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Raising the Standards & Respect for the Repair Industry
Raising the Standards & Respect for the Repair Industry
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About this episode
Ryan Coyman shares his journey from technician to industry leader, emphasizing the importance of continuous learning, mentorship, and professional growth in the automotive repair field. The conversation highlights the evolving technician career path, balancing technical curiosity with business realities, and the critical role of certifications like ASC in raising industry standards. They discuss challenges like technician shortages, shop culture, and adapting to new technology, while stressing the value of leadership, collaboration, and fostering a positive environment for the next generation of technicians.
Topics:
technician career development
industry training and education
mentorship and networking
shop leadership and culture
balancing flat rate and learning
importance of ASC certification
technician shortage and recruitment
advances in automotive technology
business side of repair shops
professionalism in repair industry
Ryan Kooiman, Director of Training at Standard Motor Products, joins us to talk about banding together to raise the professional standards in the repair industry. He covers the balance between technical curiosity and shop profitability, the importance of credentials like ASEs, and why mentorship is better for the industry than making young techs learn “the hard way."
Check out the full video version of the podcast on YouTube!
About the Episode
- Host: Jay Goninen, WrenchWay, [email protected]
- Guest: Ryan Kooiman, Standard Motor Products, [email protected]
Links & Resources
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Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Chevrolet C10
"I was just out there wandering and for the audience, J and I are both lovers of the 60s era C-10 trucks and I'm walking through SEMA looking and also I find one,"
Car
Master Tech
"...s highly decorated himself. And so he started the master tech club and everybody bought the old VTronix master ..."
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So let's band together, let's share that information,
let's enable the next generation of people,
because then they're gonna be out there like,
you know, I learned from this guy that I worked with
and he really made a positive influence in my career.
Beyond the Wrench with J. Gannon from Wrenchway.
Welcome back to Beyond the Wrench, my name is J. Gannon,
and I am your host.
Today I'm excited to be joined by Ryan Coyman.
Ryan has spent his career supporting technician development
and helping shops improve through training,
education, and industry collaboration.
We're going to talk through his journey,
the work he's involved in today,
and the trends he's seeing a couple of years ago.
So let's get started.
Welcome back to Beyond the Wrench,
my name is J. Gannon and I am your host.
Today I'm excited to be joined by Ryan Coyman.
Ryan has spent his career supporting
and he's seeing across the industry,
especially when it comes to technician career paths
and how they continue to evolve.
Ryan brings a great perspective on what's happening
in the bays and how both techs and shop leaders
can continue to grow.
Ryan, thanks for being on the show.
How are you?
Fantastic, thanks for having me, J.
I think between both of our last names,
there's a contest in there to see who can pronounce
them a little.
It's a lot of vowels, a lot of vowels in both.
Yeah, yeah, I always tell people if I'm on their podcast
or if they're introducing me to speak somewhere,
like don't worry about my last name,
just say J from Wrenchway and then we'll get there.
But great to see you.
We are coming off maybe, I think two out of three weeks
we are able to see each other in person
and had a chance to walk the SEMA show with you.
That was pretty cool, wasn't it?
That was awesome.
I was just out there wandering and for the audience,
J and I are both lovers of the 60s era C-10 trucks
and I'm walking through SEMA looking and also I find one,
I'm taking some pictures and lo and behold,
here's J on the other side, taking pictures too.
So it was a great afternoon, got to wander and catch up
and share some stories about our own vehicles there too.
So that's fantastic.
It's such a cool show in that it brings,
we spent a lot of time on the APEC side, right?
But being able to take some time,
that, it was my last afternoon down there
and I think it was yours as well,
but you find it kind of carve out maybe a couple hours
to run through the show and see the cool stuff and man,
just seeing, we were watching those dirt bikes
for Nitro Circus going up in the air,
just some crazy stuff,
but for a couple of car guys down there,
it doesn't get much better than that.
No, it doesn't.
And to your point, I've been staying on my feet all week,
been out there for five days already,
close to 20,000 steps a day
and I continually remind myself,
like the me of 20 years ago would be a kid in a candy
store and this stuff and quite frankly, I still am
and we're blessed a lot of our technician friends
want to go to SEMA someday and we're there, right?
And we use terms like I have to go again.
So I remind myself of, this is pretty cool
and it's fun to just go wander
and see all the new stuff out there.
I couldn't agree more.
Well, let's talk about Ryan from 20 years ago.
We love you here.
Love you.
See, how did, like what got you into the industry?
I love the origin story.
I love talking about this.
How did you get into this?
Well, much like yourself,
my father is to blame for a lot of this.
My dad was a heavy equipment mechanic
and covered Northern Michigan.
I live in West Michigan here
but he would hop in the service truck usually on Mondays
and drive up out of the stone quarries
and work on Terrics and Grove brand equipment
and then come home on Thursdays or something.
Then before I was a teenager,
then he was working more locally
but so I grew up working with him.
Detroit Diesels, Caterpillars Commons
were a big part of my life growing up.
And then so it was only kind of natural
when I was in high school.
One of my first jobs was doing lawn care in the summer
but in the winter time, I worked at a shop
and then eventually I enjoyed the shop more
and saw more of a future there.
I went to community college for a while
to get into engineering
and they have some math programs there
and it quickly separates the men from the boys
and gets people like me out of their program.
So I ended up back in the shop and I enjoyed it
and made a great life or a living for my family and I
and then spent 16 years in aftermarket shops
and then it was the vision conference out in Kansas City.
I believe it was 2002, 2003 timeframe.
I met Jeff Masterman,
manager of development for state and motor products
pro training programs.
He was sitting in the back of a class
and Jim Linder was teaching it
and Jim and I have been friends for a while
and I was asking some comments, et cetera.
And Jeff caught me afterwards and he's like,
man, you have a lot of really intelligent questions.
I don't know what that means, but I'm curious.
