of open that possibility
for the next generation to explore that pathway too. Is that a good point? And I think,
you know, if you're a parent that's out there, I do think there are a lot of things
like Lou was just talking about where if you want to get your child to be maybe a little bit
more mechanically inclined, there are things still to this day. I don't know, were you a Lego guy?
Oh, big dad. Yeah, absolutely. Got one of the original robotic sets back in the day. And
yeah, yeah, absolutely. A big part of the tinkering and exploring that.
There's some great different things out there and Legos has evolved so much to
to this day that they're just kind of really taking over but there's a lot of other resources too.
Another one I just want to shout out that I'm not they're not paying me anything for this,
but if you guys are looking to engage their younger generation, Upper Story LLC is a company
that is amazing hands-on toys. They have a game that's called Spintronics that turns electricity
into the steam pump gear set. And so you get to learn about electricity and amperage and voltage
all by building a circuit with gears and sprockets and chains. And so just taking it to the next
level. So I just want to give them a shout out and they got a really cool marble game too that
kind of talks about computers. And my son loves these games. So I kind of encouraged other people
and I always want to make sure to let people know about these awesome resources.
I had never heard of these guys. And as you're talking, I just looked up the site
and that is incredible. They have some cool stuff and it looks like they're a Twin City
company too, right? Like they're based out of Minneapolis area. Yeah, just a phenomena I met
with one of the co-owners of that and just a wonderful connection again. And they're doing
some great things out in the industry and definitely something we can look at
for awareness. We need to kind of plant that seed much earlier. And this is a great way of doing
it with a game. So wow, I see all kinds of opportunities with stuff like that. I mean,
if you're a shop that's out there and maybe you have a good customer that has a kid that's
interested, it might be a good idea. Maybe have a few of those on the shelf at your shop
and give them to a young kid and try to stoke that up. And as we're around the holiday season,
I think that's a great gift idea just in general. What a cool, cool company. I had no idea
they existed. That's awesome. That's awesome. All right. So let's talk about what you're
doing in Minnesota and what you do in your day-to-day life. Tell us a little bit about your job.
Yeah. So I work for Minnesota State Transportation Center of Excellence. It is quite a lengthy
title for the kind of benefit of us all. I'll just call it TCOE. That's kind of our shortened
version of it. As the TCOE, we kind of fall under the educational branch. We're funded
through the Minnesota State College University System. And more specifically, we're in place to
promote transportation programs. So we have six main sectors that we support, anything from marine
power sports to automotive, to collision, to truck driving, to diesel technology, to aviation. So
it's quite a big task to kind of encompass all of that. We have three main pillars that we work
under. It's inspiring the future technicians, basically, kind of building that recruitment side of
things, getting the pipeline in place. Engaging industry is the other pillar that's very critical
in making sure that our industry is connected to our education programs and kind of driving that
ship and telling us what we need to do as an educational institution to make sure we
meet their standards. Additional to that is our enhanced education. We have to be on the front
line of technology and talking about latest greatest things and make sure that we implement it into
our educational pathways. A lot of things are changing in our industry on the automotive side,
collision side, across the board. So we see a lot more autonomous vehicles driving themselves.
We see a lot of ADOS functions, electrification. And so we try to implement some of that educational
pathways throughout the system, supporting the whole state. I think altogether right now we're
supporting about 73 different programs across the state. That's the Transportation Center. So
it's mass undertaking. Our team is composed of four individuals. So we got a big task,
but we try to hit the ground running. A lot of my time specifically as the Director of Outreach
is spent on the outreach side inspiring students. The big things we do is nitrox camps,
sort of middle school camps that we run during the summer for six through eighth graders going
into sixth through eighth grade middle schoolers, where we explore the transportation industry
utilizing RC cars. And it's a phenomenal tool. And once again, we've had some very success of a
lot of success stories within that category. We've been running the nitrox camps since 2015.
We have campers that are now in the industry, successful working in the collision side, the
diesel side and the automotive side. But each day of those camps are spent tinkering with the RC cars,
making sure they're adjusted right. And we're going to jump them and see how we need to adjust the
suspension. Then we're going to do some sort of technical hands on session, we're going to use
the impact gun to remove a tire off of the vehicle. And most of these are held at a college
campus. We have mentors involved that might be former students of that campus, that program.
