Remarkable Results Radio Podcast Dec 2, 2025

The Value of Diverse Training at ASTA 2025: From Finance to Mental Health [RR 1068]

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This is the Automotive Repair Podcast Network. Everybody, Carm Capriato, Remarkable Results Radio, here in Raleigh, North Carolina, at the Asta 2025. Well, let's call it an educational conference. Let's call it a show of all kinds of vendors. Let's call it a networking thing. So happy to be here, honored to be here. Ryan Reagan, just one day, just press the button and said be there, and I'm here, and I'm interviewing him next.

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So it's your choice. Let us prove to you that Tracks is the single best shop management system in the business. Find NAPA Tracks on the web at NAPATRACS.com. Hey, everybody. It's the Ryan Reagan show. How are you? It's been one year since we interviewed. One year since you, the executive director of ASTA. Exactly. Last year you come up to me and he says, we're moving to a different bigger place. And boy, one thing I know about you,

when you say you're going to do something, you do it. Oh my God, I would love to ask you, what is it like to pull off something this big? But I don't know if my audience would care about what it takes from behind the scenes to do it. But if you think about the training and the booths and that you have a four digit figure of registered guests that are going to be here, what is that double than last year? Yeah, it's probably about 34% 35% more than last year so far. And why is it because you had more room, more hotels bigger?

Your spaces, or you made more noise? Well, you make more noise. And, you know, I made a lot of changes to the Exbo. And, you know, I understand from a vendor perspective what their job is, they have to have an ROI to attend shows. And the way it was done in the past is they couldn't, there wasn't any time or space carved out for them to have a real conversation with shop owners and really find out their needs and see if their products could fit it. And so, you know, tonight, as a matter of fact, you know, five to eight, the show floor is open, but only for owners. And they can have those kinds

of conversations and really do it. And in tomorrow, we'll open the show for everybody. And then, you know, the text can come out and see all the cool equipment, the neat stuff and get the pens and the hats. And so it's kind of a win for everybody. And this is just iteration one. I'm going to change it more moving forward. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It's going to change more. I mean, my dream end result that I'm looking for really is, you know, Thursday Friday is owner trade show. You have the owners here, the trade show more like this and owner training.

And then Saturday Sunday is the tax and it's more of a tool show where, you know, the tax can come in to their training and then hit the buy tools, be it equipment, do that type of thing. That's kind of where I'm looking to take it.

You were an industry outsider one year ago. I mean, we're talking about next year, 2026, you have to start planning like in two weeks. Oh, yeah. And so, and you were brand new and you saw what you had last year and you had to make changes. But as far as you be coming, so ingrained and embedded in the industry, you had to have a lot of

help. You must have what did you do to become a savvy on the industries you have in the last year?

I think, you know, there was a lot of help. I mean, the board members, you know, Alan, obviously, Taneika, NB, I mean, Benji, all of them, they introduced

everybody they can introduce you to. And you get to talk to them. I'm fortunate enough to have Jesse work with me. And Jesse is, you know, best

staff I could ever ask for. And that's funny. And she knows everybody. And yeah, she'll introduce me to people. And then it's just, you know,

honestly listening to them. You know, what are their pain points? What's going on with them? When you think of the word

staff, you're thinking of four or five people. And that's why I kind of chuckled a bit. Jesse, if you're listening, she

does the work of four or five. That's what I meant. I left because I think tongue in cheek. You meant to say, she does that

level of work. So amazing, amazing stuff. I actually told her after, you know, Sunday, I said Sunday around noon when you

leave here, I don't want to hear from you for a week. No, but you're going to witness protection. No, I went up and

talked to her. I says, so you take it all next week off. She goes, I don't think I can. She says that, but I had

that conversation again with her today. She said, well, do 30 friends. You're doing all week. Like I will take away

your computer. Go away. Amazing. What was your biggest challenge pulling this thing off? We were stretched pretty thin. We

didn't have a group help us. You know, we had hired some help, you know, from a planning and consulting side,

Sterling group. They've been magnificent for us. You know, kind of helping us and having had other set eyes from a

different point of view. To me, the biggest challenge was, are we going to get enough people here to make the vendors

happy? And are there going to be enough great training and a great set up and great events to get to people here?