And so I started working with standard on a contract basis,
doing some content development, a lot of case studies.
All of the training classes standard
include approximately 10 case studies
which are not created in the lab.
There are true stories from the technicians.
And so I started doing that.
Started writing some classes in 2010.
I started working full time for standard
as a content developer.
And I guess we'll call those the good old days.
I had six months to research and write a class.
I still have the keys to eight different shops
here in West Michigan.
So I'm friends with a lot of shop owners
and a lot of access to stuff.
We joke, I'm kind of the big foot
or Sasquatch in the area
and not just because I'm big and hairy,
but there's evidence I've been there
but nobody's ever seen me.
You know, I'll snoop around these friend shops at night
and go, oh, that's cool.
We were looking for one of these, you know,
and get some data or whatever.
So I guess I wasn't a good developer
because they moved me to management very shortly
and, you know, find myself here today 15 years later
overseeing the pro training team
where we reach about 70,000 technicians a year.
And then we have in-house training,
360 photo studio for our catalog content team,
tech line services, and then engineering test facility.
So that's one of the programs
I'm probably more proud of today
is as an aftermarket manufacturer,
when we get done developing something in a lab,
we install it on a vehicle.
And then we have to put between 1,000
and 3,000 miles on it to verify it.
And something I don't think a lot
of our competitors do today,
but it's interesting how things have come full circle.
I wanted to be an engineer
and I've got a team of engineers working under me here.
So, isn't that crazy?
Anything's possible, right?
Yeah, well, I wanna go back to your mindset early on
because you not only were a technician,
you were a pretty decorated technician, right?
You had the credentials,
you had some pretty big awards we should talk about.
And I think where I always get interested,
especially with somebody that was so good technically
is, wow, how did you get there?
I mean, you talked about the curiosity
and you're asking questions in that class
and asking some questions that probably showed
that you were thinking about this
at a little deeper level.
I'm just, has that been something
that was ingrained in you from an early age
or did this develop over time?
Probably developed a little bit over time.
I remember a couple of clear defining moments.
And so in high school, I was probably living paycheck
to paycheck and make some money
and buy a new snowmobile or a newer truck
and having the toys.
But a friend of mine now who's passed away,
Jeremy Muellenberg, owned a pretty large painting
and into your decorating company.
But back in high school, all of a sudden,
he's building a new house right out of high school
and getting married and supporting a family right away.
I'm like, Jer, he's like, well, I've been saving
and working hard for this stuff.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
I should probably get on that program.
That seems more fun.
Yeah, Dave Ramsey would be proud of Jer,
my mindset at that point.
But so that was one thing,
but then I quickly adopted the mentality
of there's nobody behind me, right?
The car stops here.
And so it's unacceptable in my mindset to go,
I don't know.
And that's probably a pride thing, an ego thing.
Drivability technicians are always accused
of being the prima donna in the shop.
But I just had that mindset of like,
this car, we can't kick it to the dealer
and hope that they fix it or send it to another shop.
And so that created kind of a hunger
to start looking for stuff.
I think back to the late 90s when I was working in the shop,
we had a cast machine, they were talking about IM240
coming to Michigan and we bought this thing
and it was doing stuff I didn't really appreciate
till 10 years later, like relative cranking compression
and KV snap throttle and sniffing the tailpipe
and just a lot of tests there.
So I got me intrigued in training and classes.
And then so I'd go to any class I could get my hands on.
I don't care if it was about how to install an oil filter
or something, there's probably something
to be learned out of this that would make me more
proficient in my job and make a better paycheck.
So I started going to all these different classes
and then ran into a gentleman, John Thornton.
I don't want to be the name dropper here
but he'd come to Grand Rapids area several times a year
and so I started going to his classes
and networking both through John
but also hanging out with the guys after class
and talking and we'd share some stories.
We didn't view each other as competitors.
We viewed each other as brothers in the same fight.
And then my area, you and I are on opposite sides
of Lake Michigan here, but factory scan tools
and Jay Myring was my VTronix sales rep
and he was phenomenal and he was highly decorated himself.
And so he started the master tech club
and everybody bought the old VTronix master tech
you'd meet once a month and have these discussions.
And finally he started propping me up
in front of the group.
That's really where I got my first attempt at training
is working with these guys.
In the audience there, many of them
are still good friends today
and share a lot of great discussions
but Thornton then turned me on to Linda Tech
and then Vision and so I went there
and met guys, Matt Fonzlo, Paul Suter, Mike Miller,
just a lot of guys I've become friends with, Harvey Chan,
then we had a Skype group
and so we always challenge each other with stuff
and just by networking continued to scratch that itch
I guess and these guys added a lot of the same questions
and we just fed off each other with that.
And probably one more influence was a gentleman
by the name Pat O'Neill owned O'Neill's transmissions.
Good friends with his grandsons,
Sean and Craig O'Neill today yet
but Pat sought me out as a young technician
and said, you know, you're different
and I've assembled a group of guys
I'm gonna take them to the SA World Congress in Detroit
in a couple of weeks.
Would you like to go with us?
And that was just out of my wheelhouse
but that shifted me maybe into a little more
of a professional atmosphere and straightened up
and just exposed me to a whole different world of stuff there.
So I think what you just said there
and you're walking through all of these really kind of
I'd consider industry Titans, right?
Of really this aftermarket world
and I think there's that curiosity
and that want to get better in the best.
I have a book behind me called Growth Mindset
and I always think about that
and how you're always pushing yourself
and at times technicians might shy away
from going to a conference or doing something
that might be out of their comfort zone
but it just opens the world to so many opportunities
and you look at Fonslow now just with his progression
and having a podcast and doing all of these things
on top of being one of the best techs in the country.
There's so much opportunity out there
if you've got a mindset that you're willing
to make yourself a little bit uncomfortable,
you are maybe going to put yourself in situations
where you're amongst the best, right?
