MOTOR Attends Industry Events onTechnician Training and Mobile A/CEditor’s Note:Bob Chabot, MOTOR’s man-about-town, hit a couple more in recentweeks—Overland Park, KS, and Orlando,FL—to cover ASA Midwest’s VISION Hi-Tech Training & Expo and the Mobile AirConditioning Society (MACS) World-wide’s Training Event and Trade Show, re-spectively. A third event he covered—theNational Automotive Service Task Force(NASTF) Spring 2016 General Meet-ing—was collocated at VISION. Here arehis reports.

The VISION Hi-Tech Training & Expo2016 held in early March, themed Gearedfor Growth, featured 1708 conference at-tendees—440 of them first-timers, accord-ing to Sheri Hamilton, VISION organizerand ASA-Midwest Executive Director.

“We deeply appreciate the 715 exhibitorand industry participants who contributedto a successful event,” she said. “In addi-tion to 1070 walk-in expo visitors, VISION2016 provided 91 management, technicaland educator breakout sessions—a total of23,635 man-hours of training (not includ-ing the opening and closing general ses-sions). We look forward to VISION 2017,which will be held March 2-5, 2017, at theOverland Park Convention Center.”

The general sessions featured two moti-vational consultants—Anthony “AB”Bourke, founder of Mach2 Consulting anda highly accomplished and decorated F-16fighter pilot; and Sales Trainer Barry Bar-rett of RLO Training. Both providedunique perspectives on improving person-al and professional preparation and per-formance.“Change is the octane that drives your

life forward,” Bourke began during Satur-day’s opening general session keynote

speech. He made a compelling case forshop owners and technicians to leveragethe power of the brief/debrief loop that AirForce fighter pilots and commanders use.“Before every flight, our mission com-mander outlined our daily mission and de-scribed its objectives at a short briefing.This set the tone and focused us on theimmediate tasks at hand. Rarely does amission go absolutely perfect, be it themission plan itself or pilot performance.That’s where the postmission debriefingsession provided value. It allowed us to pri-vately, as equals, critique the mission andindividual performance, with the focus onwhat did not go well, how we could havedone better and what we learned and canapply going forward. The brief/debriefloop accelerates experience to drive betterresults. It’s a tool any shop could use to ele-vate everyone involved.”

“Start with a vision, end with success,”RLO Training’s Barrett urged attendees atSunday’s closing general session. He deliv-ered an inspirational message intended tohelp shop owners and their employeesevaluate their mental outlook, set higherpersonal and professional goals, expandtheir businesses and improve customer re-lations.Many of the technical training sessions

this year featured how to properly use di-agnostic tools, such as pressure transducersand lab scopes. James E. Wilson, a Boschtrainer, advised, “Invest in and learn to usea lab scope. While OEMs may not yet re-quire them, they provide better image res-olution and magnified views and enableshops to provide faster and more efficientvehicle service.”Jim Morton, another VISION trainer,

who also owns Morton’s Automotive Tech-nical Services (MATS), agreed with Wil-son. “For the most part, automakers don’tbelieve in lab scopes, but that’s changing.Just before VISION, GM asked me tomeet with their factory technicians toteach them about lab scopes. I meet withBMW next week to do the same thing.”VISION provided a full breakout day

for attendees to attend either a manage-

ment training summit or educators’ thinktank. Unique this year, both groups werebrought together for the VISION eX-change lunch and discussion, where edu-cators, trainers, shop owners and techni-cians shared ideas aimed at delivering serv-ice-ready technicians to industry employ-ers and keeping their skills sets currentwith changing industry needs. To viewvideo of this session, which was recordedby iATN, visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaK1SCmOCVY.“The National Automotive Service Task

Force Spring 2016 General Meeting, col-located with VISION, was attended by ap-proximately 60 people, with many more

watching the simultaneous webcast orsubsequent YouTube video, both recordedby iATN,” noted NASTF Executive Di-rector Skip Potter. The majority of themeeting was devoted to a panel discussiontitled Building the Road to GREAT Tech-nicians, organized by the NASTF Educa-tion Committee.Moderator Rob Morrell, co-chair of the

committee and Training Director forWORLDPAC Training Institute (WTI),asked panelists—automakers representa-tives, educators, aftermarket employersand technicians—to share their perspec-tive on the current state of industry educa-tion and post-hire training. Visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT40gGa8BnY to view the panel discussion in itsentirety. Here are some key comments.“Currently, we cannot look at a techni-

cian’s resumé and know where they havebeen, what they have done and who weare hiring,” declared Kevin FitzPatrick,President of Autologic Diagnostics. “Withthe current lack of standards and organi-zation, we need to move to structured,