We'd never had a theme. We were only exposed and never had a theme. I decided we would have a theme. All right. Okay, let's go there.

All right. I'm hesitating because I don't know how to quite say what last night was like. It was one of the most

wild opening nights I've ever seen at a conference. And it starts out because the theme is this alien theme. Yeah.

Where did you come up with that? We were kicking around themes one day. And I started talking about, you know, when you look at

reviews of our show and I've talked to people in the past, they always say that we have this great training. All the other

shows, you know, nothing against them. They do what they do. But everybody keeps them out. I go to that show and you guys have the best training.

And, you know, so it just kind of became this thing where I said, well, our training is out of this world. And then once that statement came out, that's

when all the alien things came out. Okay. So I won't describe it as well as we probably both can. But he was saying, oh, yeah, we're going to do

sumo wrestling. You've got the bull. I've never seen a dart board that they use through balls. It's huge.

And on everywhere you went into this ballroom, there was something big and different. And in the center of the ballroom was a sumo wrestling match. Oh, yeah.

And so he calls me up two months ago and says, Hey, I want you to. And I think it was going to be me and the job.

Oh, me and Josh were part now. And I immediately said, yes, hung up the phone, told my wife. And she goes, you had ice surgery two days ago.

Josh probably would have taken advantage of that.

And so the doctor says, you can't even travel. I'm not even sure you can get on a plane to go to ask. Anyway, it healed and everything. But the doctor said, no rough stuff for at least three months.

Just it's almost like, can I cut my lawn? He says, after three weeks. And I'm going back to him. And he's just got to kind of release me. So I said, I really can't do it. I said, but

I just kind of be the ring announcer. You did a great job. I heard that Bruce Buffer from the UFC is probably going to lose his job.

It goes up. He says, the only thing I'll tell you to do, Carmus, to please say, are you ready to rumble?

I did. And then I went up to all of our guy in the main events. There were three main events.

And I said, what name would you like to be introduced at? Like every wrestler or crazy person. So, you know,

and so Pollock says the beast from the east and Zeb Beard says, I don't know. And I looked at them. And I said, the Arkansas animal.

Yeah. And he goes, Oh, I love that. And so we're going on. And then I said, how about a song and everybody's picking a song. And the DJ didn't have them all. He downloaded them for us.

Very good. It all came together. We had a riot. But Brian Pollock against Zeb was a star guest. Zeb. I mean, we're talking, I'm guessing two hundred and eighty pounds, maybe. Oh, yeah, he versus a hundred and seventy. Yeah, it was.

And the last he crushed after the first round, I told him, go low, but I didn't mean to just fall on your stomach and let the man trample you to death.

So, you know, a little miscommunication there in that. I don't know.

And then to make it even better, there's aliens walking around with champagne. Yeah, there's aliens walking on their hands and feet that are 10 foot tall.

Pretty great. There's that one cream me a little bit. I'm not. I didn't know she was there and I turned around. I was like, what in the world?

The one from the new trade center, all the glass, all the mirror, all the face and the body. And that was, it was spectacular to stop and think that all this stuff could be true someday. No, yeah, it was kind of crazy.

I enjoyed it. You know, it was a lot of fun. And you know, we had an all-site location and they had some roof issues and had the candles. So we're like, Scram, what are we going to do?

And I'm like, well, let's just see what we can do. Let's just make up a party and do whatever we want to do. And it ended up being a lot of fun.

Do you think people will ask for this back next year?

I think so. I think we have to look at it. You know, I always tell people, there's three things I want you to do when you leave this show that I hope for you, because let's be honest.

And a few days you're going to be back in a shop and the real world starts to fall on yet and the pressure is there. And I want you, hey, I hope when you run into a problem that you got enough education and knowledge from this show that helps you get over.

I hope when it's just a miserable day and you just feel like you're getting beaten down that you have a memory of that night that was something so historically funny, you can laugh your way through that problem.

And then the last thing I hope is I hope that sometime during this conference, you met somebody and that worked with them that when you have a problem, you know, you got somebody you can call and ask advice.