I think a lot of times if say you're
that best technician in your shop,
you could get bored, right?
Or maybe you're frustrated with those around you
that aren't operating at that higher level
and seeking out opportunities like you did,
I think is so game changing for a great technician
that when you put yourself in an environment
where you're surrounded by others
that are at the top of their game,
just like athletics, right?
Like if you're an athlete
and you can put yourself amongst the best
and really just, I don't know,
it's this different mentality,
it's a different mindset, I think.
I think it's so easy for us in the industry
for technicians, especially young technicians,
to go out and look at a Facebook group
and see all the negative that's out there.
But when you've kind of choose to put yourself
in a situation where you're surrounding yourself
with great people, it can't do anything but help, right?
Correct, correct.
Yeah, I mean, even today,
I'd like to make sure I'm not the smartest guy
in the room, that's pretty easy in some days here,
but there's always something to learn from somebody, right?
And today, already this morning,
I had a meeting with a dozen guys
and I took away a lot from just the discussions there
and then I had a breakfast meeting with a friend
who owns multiple turkey farms
and I've learned a lot here today
and even in our preamble discussions, you know?
And so everybody's got something to offer
and that's one thing I've learned as a leader
and just as a human being, everybody's got a story.
Everybody's got something that you can take away
from that conversation.
So being an active listener
and sometimes seeking out those conversations,
you brought up a fantastic point
and something I talk about with my children.
I've done graduation speeches at schools
and other presentation coaching stuff at schools.
Being comfortable with an uncomfortable situation
will serve you well throughout the rest of your life.
Getting up and standing in front of an audience
or I've been involved in negotiations at this point
and court proceedings, you know, different stuff,
the more you can remain calm and comfortable
in those situations, the better off you're gonna be.
Your mind is still strategically playing the chess game here
and then that goes into auto repair.
Thinking ahead through the process, you know,
not just going to one bolt at a time
but working your way through the system,
you know, that car comes in, there's a lot of struggle.
My mindset still today is there's a front bumper
and a back bumper.
The problem's right here.
It's not somewhere else in the universe.
It's right here, right in front of me.
I just gotta track it down
and, you know, methodically work through things.
How do you balance that?
And I'll transition a little bit to technicians as a whole.
I hear this maybe more on the dealer side
but you hear some of it on the aftermarket side as well,
like balancing the curiosity
and wanting to fix complex things
with something like flat rate
or like with something where there's so much more pressure
it feels like now on a technician to be profitable
and understanding, you know,
hey, if I want to get paid more, I need to produce more.
And there's this weird balance where I think, you know,
I've been, I'll mention Josh Arnold
who is a really good friend of the podcast recently
just actually hosted the podcast and interviewed me
which was very awkward to be on the other side.
Fun to flip the script, yep.
Yeah, but he had talked about how he embraced flat rate
when he was young tech
and he had a different perspective on it.
And he said, I had a good understanding with my boss
and the dealership he was at was open hours
that were over and above his hours that he worked there.
And so if he was doing an engine job,
he would go to his supervisor and say, hey, listen,
this calls for 10 hours.
It's going to take me double that.
So do you mind if I stay after hours to work on this?
And his whole intent was like,
I want to learn how to do this the right way
even though it's going to cost me some time right now.
It was just one of those similar mindset to you, right?
Where it was just so mind blowing to me
that somebody would have that mindset
and really truly want to learn the craft
and learn how to do it.
And I'm like, how refreshing is that?
It's not just somebody that's mad
because they got $50 less on their paycheck this week.
He was truly trying to learn.
Correct.
Yeah, and I think that's where a lot of that curiosity
or that personal investment
maybe is a better way to look at it
of a lot of late nights, a lot of Saturdays,
a lot of early mornings, early on in my career
to just research.
You know, I was getting into lab scope
and I wrote probably one of the industry's
first engine mechanical classes
with electronic testing methods.
You know, I'm certainly not the inventor of it,
but just learning better stuff
with vacuum transducers and in-cylinder pressure stuff
and fine-tuning some of that.
And how can we use this?
How can it, you know, I go back to some of the discussions
with my service writer back at that time.
You know, I would do a test and say,
okay, it's got a leaking valve.
And he's like, well, is it intake or exhaust?
Like, it doesn't matter.
The cylinder head's coming off one way or the other,
right?
And so, even some of this stuff in check, you know,
because guys today will learn something new.
I mean, had case studies where it was an ABS fault,
the guys sending us in-cylinder pressure captures
and stuff like, why did you do that, right?
Let's keep it simple with a lot of this stuff too
and keep it in check.
But you brought up a fantastic point too
about everybody wants to learn all the drivability stuff,
not everybody, but some guys really want to dive in
down that path and that's fantastic.
We need those drivability technicians,
but at the end of the day,
probably the guy pounding ball joints in
is making the shop more money
because he's selling parts and labor at that point.
Whereas I know a lot of time when I was just doing,
you know, the tough diagnosis or something like that,
I'm selling labor.
Now, obviously today there's multiple labor rates
and the shop business side of it,
has evolved significantly, certainly in our careers.
And you see the difference of just one size fits
all labor rate and here's what it is, bring it in.
People are way more in tune to numbers today,
but again, I think at the end of the day,
let's not get too consumed with the numbers
and customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction
come in to play.
Everybody talks about technician shortage.
I would almost argue that there's a good shop shortage
more so than technician shortage, right?
Could not agree more, could not agree more.
And I do think some of that is,
if we were to take fault or blame as an industry,
I think a lot of it comes from maybe us as an industry
not preparing shop leaders as far in advance, right?
Like my dad was one of those guys that started in the shop
and really almost by default ended up as a leader, right?
And it took him a lot of a long time
to kind of come to terms with the fact that,
you can't have your buddies coming to the shop
and doing their own work in your shop.
And like you have to, like it was such a,
such a, you know, he was a really young guy
when he started the shop.