We also try to involve the local high school if they have a small engines course, or a
automotive program at the high school level, we try to incorporate them into the camps too.
Once again, having a familiar face for a middle schooler to connect with at the high school
level, we're kind of laying that pathway all the way to college and then to industry.
Each day we take an industry tour, which is amazing. Once again, industry loves this,
they open the doors and they allow us to go behind the doors, behind the closed doors,
into the shop and have the student, the camper, experience what that looks like.
One of the days is spent at the collision shop, where the student gets to design and
paint their own RC car body, they get to take home at the end of the week after race day.
And that's just another wonderful experience. We've had great partners in making this happen,
3M being a big Minnesota company. They really step forward, PPG being another massive
paint company that step forward and donates the paint and then also the physical labor
of the paint booths. And so it has been a great program and always looking for more
industry representatives to support that. So we'll kind of leave some notes along the
way if you guys want to check it out. I know 2024 we did a big showcase of our
NitroX camps at the ASC conference. So we had 46. Yeah, it was a hit. It was a great time.
A lot of work that went into that event. I personally painted 46 sponsored vehicles.
I think Grinchway was one of those vehicles. So a lot of work involved, but I think it was
a great hit to showcase what NitroX is all about. Well, I would, anybody that's listening to this,
highly encourage that you go check that out because it is such a cool program. I know
so many people in the industry that I've talked to struggle with how do we relate to
a young person, especially at that middle school level. Because if you go in and
you're talking about salary and you're talking about what we're used to talking about as an industry,
they don't care at that age, right? Yeah. And it's hard to relate to that young person when
you're so used to talking to other industry members or even like a high schooler, right?
There's a big gap there. And so what you've done is you've been able to peak interest
at an early age that this can be a really cool profession, but you're almost just laying a seed
that you can then kind of water and grow throughout their school experience, right? So
when I say to go check it out, the cars are cool. The layout is cool. Getting to
talk with industry members without, I think we all remember being middle schoolers. It's
an awkward age. So being kind of in that awkward stage, but being around adults that are trying to
teach you in a way that you don't have them under a car on a hoist. You have them doing
something that, heck, they could probably go home and do too, right? If they get an RC car for
Christmas or they get an RC car for their birthday, being able to tinker similar to what you did
growing up, it gives them first-hand exposure to using their hands. And that is such a critical,
critical thing where we're at as an industry right now.
Absolutely. The biggest thing I always say, and I'll note that a lot of people will say,
oh, Lou's saying this again kind of scenario, is there's no substitution for experience.
I think having been on the educator side of things, and you have somebody walk in on day
one, and you have to explain to them which side of the screwdriver to use,
that's a big, steep curve that we need to overcome right from day one. And industry is
expecting somebody that's going to be proficient in two years, if not quicker,
to be able to be self-maintained, right? And so being able to plant the seed much earlier,
not only tinkering, but also using tools, identifying tools. What's the benefits of this,
X, Y, and Z? I think there's no substitution for experience. And this is a prime example of
getting that ball rolling much sooner. So when we do get to a high school level, the college
level, the industry level, we have a product that is above standards already when we're
talking about the individual being a technician.
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with program instructors all in one place. Over 2,800 schools and 2,000 shops are already
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Learn more at wrenchway.com-school-assist. Link is in the show notes.
One of the things as you're talking through this that I see as a huge benefit is there are high
school programs out there that are struggling to reach the right student, right? And whether,
I don't know, in Minnesota, if it's as much block scheduling as it is here in Wisconsin,
but that's created some challenges in getting the right kids into the right classes, because if
it's an elective class they're just signing up for whatever elective classes they can get into,
that's created the scenario where maybe we've had challenges getting that right student in.
So I don't know from a school standpoint how we deal with that, but if you're peeking
curiosity at an earlier age, being able to make sure that we can get that student
into the right path going forward, I hope we're able to work some of that out so that,
I've talked to a lot of teachers over the years that, like, man, we have a line of kids that
want to be in this program, but we can't get them in because everybody else that has taken
the elective, hopefully we're making headway there, but what an opportunity to fill these
seats with kids that are mechanically inclined and that you've run this fabulous program
that is an introduction to kind of get them to step up rather than just expecting them,
you know, a lot of cases it might end up being that you're wondering why you can't get people
in that automotive class at a high school level. Like, there's no real ramp up to it. This
offer is just an extremely good opportunity for that. Absolutely. There's some great ways
of engaging, and I think it has to be a partnership, too. I think it's not all due to just a high school
program, per se, right? I think it has to be industry-driven, too. There's a great article,
and I will share this in the notes, too, published by Roundhouse Partnership Solutions
that talks about investing in the future workforce, and they did a study to where they
mentioned engaging from the industry side at the middle school level. You get a 300% increase of
interest at the middle school level if you compared to if you didn't engage as an industry.