What was the hardest thing that you had to do to pull this thing off?

For me, I think it was just getting people to believe it was possible. You know, I had board members like a bigger goal home, right?

Well, yeah, I had board members. It's like, you know, that's a lot of promises. That's a big, you know, undertaking. You know, if you're going to get all this stuff done, you say you're going to do it.

And I don't think a lot of them believe they can be done in a short time, but it's kind of like I was telling somebody, you know, about Davos, when he when he took over Clemson, you know, he was an interim coach.

And he didn't even know if he was going to have that job. They just had him as an interim. And he was in a meeting with the athletic directors and all these people and one of them made the comment, well, we're not going to be Alabama football.

And so Davos couldn't take it anymore. And he stood up and said, if we're not at least going to try to be like Alabama, what are we even doing here?

So people can tell us, look, we're not seeming to get it. We don't have 15,000 people, but I'm going to strive to be like that.

I mean, every day I'm going to sit here and think, okay, how do we get bigger? How do we grow this? But still keep this networking and this small town kind of feel because

I mean, that's the best part about what we do, but I'm always going to look for ways to grow this. Always look to make it better.

I had somebody tell me, or you look like the seam of the East. That's a great compliment. Keep it coming.

So just the word class mean anything to you. Yeah. I mean, it does. You know, I think being able to do what you say you're going to do.

You know, and people always talk about, you know, integrity and all this stuff. You know, doing the right thing when nobody's looking. To me, it's doing the right thing when everybody's looking.

It doesn't matter who's looking at you. You would do it that way every single time. You do not change.

And so that's kind of what I stress, but it was hard. You know, we had bumps in the road with last minute, you know,

cancels of this and that I can't imagine. I had one class that canceled it really just gutted me that.

We couldn't get a replacement. We were going to have three EVs up there upstairs in the hallways and the pillars doing

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web at Napa Tracks. That's N-A-P-A-T-R-A-C-S dot com. Talk about picking classes. This has got to be one of the toughest things to do.

Yep, we get our board committee, you know, we get an education committee, our board members. We punk her down at the office.

We got all the submissions and then we start going through them. And, you know, we kind of rate them. We look at, you know, what they've done in the past, you know,

how well are they known? What's the content? Is this really good content? Is this relevant content? Is it worn out?

You know, it's been done too many times because we do want things that are new and on the cutting edge.

It takes quite a few days of sitting there with whiteboards and spreadsheets and mapping it out and move this person here.

And there's still things that I see that will improve upon in that. We were fortunate enough to have BTS

do a tier certification class for us, but we did it on a Thursday. I prefer that classes on a Saturday because higher shops are more

apt to send people on a Saturday. So there's just little tweaks that my mind's always running it like how can we make this better?

How can we do this better? And I have a whole list of things as soon as we leave here that I know I'm going to change.

Sure you are. Why continuing education? What would you say to all the people that live on the east coast of the US?

I'm going to tell you, continuing education, I always compare this to IT. If you're in the IT world and you know every year you're going back and getting a new Microsoft search or getting this search or getting this.

If you don't, you fold behind in the blink of an eye. All you're doing today is working on a computerized car.

Let's be honest, there's a rolling computer and it's the same thing. If you don't continually update and get new training and get

refreshed and do these things, you're going to fold behind and new models come out, new cars, new changes, you've got to stay up on it.

And it makes a difference and it'll make it, if you're an owner, it makes a difference in your shop, if your people are training.

Your customers are going to know this. I mean, it's less returns, it's less issued, but you have to stay up on it.

And everybody that, you know, I don't need that training. I've been doing this for years. We've had people with this show that have

said in a training class, it had been turning a wrench for 20 years and walked down like, I never knew half of that stuff.

I've been doing this for 20 years.

You know, it's amazing to really look at the portfolio of training that you have and Tracy and I sat

through a portion of Margaret Light's class. And when you stop and think that Margaret

as a therapist was speaking about life and life's challenges and the room was engaged with her.

Asked a ton of great questions and life goes on and it was refreshing to see Margaret here and having some topics that you typically wouldn't see.