But I think you look at this and you're like, okay,
where can we as an industry, as we're moving forward,
get better?
Well, I do think there's some level of leadership style
training.
I think we're getting more and more of that.
I do think podcasts like this or any other podcast,
there's so many great podcasts in our industry
to listen to.
Arnell's great, Karm's great.
Like we've got so many great ones out there.
And like for those that want to move in that direction,
do yourself a favor.
Like if you're early on in your career,
start consuming that as well, right?
Like you were talking about the technical side
and that's super, super important,
especially for an early, early technician.
Like get your nose in a book and understand systems.
So you'll be way better off.
Same thing with like as you're starting to progress
in your career, like get to know leadership
and show leadership in your shop,
be a leader in your shop.
And some of that's not rocket science.
It's show up 15 minutes early to work
and have your bay ready to go.
Like there's so much stuff that you can do
at an early age that will help drive that.
But I think there's a huge opportunity there.
But then I also think we could do a better job
at helping technicians understand
the business of running a shop
and making sure that they understand,
I've pointed to this example multiple times,
but it's probably the best meeting I've ever been in,
which was at a dealership in South Carolina,
this guy comes in, writes a number on the board
and says, can anybody guess what that number is?
And everybody's kind of like, I don't know.
Like that's the amount of money
we have to make per month to break even.
And everybody's eyes are like, oh my goodness.
And so it's one of those things where transparency,
I think would drive a lot of this communication
and would drive a lot of things to go better
and helping techs try to truly understand
the business a little bit.
Well, and I'm a huge fan of salary with incentives
or hourly with incentives,
but I spent 90% of my career as a flat rate tech
even in shop management and ownership,
then moved to the salary portion.
But it was, I appreciated flat rate
because I knew what this job paid
and what I had to do to be profitable for me
and for the business then too.
This fuel pump's gonna pay 3.5 hours
and a half hour to do a fuel filter with it.
Okay, well, that means I gotta get it done in two hours.
And my internal competitiveness took over,
but if it's an hourly technician
and they have no idea what that job is,
is a 12 hour job or a two hour job,
I think that drives their motivation
on a little bit as well.
One other thing you kind of touched in
and as I've been invited to do several
after dinner discussions about the industry,
we all grew up in a time where you walk in the shop,
all right, go bust tires and go change oil.
Very important services.
You can probably screw up a car faster
by doing an oil change incorrectly than anything else.
But as we talk about today's technicians
coming out of school, they have a different skill set
than we did or as our fathers did
when they came into the industry.
So a lot of kids are very proficient with typing,
with computer skills, maybe even better communicators
and so, or worse, but they're familiar with that now.
Depending on the type of communication.
That's right, in that chat, that's communication.
They're amazing at that.
So, as a challenging shop owner,
it's like, how many of you do an ADOS calibration?
Is it like, eh, not yet?
Or module programming, no, not yet.
Well, if you're not doing it
and you don't know anything about it,
this kid coming in, that's probably
really easy stuff for him.
And so, maybe you break him in
doing some of that type of stuff.
It opens up a new market for you, new possibilities.
And, yeah, it's undeniable you need to know
the basics of how stuff works and whatever,
but let's not berate people, you know,
the shop pranks and pick on the new guy
and do all this stuff, you know,
we've been doing that for 50 years
and then we stay in here wondering,
I don't know why nobody wants to stick around
and do this.
Who do you want to hang out with us anymore?
Well, no kidding.
Right, right.
Well, no kidding, I was having a discussion
in Greenville, South Carolina
with a well-known industry person
and they were talking about that.
Like, well, what are the shops around here paying?
He's like, eh, 12 to 14 bucks an hour for starting.
I'm like, turn around and look,
you know, there's Bass Pro shops
right behind with a big banner
starting at 25 bucks an hour
plus 20% discount on whatever you want to buy there.
No kidding, and no wonder why nobody
will work over here.
Yeah, yeah, it is, that's a battle.
I think I've had with our industry for a long time
is just, and I'm guilty of this at some level of,
like, you have to be profitable
to be able to pay your people what you need to pay them
and offer them the benefits.
Like just to have good people coming in
and people struggle to get their hands around that.
And I think, you know, there's some that struggle
and then there's some that are probably too far the other way
where they're making good profit
but not paying their people
and that one's as frustrating or more frustrating.
But, you know, you're absolutely right.
I think when we talk about shop culture,
especially at a young age,
like I've talked to several others about this,
like we grew up in the industry
when wrenches were being thrown across the shop, right?
Pretty consistently, and I don't think we can do that.
For me is a gentleman who I still remember it clearly.
We got our new shop coats around this time of year,
you know, around Thanksgiving time,
new winter coats for the shop
and the ASC logo was printed as red.
And the guy's like, you're so stupid.
You wouldn't even know what blue seal means
and all that stuff.
And yeah, you'll never be, you know, ASC certified.
And I'm like, okay.
And I still look today.
I respect the gentleman.
He's a fantastic GM dealer tech today,
but whether he knows it or not,
you know, he is a motivated factor in my career path too.
Well, and I think my hope would be,
maybe we take different ways to motivate young techs, right?
Like maybe not that
because I think I heard a lot of that same stuff.
And it is when you're young
and you're getting your butt kicked by cars
and trying to figure things out.
And there is some level of, you know,
regardless of where you start in the industry,
you go through this grind a little bit of like
trying to figure this stuff out.
And it can be very demotivating
for a young tech to come into a shop
and then just have maybe that old tech in their ear
just kind of constantly harping on, you know,
especially right now, we hear all the time
like some of the older techs saying,
like, you shouldn't come into this industry.
Don't come in.
Like this is, you're gonna end up in bad shape.
And I'm like, at some level,
that person's going to be miserable
regardless of what industry they were in, right?
Like it's, and I've worked with some of them
and I know they'd be miserable
with whatever industry they were in.