That's the massive amount of change, and it's a low-hanging fruit. If you look at that,
if you can be an industry, and the problem we deal with a lot on our industry side is we are very
reactive. Having been a part of the industry, having worked as a technician, this week we're slow,
next week we're laying off, not thinking about the week after, right? Engaging at the middle
school level is not immediate return of investment, and we kind of talk about this all the time when
we're talking about NitroX. You're not going to hire that middle schooler to replace the transmission
next week, and we understand that. The reality is we have to create these pipelines along with
our educational partners to have the complete pipeline from introduction at the middle school
level to introduce them to the high school programs. If it's available, hopefully we kind
of increase those programs across the state and also fix what you were just talking about,
gets me so frustrated when I go to these advisory committee meetings across the state,
especially at the high school level, and they tell me they have 300-plus students a week that
they interact with, and I'm thinking, how are you getting anything done working with 300
students at one-hour increments? By the time you get the tools out to fix something or do
something, you have to clean up and get out. Not to mention the seats being taken up by people
that might not be as driven or interested in that topic. Just kind of looking at the big picture
so we can be more proactive as an industry, and you've had some great guests in the past
that's starting to get that idea of, hey, what if we did grow this whole package deal,
this whole pipeline, right? That makes a real difference in the bigger scale of things and
just kind of getting out of the old rut of being very not so proactive. That's a big
poke at the industry a little bit. I'm sorry about that, but I think it has to be said.
I think you and I are very much on the same wavelength there, right, where
somehow we've got to get our industry to take a step back and look at this through a more
holistic view, look at it from a standpoint of, if we've had these issues now for several
decades, you'd think that maybe we would want to shift and not look at just this month's P&L,
or like you said, week to week, we're slow, we're busy, and you're adjusting your staff
according to that. How do you think you get industry to maybe take a step back there and say,
you know what, we do need to look at this differently. We do need to look at this from
a long-term sustainable path. And I'll say, when I say that, I point to myself first and
foremost as one of the guilty parties in this entire thing, because when we had first started
our company, it was based around recruiting and it was more of a temporary solution, what I would call
it, where you're trying to plug that hole because you're so busy and you're just needing text right
now. And it took some time for us to learn this of, you know, if you just keep doing this,
for the health of the industry, you're not helping anybody, right? Like you might help
that one shop's immediate need. But when we look at this from an industry-wide perspective,
the more we can get industry as a whole to kind of buy into, we need to look at this future of
this industry and we need to kind of set a healthy path for what this looks like in the future,
it takes top-down leadership from a dealership, from an independent shop, from a fleet,
whoever it is that's out there to say, okay, I'm sick of chasing my tail on this. We're
going to take a different approach to this. And it might not be an immediate ROI type of thing,
where it's going to take some time to develop that next generation. And you look at a program
like NitroX, if you make small investments right now, I guarantee 10 years from now is going to
look a lot different for you than if you just kind of continue to ignore the future and not
try to build a sustainable path. And even for those shops that are out there, I've talked
to them before where they're like, I don't know, I've only got five years left and I'm going to retire.
Okay, so if you own the business, for example, it would be far more enticing to me to buy your
business if you had a sustainable pipeline of people coming in. I think anybody that's coming
into this industry or wants to get into an ownership role or a dealer principal role,
you don't want to have to fight this for the rest of your career. So if you lay out
that foundation ahead of time, hey, we've got this nice pipeline where we've worked it out to where
we do pay attention to the middle schoolers. And then we are trying to work with the high
school to make sure that their seats are full of people that want to be in our industry. And
then from there, we're working with the tech schools to try and get those high schoolers into
a good program. To me, that's just such a more sustainable system than constantly trying
to steal tech from your neighbor. And once again, we're just talking about one leg of this
technician shortage, right? There's no golden bullet that will take care of everything all at once.