Yeah. And look, we want to be that way. I mean, I'm big on finance, marketing, branding, leadership, mental health, you know, all types of things.

Because life does go on. I mean, I just think that we've come so disconnected as a society, especially throughout the internet and all this stuff,

that now more than ever, people forget that when this person leaves this shop and goes home, they have a life.

They have bills. They have family issues. They have drama. They have sick relatives. They have kids that are ill.

They have kids in school. It's like we're so disconnected because we don't talk anymore, really.

Nobody just talks to each other anymore and engages and interacts. And I just think people forget it.

And anything we can do to help remind that, I mean, it's beneficial.

I just find it humorous. The, you know, we were talking about this earlier, just some of the stigma and the

connotations of, you know, all you just mechanic or that you have no idea what it takes to work on a car today.

None whatsoever.

People don't. They still think it's just like the grandfather's ozmobility and I'll just go to YouTube.

And there are some people, I have a friend who bought a scan tool for 500 bucks and he said,

the car, I fixed the wife's 12 year old car because I had the scan tool.

He was a former mechanic years ago. It really rocked my world a little bit. He is a dead fast.

I do everything on my own person. Okay. He wouldn't go to a professional anytime anywhere.

Doesn't matter if it's a carpenter or a electrician. It wouldn't. I just wonder how many,

you know, and I just read an article recently about a little bit of a spike up in DIY.

Part of it was because costs and economy and a lot of things that are going on,

but then I just saw that we had a great growth in the economy of like, I don't know, 3.8%.

And so I feel somehow that and again, you have some gray here.

Oh yeah. I have some gray here. You know what that means? We've lived through some of these ups and

downs. Oh yeah. We've seen the changes in our industry and we've seen the changes in our country

and our economy. I think there's this nothing but great stuff it has.

I think so. I think it's a good time for us. I really do. And you know, the DIYs,

they're always going to be out there to a point, but it's good to a point where you will not

be able to do that. It just truly is for a lot of things. I mean, I have a few cars at my house

and there are some of them that, you know, we have a ranger over it. I'm not touching that thing.

I don't know anything, but you can't even see anything in that car.

Now, Jeep, yeah, it's a little different, but even now the new Jeep, it's so complicated and

convoluted. For my own mental sanity, that's going to a show. It's not, yeah, I'm not doing it.

And but I've seen that evolution. And so if you would or age because, you know,

I can remember sitting inside the hood of a car standing inside the hood on one side of an engine

block, that ain't happening today. No, no. And so it's a different thing. And it's just going to

continue to get that way and with EVs and all these other things. And so it's not going to

think there's a lot of bright future ahead. I think, you know, some of the work you're doing,

getting the terminology and the language change is going to be great. Yeah, I want to talk about that

right now. I'm with Ryan Reagan, executive director, eight STA, the Automotive Service Tire

Association here in the southeast of the US based out of Raleigh. Yeah. And thank you for letting me

do my speech at lunchtime today as I'm hustling everywhere. Got a lot a couple more engagements

coming up in October. And so just get this word out at lifting the professionalism of our

industry through a language shift and what we call each other and what the outside world looks

in and sees and what we tell them. You know, I had to do a DVI to your car and they say whatever

that is, I guess it's okay because we don't quite explain it. We're using acronyms slang

and everything that we do. And we're using lazy language that's been around for way, way too long.

I had a chance that I had lunch to, you know, if you will, I call it a ministry. And I don't know

why I said that in the last two speeches I gave. I'm on a ministry and I said, but I didn't have a

chance to say I am not a man of the club. Well, I think it was a swim. No, I'm okay. I'm at the

so yeah, I thank you for letting me spread again. We go back to why am I so I want to say the word

gospel, my gospel of, you know, the specialist that declaration, well, it's my listeners right here.

Remarkable results. Be as forward slash rise, the rise of the specialist. I mean, I'm getting a

lot of traction, a lot of noise. People came up to me and said, I'm going back to the business.