They'd complain about whatever it is that they do.
And so, you know, I get frustrated
at times with our industry internally
with some of our cultures.
And some of it is, you know, it's in our DNA.
That's the way it's been for a long time
and it's gonna take a while to get some of that cleaned up.
But I do think it's necessary
for this next generation of technician
that we're going to need.
We need a more professional technician.
And as you see, you know, we talk about AI all the time,
right?
And like how AI is taking jobs
and now all of a sudden skilled trades
are kind of that sexy thing again
and everybody's looking at it.
These cars are getting more complicated by that second.
And we need very, very skilled, very talented people
to be able to work on these and to be able to train up.
But if we had that shop from the 70s or 80s,
or you know, like if we have that mentality,
it's gonna be hard to attract that level of talent
that we're gonna need in this industry.
And that's something that I think
we've got to figure out how to change.
Correct, correct.
Yeah, and so I've been involved with many schools
much like yourself, obviously.
And so it's always interesting to hear
the influx of students coming in every year,
what skills they possess, what they don't possess.
You know, you and I, blessed or cursed,
whatever day it is of growing up with our dads.
You know, so we had a good feel for how to do this stuff.
My sons are both now entering into the trade.
You know, yours may or may not as well.
And so it's been interesting as a parent to look at this
and what my boys do.
You know, we've got the shop here at home
with a hoist and everything.
And I think our record so far is five vehicles
coming in, going in one week.
The two of them, my 15 year old, 19 year old sons
have bought and sold a given a week
and do some stuff to it.
So it's been eye-opening for me.
And that certainly influenced my thought process
as an educator or a leading of a training entity,
how we approach these people.
And it's really helped me understand
like my now 19 year old sons worked
in a shop full-time for two years.
And his boss is somebody I've mentored
or have known since the guy was four years old.
So the first week there is that here's a 64 GTO,
pull the engine out, reseal every gasket,
paint the engine and transmission, put it back together
and then change the gears and rear end,
call me if you need help.
And the next was doing an LS swap on a 55 Chevy.
And so he jumped right into that.
But I've seen him now go from bolt by bolt
to thinking four steps ahead
and how can I be more efficient in this?
And so he's become really a very proficient R and R guy.
And now we're kind of making the transition into systems,
as you mentioned earlier,
and understanding how it all kind of comes together.
You know, when you turn the ignition switch
or you push the button on the dash,
all these things have to happen in a certain sequence
to get the starter to engage
and understand that and do diagnostics.
You know, he bought his own scan tool a couple months ago
and you know, pulling codes and going through that part,
but getting him disciplined to look up the trouble code,
what are the set criteria, you know,
and spend more time behind the screen doing the research
in less time poking and hoping under the dash
or underneath the hood.
So.
That is where that off hours training comes in
so handy too, right?
Like if you're, I think the best texts I've ever met
are the ones that, you know,
they'll go home and read about something or, you know,
maybe watch Scanner Dan or watch some of this other content
that's out there that is informative and accessible, right?
And I think the more they view it as like,
this is my craft, I'm going to get really good at this.
And then you understand those systems.
That is one of the things where I often say
that if I could go back and tell my young self something,
it would be, you know,
when they're trying to teach you theory in schools,
they're not doing it for the fun of it.
Like you should, like you should listen.
And I don't think I listened very good.
I think we, I was automatically like,
oh, you know, I want to be a diag tech.
And you're like, no, you like,
you have to really understand how systems work first.
And you know, if you're not fully aware
of how a sensor operates or works,
or if you're not fully aware of the communication
that happens in a vehicle and just, you know,
how often do you see,
and this would be a good one for you just in general,
like just something as simple as a voltage drop test.
Like that can be very hard for somebody
to wrap their head around.
And it's pretty essential for a lot of the stuff
you're going to do in your career.
How much do technicians really make?
At Wrenchway, we work with some of the best shops
and dealerships across the country.
And we've discovered that technicians often earn more
than what some online sources suggest.
For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports
that technicians make an average of $47,000 per year.
But we know that's not reflective
of the true earning potential of technicians.
We've teamed up with ASC to create
an online technician pay tool,
a free, easy to use resource for both aspiring technicians
and those already in the automotive and diesel industries.
This tool lets you explore real pay data
with customizable searches by industry,
shop type, location, and experience level.
Check it out at wrenchway.com slash pay
or follow the link in the show notes.
We also encourage current technicians
to anonymously submit their own pay data
to help make the tool even better for everyone.
Lastly, thank you for your continued support
as we work to promote and improve careers
in automotive and diesel.
We couldn't do it without you.
So one of my favorite stories with that one, Jay,
is our shop was a 28,000 square foot shop.
We had a 20,000 square foot Napa store built into it,
like on the side.
And so we were viewed as a competitor
by the auto value or the parts plus type part stores in town,
even though obviously we always bought from them as well,
but one of them brought one of their delivery trucks,
the late 90s Chevy S10 or early 2000s S10
that had 18 different fuel pumps installed in it
over the past year plus.
And like, I don't care what brand
of fuel pump you're putting in.
They don't go by that.
They ain't the fuel pump.
And they're like, well, you're the guy,
we got to bring it to you.
And so I'm like, well, thanks, I'm honored.
And I'll get a hold of you by the end of the day.
And they're like, ah, just keep it.
Well, to your point, doing a voltage drop test,
there was a eight volt drop to the chassis.
So there's this fuel running on like maybe six volts
and just eating itself to death.
And honestly, one of the keys was the guy
that dropped it off said, you know,
sometimes we have to hit the parking brake
to make the fuel pump run.
And I'm like, hmm, that was my clue.
Like what would that do?
Well, it's now grounding through that cable
because there's no body ground or chassis ground.
And so by doing that quickly,
I found the negative battery cable
go into the chassis, rod it off,
clean it up and solder new in on it, put it on, test it.