We're just talking about the pipeline, but there can be several different conversations about
flat rate hours, tools costs, and being able to roll that into being given to a technician.
The salary, that's a big topic. That's been a big one with a lot of the more recent
comments being made from some CEOs around the country here. I think we've got to look at it
just through a different lens. And once again, expecting a change with changing nothing,
you're going to have the same results. And that's just called insanity at this point.
Yeah, the definition of insanity is literally that.
Expecting something different. The reality is we need to change things up and we need to work
together towards a solution. And I think just being dialed in at a advisory committee meeting
either at the high school level or college level is a great starting point. And being there every
time, once again, being that reactiveness of, hey, we don't need any technicians, so I don't see a need
to come to this fall's advisory committee meeting, right? I think we see that way too often to
where it's not a continuous support. It's more of what's in it for me compared to how can
I really be a part of this program and support it and really be to the next level, right? So,
yeah, that's what I think we have to change. And that's the biggest thing. Start small, small
steps in the right direction. If you recognize that you're an industry individual and you have
a need of needing to engage, just go knock on the door at your local college or local high school
and see how you can be a better part of that program. Yeah, and I think for the most part,
schools are going to have open ears to whatever suggestions you have, right? Whether we see it
a lot on the wrenchway side, I'm sure you do too. Some of the funding challenges that the
high schools have and the amount of programs that are at risk of just not being programs
anymore. And I think for us, I feel like our responsibility as an industry is to make sure
those programs don't go away. You cannot have them go away. We're at such a shortage already
if we're at risk of losing programs or maybe you're at risk of... We talk a lot about instructors
too where maybe they have this kind of guarded approach to industry coming in because they don't
want to adapt and they don't want to change it. And maybe it's that instructor that's only got a
couple of years left, right? Where, hey, I've been running this program the way I like it.
I want to ride it out to retirement. We've got a situation similar to that with the school
where the instructor knows they're going to be retiring. And as George Arendt from ASC puts
it, there are a lot of instructors that retired five years ago and forgot to tell anybody.
That's not every instructor. Don't get me wrong, right? We have so many great instructors that
have had like you talked about with your former instructor where they encouraged you to kind of
keep going down this path. And so for me, it's about highlighting those ones that are doing a
great job. And maybe pushing those ones that are trying to settle in and push them out of the
comfort zone a little bit as bad as that sounds just to say, it's not about you, the instructor.
It's about these kids. It's about the students and what can we do to better influence their
lives. And there's just so much to unpack there, right? Because there are so many different
scenarios. One thing I was going to ask you about that I'm guessing is unique, not unique
to Minnesota, because we have it in Wisconsin. I'm sure a lot of other states do as well.
The differences between, I want to just ask your opinion on this, the differences between
a school, say in the metro area of the Twin Cities versus a small community that, you know,
where I live at now, I move back to my hometown of 2,500 people. We don't have an automotive
program, but we still have a lot of kids in those programs that want to be an automotive or diesel
or working on ag equipment. The variance of schools that you see when you're going out,
that can pose a whole different set of challenges, right? Because you have polar opposites of
schools. Absolutely. When I'm traveling the state, the other thing I do across the state is do these
EV and ADAS 101 presentations across the state. And the reception of those programs, especially the
electric vehicle, has received much differently compared to the metro area versus the rest of
the state. So it's been a challenge and for sure. What we do see at, once again, just the
topic of educators, I think a program is not the building, it's not the equipment. It is the
individual that runs that program. And the greatest power is that individual that has the
drive for the students. We are not preparing as students for tomorrow. We're preparing them
for the next 30 years, right? And being able to realize that and kind of look at our curriculum
and say, what's the odds that my student is going to deal with a carburetor this week or the
next 30 years, right? And recognizing maybe I should be talking about something different
like ADAS or how do I incorporate that? And I think we do have a lot of that across the
state. But we also have some amazing phenomenal instructors, too. And so I do want to recognize
those folks across the state making a difference, making a big impact. And we do a recognition
awards dinner once a year up at our annual conference up at MPTIA, Midwest Teachers of
Transportation Industrial Areas. A lot of acronyms today. Yeah, ask me how long I took to
remember that one. But that's up in Brainerd, Minnesota, the first week of August, where
we just get together as educators from the automotive, collision and diesel side. And we
have PD. So we have a bunch of presenters, but we do a awards dinner to recognize those
individuals that are changing the industry and making an impact that way. So I just
kind of wanted to kind of recognize the people. Yes, there are going to be people and
the rural communities that do have programs, we find that those individuals are having a hard
time retiring. And I've seen it more than once because they have built a legacy, they've built
a program, and there's nobody to take the place. And they don't want to let that go
just because of the things you talked about before. If that individual leaves that space,
there's no guarantee that that program will exist. And that's a hard thing we have to deal
with as an industry too, because our educators do not get paid what our technicians get paid.
