Proactively Growing the Industry’s Technician Pipeline

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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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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