And hey, we've got B plus back at the fuel pump again.
We're good.
And so the guy, the store manager
wasn't even back at the store and we're calling him,
all right, you can come pick up your truck.
He's like, you're kidding me.
And it's, you know, explain it to him.
And it's like, you know,
it's a relatively basic concept, right?
I mean, I'm not gonna replace the fuel pump
unless I've got good powers and grounds there.
And this is part of it.
So by doing a relatively elementary test,
which way too many people overlook, you know,
that's part of it.
And so, yeah, I never went to school for auto repair.
So I missed some of those electronics classes
and had to, to your point, do a little more research
and find some of those books back at the library.
You know, we didn't have YouTube.
We didn't have Amazon at that point.
So took a little bit of additional effort,
but it certainly paid off.
And I remind my own kids of that now of like,
my chemistry teacher tried to teach me
about carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, NOX, hydrocarbons,
all this stuff that I didn't pay attention to.
20 years later, I'm trying to retrain myself
on this stuff and go, man, you're an idiot.
You know, why do you always take the hard way?
And I do that and my kids seem to be following
that same path of, I'm the dumbest guy they've ever met.
You know, so what would I?
Well, I think that struggle at times
is really where you do learn.
And I will say some of the less-than-friendly,
older texts that I had grown up with
were kind of telling me that,
but maybe their style of telling me that
wasn't the greatest.
It was more, they would always kind of say,
well, yeah, I had to learn the hard way.
You need to do the same thing.
And I think maybe they just changed the way they said that
and it would make such an impact on young texts
because at some level, you do have to go through that.
They had to say it louder because there's that tribal
knowledge and guys going, eh,
I had to find out the hard way you should too.
No, let's not give a silver bullet per se,
but let's explain the theory
and walk the young technician through it
and let's make him proficient on year two of their career.
You know, I say very often there's technicians
in this industry that are in their 10th year,
but they're repeating year one nine times over at this point.
I hadn't heard that, that makes a lot of sense.
You know, so let's band together,
let's share that information,
let's enable the next generation of people
because then they're gonna be out there like,
you know, I learned from this guy that I worked with
and he really made a positive influence in my career
not the eh, I had to learn the hard way you should too.
You say that, like I still point to my mentors,
I have one of mine, his business card is on a frame here
and just people that meant a lot to me growing up
and I think, you know, for that tech
that's listening, that's in a shop right now,
like there's a lot of so much value
in how you treat somebody
and how you treat somebody working next to you
and I totally understand that sometimes
in the flat rate environment you're in
or if you're, you know, you feel those pressures to produce,
like sometimes it helps just to take a breath
and try to help somebody else for a little bit
and you know, I think you can have
such a big positive influence on other people
if you just take a step back and you know,
if you show them a quicker way of doing something
or you know, hey, somebody's getting their butt kicked
by we're in the North, the rusty bolt that broke off
and now they're way behind, you know,
maybe go offer helping hand with it.
It means the world to that young technician
that's out there.
Exactly.
Yeah, I'll never forget the, you know,
I couldn't get the drain plug out of a rear differential
and the older guy that shows me how to heat it up,
like, well, isn't that gonna make it tighter
and then he's like, nope, you take a water bottle
and you hit it with cold water
and you shrink it and that thing came out
by finger at that point, you know.
It's those type of lessons that you don't learn in a textbook.
No, you don't.
And I think there's, going back to the example you had
of using voltage drop to figure something out,
I think where a lot of technicians could learn there,
even experienced technicians is in a lot of cases
we're trying to get to that troubleshooting tree
as fast as possible and really have something
tell us what to do.
Whereas if you just take a second
and like think through a problem and it feels like,
you know, I know early in my career,
if I wasn't moving a million miles a minute,
I was worried I was gonna get in trouble, right?
Like by my boss.
And so, you know, I do see this more
with younger technicians now where they might sit down
and, you know, they're, you know,
writing some stuff down, getting it out of their head
or maybe they are going through a schematic
and being able to understand something.
And for me as a young technician,
I would have been terrified to do that.
And now they're, you know, they are getting a little bit more
of that understanding of like, okay, I do,
like give me a second to sit down here
and just kind of be able to map out what I'm thinking
and get it out of my head.
And I think that's what the true professional techs
are able to do maybe better than anybody else.
My guys, when I was still in the shop,
gave me a hard time all the time.
Like, all you do is sit in front of the computer
and like call it lazy, call it smart, whatever,
but I'm not moving until I have a game plan, right?
And so I need to understand how the system works,
what affects it, why that code's set.
So I'm getting off my stool and walking in the car
with a clear game plan of what I need to look at.
If this, then that, if this, then that.
And, you know, where I'm gonna go with it.
And in pinpoint, but, you know,
you guys are just ripping and pulling
and tearing stuff apart and hoping you stumble across it.
You know, that doesn't nobody hit any good with that.
And so it's just think through it.
I'm kind of a list guy as well.
So, you know, I'm looking at what's, you know,
we teach that very frequently in our classes,
like differential diagnosis.
Let's look at the data here.
The engines lean on one bank
and not lean on the other bank.
Well, we've got one mass air flow
that's common to both banks.
It's probably not gonna be the mass air flow.
We've got one fuel pump.
It's gonna be common to both banks, right?
So now we're looking at a vacuum leak or an injector.
What's affecting this, you know,
so, you know, again, I'm checking off components.
It's not that, it's not that, it's not that.
And I'm left with, you know, kind of like an ASE question.
Two of these are definitely not the answer.
No, I'm 50-50.
And so now I need to hone in on those areas.
That was such great advice right there.
I hope that needs to be a clip on how to approach things
just because it is so true.
And that's not, I mean, you take that principle
to any aspect of your life and maybe sit back
and, you know, have a game plan
and be thoughtful on how you're going to attack something.
Can, I think there's the common theme
of like go slow to go fast, right?
Or like talking through that.