And being able to do that switch, I know when I made the switch from being a master
Volkswagen technician to go back into the classroom to teach, which I never thought
that would be a thing when I went through tech school. But I took a decent pay cut,
$40,000, $60,000 pay cut a year to do that switch. And that's something else we have to
look at as an industry and kind of recognize the people that teach in the next generation need to
be properly compensated. And at the TCOE, we're working at kind of equalizing that
to across the state too. Oh, you're getting me fired up there because you're
absolutely right. And I think this should be more of a concern for our industry than it actually is,
right? And the shortage of teachers that we're seeing is really concerning because, and I've
said it a million times, but we see a common theme where that legacy teacher retires. And
oftentimes, especially in a small town, that person's a legend, right? Like they've set this
path for themselves. And almost unless they recruit one of their former students to come
back and teach, it's really hard to find somebody to come in. And what we've seen is that when
that teacher retires, then the interest in that program, because you have this legend that steps
down, the interest in that program falls off. And then it just becomes a really expensive
program that nobody's interested in. And it's from an administration standpoint,
probably a pretty easy cut at that point, right? Because you're, you know, why are we paying all
this money for this program that nobody's interested in? And why are we going to go
try to find another teacher when we know what a struggle it is to find these teachers?
And I think that's a huge, huge issue with our industry. And I, you know,
you talked about the pay side. And I have to apologize because we failed to talk about your
history as a technician and a teacher as well. And like as we were kind of going into it, we
dove right into the meat and potatoes of things. But you've got such a broad background in our
industry in different aspects of it to where you bring a lot of knowledge through all of
these lenses, right? And that teacher side and the compensation side, how do you fix that?
Like these schools are already so hamstrung by budgets that now we're saying, okay,
we need you to double a teacher's salary. Like how do you even go about that?
That is a great question. You know, if I had a crystal ball and answer that question,
I can make a lot of money on that. But I think the bigger step up would be industry stepping
forward, right? How can we maintain these programs but do like a crowdsourcing similar to,
how many dealerships do we have in town? How can we supplement a partial salary for this local
shop, especially if we're talking outside the metro area? Metro area, you know, we have to work with
the big entities in our environment, the dealer association, whatever that looks like the final
entity that benefits from these programs existing, they have to step forward. And I think that's
a big, big ask. But also, once again, the return on investment has to be there for them. And that
program going away, it's going to have a direct effect on their operations daily, right? Because
where's that pipeline, if that program doesn't exist at the high school level?
It's scary. And I agree, somehow we've got to come up with some type of system to make
sure that these teachers are taken care of. And I think it's important to find the right teachers
as well, right? Like I think that being able to get them the education they need to stay up with
the technology, even truly, like I'm kind of a little off topic, but on topic. But like when
you talk about advisory committee meetings, you've been to a million of them, like
I've had conversations with high schools before where, you know, they're talking about
advanced diagnostics classes. And I'm like, can we take a step back and make sure that they
know what a screwdriver is, you know, like it is, like, I think it's so challenging,
my wife's a teacher. And so we see it as she's an elementary school teacher.
You see the different skill sets and the variants, that's very challenging for a
teacher because you might have somebody that is close to being able to do like like you were
when you were a kid, you tore into a lot of stuff really, maybe understood basic electricity,
like you could go to that next step. But in that same class, you might have somebody coming in
that has no background. And so for from a teacher's perspective, the challenges of being
able to reach each kid and bring them a ton of value is it's a challenge.