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recognized credentials to resolve this.”“In general, the aftermarket hires two

types of technicians—those more ground-ed in theory/operation and those withknowledge-based experience,” sharedBob Augustine, Christian Brothers Auto-motive’s Training Director. “With evolvingvehicle complexity, our challenge is tomove to an industry training/developmentprogram that is balanced between thetwo, with clearly defined roles, and tech-nician certifications.”Mark Saxonberg, Toyota Motor Sales

Manager, Advanced Fuel Vehicles & En-vironment, Industry & Government Re-lations, commented on why some au-tomakers provided training to dealertechnicians only, while others providedtheir training to both dealer and aftermar-ket techs. “If you look at GM/ACDelco,Ford/Motorcraft and even WORLDPAC,their business case for offering training foraftermarket technicians is supported byOEM parts programs. Not every au-tomaker has been able to make the busi-ness case to do that.”Scott Brown, iATN President and a

shop owner, suggested we look at theaeronautical industry and integrate someof its best practices in our quest to buildbetter technicians. “We should consideradopting some of the tenets of the FAAFlight Safety Foundation. Their Mechan-ic’s Creed reads, ‘I pledge myself never toundertake work or approve work which Ifeel to be beyond the limits of my knowl-edge.’ The FAA Wings Program requiresall aircraft maintenance technicians(AMTs) to re-up all certifications annually,to keep them current with the industry’srapid change in technology and serviceprocedures. In addition, each AMT’srecord denotes industry-recognized cours-es taken and successfully tested out of.That’s the type of culture we need.”“The one thing we all need to recognize

is that all of us presenting today incorpo-rate good training building elements, butwe are offering disorganized, disjointedtraining to technicians,” said Chris Ches-ney, Senior Director of Training at CAR-

QUEST Technical Institute. “We need todrop the brands, our affiliations and get onwith doing what needs to be done to pro-vide clear, structured, standardized and in-dustry-recognized training and careerpaths for aspiring and in-service techni-cians.”In closing the panel discussion, Morrell

said, “We hope this discussion sparks andcompels organization. NASTF’s EducationCommittee will continue the work begunwith this session, and we invite all industrystakeholders to engage in finding a solu-tion to this critical need.”The next NASTF General Meeting will

be held on Nov. 2, 2016, at the Automo-tive Aftermarket Products Expo (AAPEX)in Las Vegas.The Mobile Air Conditioning Society

(MACS) Worldwide once again success-fully filled the mobile a/c and heat transferindustry’s need for training, networking

and commerce with its annual trainingevent and trade show, held in mid-Febru-ary at the Caribe Royale Hotel and Con-vention Center in Orlando, FL.“We were happy to host over 1000 at-

tendees from 21 countries—30% of whomwere first-time attendees,” Elvis Hoffpauir,MACS President and Chief Operating Of-ficer, noted. “The event was supported by39 loyal sponsors and featured 28 technicalinstructors who delivered 32 courses. Inaddition, the show featured 90 differentexhibitors. The next MACS TrainingEvent and Trade Show—themed MobileA/C: Global Service Horizons—will beheld Feb. 15-18, 2017, at the AnaheimMarriott in Anaheim, CA.During the event, attention focused on

four major areas—the changes that shopsneed to adapt to; a back-to-basics empha-sis in technical training classes; an informa-

tive panel featuring representatives fromthe EPA, MACS, SAE and several au-tomakers (Fiat Chrysler, Ford, GeneralMotors and Jaguar Land Rover); and newtechnologies and service procedures forlight- and heavy-duty vehicles that arecoming to market.“Our industry is on the cusp of funda-

mental changes that will present us withchallenges we must be prepared to meet,”stated keynote speaker Tony Molla, VicePresident of the Automotive Service Asso-ciation (ASA). “Knowledge is the only sus-tainable competitive remedy to the accel-erating pace of change. Training can nolonger be approached like it’s a patch ap-plied to fix a shop shortcoming; instead,shops must transition to adopting a dy-namic learning culture as the vector togain and apply new information.”

Nearly all of the technical sessions em-phasized a back-to-basics approach.Bosch’s Wilson focused on tools: “To knowand use trusted resources and tools re-quires being aware beforehand what eachtool can and cannot do. So don’t just buytools. Get training to fully understand howto use them.”The panel discussion focused on new

a/c service procedures and issues experi-enced with new mandated service equip-ment. Automakers described how theywere ramping up the introduction of vehi-cles equipped with R-1234yf refrigerantsystems. They explained why service tookup to 50% longer for R-1234yf systems,described the importance of accuratemeasurement and critical checks (e.g., avacuum decay leak check test) and sharedtips related to properly using R/R/R ma-chines.ACDelco and the heavy-duty exhibitors

expounded on a wide range of inboundtechnologies. Examples included electron-ic-controlled variable displacement com-pressors, high-efficiency condensers,coolant storage innovations and new ther-mal energy management systems. In addi-tion, they provided many resources andservice procedures with shops intending toservice the new technologies.

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