And that just helps organize your thoughts.
You're not in that chaotic mode in your brain
where everything feels unorganized and just a mess.
Like if you can just take a few minutes,
and even if it does take more than a few minutes,
like you've got a plan ironed out.
And I understand it, there's pressures on a tech
to produce and so if that perception is you're sitting down,
but like don't worry about that.
Worry about how you're going to solve these problems
and thinking through that is, in my opinion,
probably always the best way to go about it.
That's probably like your race car days.
You know, you had to learn how to make a fast lap
and it's not just foot to the floor
or take the inside of the track.
You know, you're systematically attacking it differently.
And so your qualifying lap is different
than your race lap, right?
And yeah, it's like you said,
sometimes you got to go slow to go fast.
This is good.
One thing I've got to pull out of there
is you had mentioned ASC and you and I
both have a pretty big passion for ASC
and all the great things they're doing.
And kind of even the recent years,
I feel like the evolution in general.
Yeah, you're an ASC board member
and this is something where it's not new to you
that you love ASC.
This has been something
that's been a part of your life for a long time.
We hear at times the, you know, the negative side of it.
Well, just because they can pass a test
doesn't mean that they can work on a car.
And goes back to that kind of negative mindset
that I was talking about earlier from a lot of folks
that, you know, there's this fight against it
for whatever reason by some folks.
But then when you look at what that represents
and why, in my opinion, we need ASC
to be strong in our industry,
I truly feel that we have to have some level
of professionalism to justify
where the labor rates are going on this stuff.
And the labor rates have to go that way
just like we talked about before
because we need different levels
of professionals on these things.
And so talk to me a little bit about your feelings there
and, you know, maybe the need for it
and maybe the way people should be looking
at that certification in general.
Yeah, no, I'm with you over the last 10 years
seemed to be the, yeah, just cause you passed the test
doesn't mean you can fix a ham sandwich, right?
And even I felt that in the shop
when I became a master tech
passed the automatic transmission test
and the transmission guy that worked
in the two bays next to me
could not pass it to save his life.
You know, and he's like,
you don't even know what check ball goes in this cat.
I'm like, I don't, but I can read, I can understand.
You know, I'm not memorizing this stuff.
And so one reason I'm very passionate about ASC
is it's industry regulating industry.
And so it's kind of the, if not us, then who?
I don't think any of us want the government to come in
and start regulating this stuff
and creating certifications themselves.
It's gonna be a hundred times worse than what we have.
And so, you know, my history with ASC is
as a young technician, as I talked about earlier,
the other guys in the shop had it and I didn't.
And so that was something to strive for to,
you know, shut up guys, I can do this
or I viewed them as some of my heroes per se
and respect, I guess, right?
And so, give me something to strive for.
And so then once I got it, and I still say this today,
walking on Fridays, we'd all go to the local cafe, diner,
you know, and have lunch together
and there'd be eight to 10 of us sitting around a table.
I've got the master badges and L1 on my shoulder
and four or five other guys have no certifications.
Who do you think Joe Blow and the diner
is gonna come up and ask a question to?
They're gonna see the guy with the certifications
and the well-decorated technician.
And so that's who gets that attention, if you will.
You know, driving through back roads,
even yesterday, I was driving across town
in Grand Rapids in, oh, there's a new shop
and they've got a big,
we employ ASC certified professionals here.
So whether that shop believes it or not,
they're trying to gain credibility
by hanging the ASC logo out front.
And so ASC admittedly has probably not done the best job
of advertising to consumers over the past decade,
but recognizing so.
You know, so back to starting as a technician,
become a master certified,
I got involved as a subject matter expert.
I've got a ton of different plaques
and I'm a counter behind me here
of all the different workshops I've been involved with
as an SME in impact networking,
made a lot of great friends,
met a lot of great people
and came up with a true appreciation
for how the ASC exams are assembled by industry peers.
You know, there's a Honda guy there that's going,
oh, my technicians don't use mass airflow sensors.
So, you know, and then in the Chrysler guys are like,
yeah, mine either, but everybody else says,
well, it's part of the vehicles.
And so they need to understand
and we need to test on that.
But just great representation of OE manufacturers,
aftermarket technicians, tool specialists, educators,
et cetera, and coming together to write
and validate all the questions.
So it's truly a exam written by your peers
in putting that together,
understanding that process,
appreciating that process
and understanding now how other industries
are emulating what ASC does for their own industries
and then having the chance to serve on the board.
I started as a board of governors a couple of years ago
and then moved to the board of directors,
kind of inner circle, if you will, last year and this year
and just so appreciative of the people
that are involved with that.
Again, the mix of OE representation there,
aftermarket people, you know,
we just had our board meeting last week
in Savannah in the closed door session.
It was just, we all left like,
man, I'm so glad that this person's here for that.
This person's here for that.
Just the mix of the different people in the room
and we're all here for one thing.
And it's to raise the standards
and the respect level of the repair industry,
whether it's dealership levels or aftermarket.
That's as well summarized as I could ask for.
That was really, really good.
And you can tell it's from the heart.
And I just echo everything that you're saying there
in terms of seeing all the people in a room
that do truly care about the industry
and from all walks of life,
wanting to see the industry in a better place.
I think there's a lot of value in that.
And so hopefully that continues to grow.
I really, I think you're seeing maybe a change in attitude
regarding ASC, I think as a whole.
And you'll still have your detractors,
but I don't care what it is that you're doing,
you're going to have detractors.
And so I think it's gaining a lot more steam
and it's just to your point,
like you really want to don't,
you don't want the government being the ones dictating
how successful somebody is.
We've seen how they work and it doesn't go well.
So I...
You can't get your head down.
Yeah, right.
I think Dave has been a breath of fresh air.
He comes in as a technician, a farm boy,
a Ford employee with global implications
and coming in with new relationships, new ideas,
people like yourself as industry allies,
Chris from Endeavour, Jim from Babcox.