Absolutely. And I would 100% agree to having been on the educator side of things. I've dealt with that
personally, right? Every class you get is completely different. So even the first year
teaching compared to the second year is completely a new environment, a new group of
students and a new set of challenges. The big thing I hear across the state at every
advisory committee meeting from industry is make sure we cover the basics.
Everything else beyond the basics, we can build on that, but they have to have this core
foundation of basics, the Ohm's law, the understanding of tools and how to utilize them
and name them correctly. It's the core fundamentals, a visual inspection of a vehicle
being able to properly do that, lifting a vehicle safely. Yes, if we do get a little
ambitious on a high school level, we do have to kind of look through the lens and say,
do we have enough individuals coming through the program that are at that level? Is it
worth offering that level of a course? But I think that advisory committee meeting
will still have to steer it to back to the basics. I think having a baseline at the high
school level, moving to a college level or into industry is way more valuable than having
a student that has gone through an advanced diagnostic course, not understanding how electricity
flows. So yeah, yeah. So many things there. Well, and as we're talking through this, I'm
thinking like it also takes industry managing expectations of what that entry level student
is capable of when they come into your shop. The other challenge from a teacher standpoint is,
yes, it's easy to say, how many individuals do you have that are, you know, that this program
would be useful for, but then knowing like every year, you're getting a different round
of individuals coming in. And so that mix every single year is going to be different in terms
of what your students' capabilities are. Absolutely. It's always a mix of bad.
For you seeing both sides of the industry, the education and the shop side,
how do you think, what's an effective way for a school to communicate with shops like
in an advisory committee meeting, right? Because I think one of my concerns with
advisory committee meetings as a whole is they become a check the box type of thing where you're
kind of, it's groundhog day, you go back and every single time it's the same exact conversation.
And, you know, when you look at it, what have you seen from advisory committee meetings that
are effective? I think being composed of a wide variety of individuals, I mean the mom,
pop shops, the main name brand dealerships, those are typically way more successful.
And also having action items. I think a lot of these advisory committee meetings,
the meetings themselves are phenomenal. We're having great conversations. We're coming to
the same conclusions that X, Y and Z needs to happen. But the action items need to be
deliberately laid out, be very specific. And from the educator side to the industry side,
there is going to be an ask, but also from the industry side to the educational side,
there should be an ask also. It is a combined effort in creating a better program.
I think the ones that I see being successful has a very well laid out plan of these are
the action items. When we leave today's meeting, we're going to follow up with X, Y and Z.
Just kind of laying it out there, kind of seeing what that looks like, because yeah,
talking about it and recognizing issues is one thing, but action plans do a lot more, right?
So just kind of having that follow through plan and it well laid out saying that X,
Y and Z, this industry partner is going to do this or come into the classroom and commit to
something during those meetings has a much better impact compared to just checking the boxes every
time we have our meetings. That is such a good point. And I think one thing,
the education side, especially more so on the tech school side, right? That I think
you could do to get on the same page as your advisory committee members a little bit more is
maybe simplifying some of those KPIs or those report backs, because a lot of times you'll get a report,
as an industry member, you'll get a report of the advanced metrics that they're being judged
on by the state. And 100%, right? Because you're reading through this entire list, I know
I was just at one a few weeks ago where I'm like, okay, this is great, but what is this actually
telling me? It tells me that you're doing everything to get to the states, to what they're asking of
you. But how do we maybe simplify a dashboard of some type to say, okay, for me as an industry
member, the key factors that matter to me, what's your capacity of your classroom,
how many students do you have in it? Is curriculum hitting on point? And how do we
know if it's hitting on point? And maybe looking at the overall satisfaction of that school, right?
And to me, those reports say a lot of that. It's just how do you pull that out of it
so that you're able to simplify it in a message to your advisory committee that
it truly has an impact. Yeah. Yeah, that's a big one. I've gone to advisory committee meetings where
there's more people from the institution than there is from the industry. And each one of them
gets to share something about the institution. And then like at the end of the day, we're like,
what happened? An hour and a half talking about the institution, baselines and what we're
doing internally and a lot of it is over the head. We really need to boil it back to the
focus point of we're creating technicians for industry. So we need to prepare them for industry
and getting those direct feedbacks. And yes, butts and seats are important. We need to pay for the
lights to be on as an institution. So those are some metrics that we need to, but that might be
a pre-email information. Take a look at this and we boil it down and kind of present it at
the meeting in a more consumable way of exactly what those figures meant. But yes,
I would totally agree with that. There's plenty of those meetings that they're sitting there like,
okay, when are we getting to the meat and potatoes here, right?