Yeah. Next week and I'm changing the titles of my people. And I'm going to share this declaration

that you wrote. And I want to hear the opinions of it. But this is the biggest lift we could

possibly ask for in our own business. And look, it's human nature. We all have egos. Do you

want to be a mechanic? You want to be a specialist? You know, it's common sense. And when you're

applying, if I'm somebody that thinks I'm a very good mechanic and I'm reading this job application,

you know, I'm reading the job posting in this guy saying he wants a mechanical specialist.

I'm that good. I can be a mechanical specialist. It's an ego thing. You know, and I'm with you,

it's from a consumer standpoint. Would you rather have a, you know, technology specialist

working on your car? Would you rather say, hey, the mechanic, he'll take care of it. Yeah.

And to my point, when I tell the story up on stage about the euro shops, then they have

Mercedes Specialists, Audi Specialists. And people go to these euro shops because it's their

specialty. It's been on our nose for all these years. And yet we choose to be techs or mechanics.

And the short and the word tech is from, of course, this word we adopted so many years ago of

technician, and we shortened it to tech because we love short thing. We don't want to spend the extra

few seconds to say the right words. Yeah. And no, I'd say it. And I think, to me, I think the biggest

long term impact from changing that language will be the amount of people that will then go into

the industry that are young. I think it changes that landscape for them. And they don't view it

like that anymore. I think they start to view it as this is a technical and aspiring career that

is very disciplined, a lot of knowledge and education. And I think it's going to change that. I mean,

look, we've seen this done where people, your marketing plans and things have to change in

high-states army for years. But it was, you know, be all you can be and do this and that. And then

they realized that wasn't reaching what they wanted. So then it became more about you, an army of one,

and became very personal. And so I think just how you change your messaging, how you change your

language. It has a huge impact on who you're bringing into that industry. One of your members came up

to me after my speech and showed me his name tag. And it's that technology specialist on the bottom.

Very nice. I was just thrilled. But it's true. Yeah. He was proud of the fact that he wrote it,

although he knows what I'm doing and what I'm saying. The point was he was proud to say that that's

his title. Yeah. And the instructors that I met from Illinois that are here, they say that they're

changing all their language because they've been reading my declaration for a couple of months now,

because I'm going there to speak. They are changing the titles of all the classes to talk about

being specialists. Yeah. It's going to have a big impact. I think it's going to. And remember the

audience, get the declaration and read it, but understand specialist save lives. And we go to

specialists all the time for focused things that will help us be a better person or you know,

there's specialists in everything, but that whole medical field, which we love to compare ourselves to.

Yeah. So wow. I've seen too many specialists in that field.

What's the first thing that we're going to see different next year? I think there'll probably be

more expanded show hours for the trade show for the owners to get out and meet. There could be an

additional day, maybe a Sunday, half day. I think you'll see more people. No. It'll be a different

theme. And I'm doing aliens every time. So it'll be a different theme. I already know what that is.

And I've had that for a long time. We'll have another amazing keynote, middle-blows and people's

minds. By the way, thank you for getting me Jim Knight. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For I'm interviewing Jim

Knight tomorrow. He's our keynoteer here at dinner, which is Saturday night. We're recording this

on a Friday. And the really cool thing about Jim Knight is I've heard and speak. I got a sign

copy of his book. The person who got him hired at the event that I was at was a really good friend

of mine. He mentioned him in the email back and forth. So we've been going back and forth with

stuff. So I'm thrilled when you hear Jim Knight's episode, you're going to just be blown away.

You know, he's very dynamic and just tremendous speaker. Tremendous just his attitude and his

personality and waycarries himself. I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a phenomenal.

He worked for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for maybe 20 years. Yeah. I've been there many times.

You wrote a book leadership that rocks customer service at rocks. And he's got pointed spiky

hair. Yeah. And he's just a huge presence on stake. Yeah. You won't miss him. Sure. If you walk

in a room, you're going to know he's there. Ryan, thank you for putting on one hell of a great event.

Now you are anointed in one year in the industry. And good for you. Never done already

thinking about a hundred things I'm going to do. So don't miss ask the next year.

Yeah. You'll disappoint this man. Yeah. I guarantee you, if you show up, you'll understand what it's

about. Yeah. I guarantee you. And you'll learn a lot. Man. And you'll make money because of that.