We're all working to make ASC cool again.
That was a charge from our outgoing chairman,
Jason Rainey.
But again, it was awesome after the meeting.
We're sitting at the airport all ready to fly home
and just a conversation between Jason Rainey
with Napa AutoCare and Brad Marshall from Bridgestone
in Louise from Subaru.
And we're just sitting there magnifying
about the quality of people there,
but also kind of the weight that we bear with this
and understand that people respect this
and people, it's a big deal.
We got to honor 56 industry professionals last week
and give them kudos for their stuff.
And these are people, this is a major lifetime achievement.
They're stopping us at the airport too.
So cool to meet you guys.
And it's something we don't take lightly either.
And so it's an honor to represent the industry.
Well, you and I sat with a couple and their son
at dinner the first night
and it was so cool to just see it through their eyes, right?
And see the experience through their eyes.
And similar to what you said about SEMA,
it was one of those moments where you do kind of pinch
yourself and say, I can't believe I'm here, right?
Like this is really, really cool.
Yeah.
To tell the 18 year old version of me
that this is where it'd be today.
It's like, wow, that's cool.
And so I have to remind myself of that on some days.
You know, like, you asked for this pale, but...
All right.
Well, we've got some hard hitting questions here
from our marketing team.
Rapid Fire, we should dim the lights
and put the spotlight on right now.
Yeah, I'm certain what.
No, just a few fun questions for you.
The first one, if you weren't doing this job,
what would you be doing?
You know, when I sit back in Daydream
and look out the window, I think that guy
that mows the grass on the side of the highway,
that's a pretty good gig.
You know, he sees somewhere different every single day.
He's not in the same thing.
I don't think his stress level's that high.
No phone.
Right, he's listening to the radio.
You know, he pulls over and sits underneath
the shade tree and eats his ham sandwich for lunch.
Like, that's not a bad gig.
So that might be it.
I might have that same dream some days.
What was your first job?
So my first job was doing long care.
I did long care and that might lead
into my career aspirations here yet.
You know, I did long care in middle school at our church
and then ran and eventually owned part
of a long care company throughout my summers.
And again, it was cool.
You're somewhere different every hour
and, you know, you're outside and riding around on equipment.
And so, yeah, that was a good job.
I think that for a kid teaches so much good work ethic.
And so it teaches you so much about life,
I feel like with long care and even how to properly maintain
your equipment, right?
Or how to, you know, how to every morning
you do the maintenance, you replace the string on the trim
or you fuel stuff up, get everything ready to go, you know,
and then off season you do the maintenance.
And so back to the previous question too, a farmer
is one of the things that would probably be, you know,
today as I've moved up the pay scale,
I can almost afford to be a farmer.
Forty acres of corn and in some beef cattle,
you know, we raise steer here, show them a 4-H.
My daughter's been more successful and married to dairy farmer.
So, you know, we can afford this stuff.
Isn't that funny?
I think I'd be in the same boat there too.
And so I grew up showing cattle, beef cattle.
And same thing with like the work ethic side, right?
Like learning how to work on a calf and and and just seeing
some of my buddy's kids showing now so much goes into it.
And I don't think people understand the time commitment.
Every single day when I was a kid, we'd bathe shampoo.
Trim them.
Blow dry them.
Yeah.
My kids learned about spreadsheets because I was not that
parent that just bought it all for them.
So they had to understand what the input costs were.
And then, you know, the profits and some of that kind of stuff.
So great life lessons with with a shovel and manure.
I get another similarity between us.
I feel like last question, what time do you get up in the morning?
Who? So this morning I was up at five after five.
Eastern time.
And so this morning I joined a group of guys for Bible study.
Older guys, a lot of life lessons I get from those guys.
And, you know, almost like fatherly advice, then breakfast
with another friend and then in my office by seven thirty.
I still get at home that I need to drive to school on days
when I'm home, you know, I'm on the road a lot.
But from home, I get to bring them to school.
So we're out the door by seven o'clock on those days.
And then back in the office.
So. Oh, that's cool.
Yeah, that's cool.
You know, I've transitioned from a night owl to the early bird here.
And that's not a bad thing. I don't know.
I, you know what, though?
I think you probably start to value your time a little bit differently, too.
And how, like, you know, rather than going and hanging out at a bar,
like if you can get up and have coffee with some people that can feed you
some wisdom, like, that's probably not a bad thing.
And the phone's not ringing yet.
The emails aren't coming in.
I do have a team in China, you know, so there's some late night
and early morning stuff with them.
But just the peaceful time in the morning, sunrise, you know, nothing better.
Oh, I couldn't agree more.
Now, Ryan, where can people find you and everything you're doing?
Really find out about what you're doing at Standard Motor Products.
So standardbrandtraining.com they they can look there.
We always update our different classes, follow us on LinkedIn,
both standard brand SMP or myself, Ryan Coyman.
You know, in standard brand as well.
You we've got YouTube videos.
If you ever go, man, that guy, you know, that guy's ugly.
And I am sick of listening to him.
You can find me on YouTube on our standard brand
or four seasons channels as well, sharing some more knowledge.
So I would encourage everybody to do it.
Ryan's doing some just insanely cool things in the industry.
He has over the course of his entire career, another example of somebody
starting off as a technician and working their way up through.
I love these stories because there are so many out there that have done this.
And, you know, I feel like we left a lot on the table in terms of stuff
we should have been talking about or could have talked about.
But it was such a fun conversation, as always.
And hopefully hopefully we can get you we can convince you to come back on again.
I love it, Jay.
Always a pleasure talking to you.
You know, we share a lot of the same passions and we're going to leave
this thing better than what we found it, right?
So absolutely.
Well, I appreciate that.
And always looking forward to talking to you and we'll do it again here
sometime soon. Thanks, Jay.
That wraps up another episode of Beyond the Wrench.
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