I think a lot of them that I've been to that have been the best ones have been
very conversational. They've been very open-ended in conversation so that it's not just
industry sitting there listening to all of this. It is, what do you guys need? What do we need?
Let's have these conversations so something productive comes out of it rather than just
checking the box for state funding or whatever it is. Those are just more enjoyable to sit
through to my opinion. Absolutely. And I have the great benefit of seeing a lot of different campuses,
a lot of different programs, high school and college, not only automotive, diesel and collision too.
So I kind of experienced a little bit of it all. And then so I have a little bit of background
where I come into and this program is experience X, Y and Z problems. And I can kind of say,
hey, over here they did this and what do you guys think of that? And that is exactly what this is
meant for in our participation as the TCOE at these meetings. We have some background,
we have some knowledge of the different location, but not only that, the deeper conversations of
I always kind of throw out at the end of the day. Hey, do you guys have a wish list as
an institution? Your school connect does a great job of that. But why aren't we mentioning it during
our advisory committee meeting? Our industry partners are here. What is the things that would
really benefit your program and might be on a high school level? It is just supplies. Do you
have some break clean that you can send our way because we don't have a budget for that?
Do you have a barrel of oil you're willing to send our way? So I always encourage kind of
like, hey, do you have a ask as an institution, as a program, while your industry partners are in
the room? Because this is the time to kind of spread that information. Let that out.
You had talked about some of the trainings that you're doing around EV and ADOS. Can you give
us a little background on that? Because I do want to take a little bit of time to talk about
that. I think what you're doing there is incredible and we need to make sure we're shining a light on
that as well. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. When I stepped into this role, this has been two and a
half years ago, we kind of started talking about how do we get our instructors on board
as far as latest, greatest technology and the big ones everybody's talking about. And we're
kind of sick and tired of hearing about it, but it must be mentioned is this idea of electrification
and ADOS. And so with my technical background, my certification in ASC and Volkswagen MasterTech,
I was able to create two different presentations. One is EV 101, basically talking about
introducing electric vehicles to either a high school classroom, a college classroom,
or train the trainer for educators. And we will talk about all the different types of XEVs,
the different safety protocols that go around those XEVs, the different components found on
these electric vehicles and what their functions are. And then I have a hands-on,
let's de-energize. So I drive around the 2022 RAV4 Prime, which is the plug-in hybrid. And so we'll
talk about how do we de-energize the system? How do we do a live-dead live test? How do we test
our gloves? And it's an awesome experience because a lot of our educators, they've been
out of the industry long enough to where this is a whole new realm. And so after I complete
some of these presentations, I leave my resource. I leave my presentation. I leave everything that
I created this presentation with the educator. So they're hopefully, and I recommend a tool list
and everything with links so they can create their own curriculum around it. It's a great way
to engage and introduce the topics. So the students, the educator can take that. Same thing
on the ADOS side. I just did an ADOS presentation yesterday at my old stomping grounds, my old
college that I graduated from, which was kind of fun. So I went in there and did a presentation
talking about the different types of ADOS systems found on today's vehicles. I have a
little video clip of me experiencing a Waymo out in Phoenix, Arizona. And then we kind of talk
about how would we tell a car to drive itself, right? And the concepts of that. How do we control
the steering? How do we control the brakes? This all applies to our ADOS functions. So we talk about
passive system, active systems, sometimes fixing customers versus vehicles. That's important too,
right? If they buy a used vehicle and their friend has a different, the same vehicle and it
performs slightly different, we might have to fix a customer if they have a passive system versus
an active system. We talk about the static calibration versus dynamic and then we go out in
the lab and we do a front radar calibration in the lab. And we talk about factory scan tools,
factory targets, and the possibility of this new segment we see in our industry.
It doesn't fall 100% on the service side. It doesn't fall 100% on collision.
So it's this new opportunity for technicians to kind of investigate with. So yeah, we do these
presentation. It's free of charge to anybody in Minnesota. Tomorrow I'm actually partnering
with ASC, our local field rep, Dean Jocelyn. He organized a local Ford dealership to have
me come in and he invited all the high school instructors from the metro area.