You'll learn. You'll make money. And you will make connections that'll last you the rest of your

career. Where else can you go to play with the toys that are here? Oh, great. I mean, there are

our toys on this. There are. I've even got those guys in that blue and gold out there

that doing the virtual stuff. Hey, there's more to come from me on all of this stuff that's

going on. And I got a glimpse today from someone of high caliber in that Napa organization.

I was literally, I had a prick my finger and he had a prick his finger. And I already had a

touch so that I wouldn't say anything. But I have to tell you, I was so mesmerized by what's

going on. And it's just Napa being able to take and adapt all the stuff that's out there.

And bring it right down under next to the car. They had me down in Atlanta and showed me that

at the corporate. I was like, you got to be kidding me. We did some great interviews. You know,

Robin Croy, I got to tell you they're doing it right. So I can say yeah, and maybe next year when

all this stuff is really launched, it is going to be a phenomenal display here. It's funny because

I look at and that future of what they're doing. And I look at what you're talking about the

terminology. And when you start combining those two things, the youth movement that's going to come

as an influx into this industry is going to be something. I've had a lot of people whisper in my ear

while I'm here saying we're on this thing. Watch the stuff that we're going to start putting out.

You're going to see the word specialist car. Yeah. It's the greatest warmth in my heart that I could

get. Hey, Brian Regan. Thanks, but thanks for having me. It's always good to see you.

Dresy, always good to see you. I can't tell you much. I appreciate you coming to the show.

I appreciate you to me. All right. Thanks for being on board to listen and learn from the

premier automotive repair business podcast remarkable results radio. Get your episodic education on

the ARPN listing app at automotive repairpodcastnetwork.com. Also enjoy the podcast on our

Carm Capriato YouTube channel. Carm is all for advancing the professional automotive service industry.

Until next time.

About this episode

Ryan Reagan, executive director of ASTA, shares insights from the ASTA 2025 conference, highlighting the importance of diverse training in the automotive industry. He discusses the challenges of organizing the event, including vendor engagement and the introduction of a unique alien theme to enhance attendee experience. The conversation touches on the need for continuous education in a rapidly evolving industry, the significance of changing perceptions around automotive roles, and the future direction of the conference. Notable moments include a lively sumo wrestling event and the introduction of new training topics like mental health.

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Original notes

Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Watch Full Video Episode

Recorded Live at ASTA 2025, Ryan Ragan, Executive Director of ASTA, discusses the explosive growth of the event, Ragan’s long-term vision, the wildly creative opening-night party, and the industry-wide push to elevate professional language in the automotive field.

Episode Highlights

Record-Breaking Growth:
ASTA 2025 moved to a larger venue and saw a 34–35% increase in registrations, reaching four-digit attendance. Ragan restructured the expo for better vendor ROI, including a shop-owner-only show-floor window on opening night. His biggest hurdle wasn’t logistics—it was convincing people that such a massive upgrade was even possible on a tight timeline. The payoff came when an attendee told him the show felt like the “SEMA of the East.”
“Out of This World” Theme:
ASTA’s first themed expo featured an alien-inspired opening night with a mechanical bull, giant dartboard, sumo matches (announced by Carm), and 10-ft champagne-serving aliens.
Education & Professionalism:
Ragan stressed the importance of ongoing training in an era where cars are “rolling computers.”
A major topic: shifting industry language—embracing titles likemechanical specialistto elevate professionalism and attract new talent.

Ragan hopes every attendee left with three things:

New knowledge to solve future shop challenges
A fun memory to brighten tough days
A new connection they can call for advice

https://astausa.org/pages/asta-expo Thanks to our Partners, NAPA Auto Care and NAPA TRACS Learn more about NAPA Auto Care and the benefits of being part of the NAPA family by visiting https://www.napaonline.com/en/auto-care NAPA TRACS will move your shop into the SMS fast lane with onsite training and six days a week of support and local representation. Find NAPA TRACS on the Web at http://napatracs.com/ Connect with the Podcast: - Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RemarkableResultsRadioPodcast/ - Join Our Virtual Toastmasters Club: https://remarkableresults.biz/toastmasters - Join Our Private Facebook Community:

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Carm Capriotto, AAP

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