And we'll do an EV101 presentation and I have them de-energize the high voltage system and the
dealership, the Ford dealership kind of said that we can take some cars for a test drive too.
So it's pretty exciting. I partnered with a lot of industry partners. I just had Rivian out at
one of our other presentations. They came and showcased their mobile service vehicle. Pretty
cool. I've had Volkswagen come out a few times too. So it's a great partnership in connecting
individuals and introducing those latest greatest technology. And the feedback has been just
phenomenal across the board and we hope to keep on building the latest greatest technology
presentations across the state too. We could do a whole odd cast on just the responsibility
of ADOS between repair and collision because I think there's still a lot of misunderstanding there
and not truly knowing who owns this. And like you said, maybe that space in between is another
opportunity but I do think at some point we need to have a round table on that and talk through it
because I think there's some confusion yet even from the collision side on what is repairs,
the repair side's responsibility here. So I always ask questions about that and so we'll have to
have you back on the talk through some of that stuff at some point as well.
The last thing as we conclude the podcast I've got some fun questions for you that are kind of
off topic and hopefully fun in general. But the first question is if you weren't doing this
what would you be doing? Oh boy, I would have never even seen myself in this seat today.
You never know where life is going to take you. I knew this question was coming and I had a really
hard time coming up with an answer. Just like if you're a young kid you kind of think, oh
when I was a young kid I wanted to be a train conductor, right? But that has changed since.
If money was no object, this is a weird one Jay, I apologize, but I would own a coffee shop.
That is off, that is not one that I would have expected out of you.
That's completely off the record like completely in the left field I totally understand that
but some of my first jobs was as a barista in a mom-pop coffee shop environment and
it's such a simple and such a rewarding daily process of bringing happiness in a cup of coffee
to somebody and I know that is weird and I kind of just wanted to throw that out there.
I love it. Yeah, that's just a different way of looking at things.
As you talk about it, I've got an empty cup right now. It would sound great.
That's a great answer, what a cool answer. Next one is what was your first job?
Oh, this kind of leads up to that.
Nice segue, yeah.
Yeah, well I always did like the lawn mowing thing but the actual W2 job was at a small cafe,
Don's Cafe, where we served cheesecake and made coffee for people and brought them happiness in
that way. Cheesecake, I've never eaten cheesecake and not been happy afterwards.
I can't tell you how many cheesecakes we got to take home at the end of the day.
That would be dangerous. Last question is, what time do you get up in the morning?
The other part of my job is getting this big trailer around. We've got a career exploration
trailer. It really depends on that schedule. We go to high school events and we've got a
bunch of hands-on activities on the trailer that we go. If I need to go up north somewhere in
Hibbing, I need to get up at 4 or 3 o'clock in the morning, 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning,
get on the road. But typically around 5.30 most days just to get my day rolling.
Yeah, most of my day is spent traveling somewhere in the States, so a lot of times I
need to improvise a little bit. That is so great. Such great answers and such a great
guest. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. I again apologize because we didn't really get
to dive into the technical side of early on in your career and what a great technician you were
and a great educator you've been. I think we'll have to dive into that maybe a little
bit more to at some point. But thank you for all the work that you're doing in the
state of Minnesota. And even as that's translated, one thing I left out was we do NitroX in Wisconsin
because of Minnesota, right? Minnesota was kind enough I think to kind of hand that thing over to
us as well. And so really, really impactful things that you're doing for that next generation
of technician. You're doing some phenomenal work and it is work, right? There's a lot
that goes into that. So just appreciate everything that you're doing. Appreciate you coming on the
podcast and hope to do it again. Thank you so much. And once again, the same to you and your
organization and everything you're doing, putting a spotlight on our industry and hoping for change.
So amazing job. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it, Lou.
That wraps up another episode of Beyond the Wrench. If you like this episode,
please show your support by rating and following the podcast. You can also
watch the video interviews on Wrenchway's YouTube channel. Speaking of Wrenchway,
did you know Beyond the Wrench is managed and produced by the Wrenchway team?
Wrenchway is an online community dedicated to promoting and improving automotive and diesel
careers. We help technicians find the best shops to work at. And we also help auto,
diesel and CTE instructors get more support from local industry. You can learn more by visiting
Wrenchway.com.
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