Fender Bender Nov 2019 / By Melissa Steinken / Read the original article here
Sure, you’ve probably heard about the Collision Repair Education Foundation (CREF) giving away scholarships to collision repair technicians and students, or the March Taylor Memorial Fund, which honors an auto body shop owner who had a passion for giving back.
At the 2019 SEMA Show alone, the educational foundation gave away over $250,000 in collision repair school grants.
The March Taylor Memorial Fund gives away scholarships in the form of I-CAR coupons, partial or full payment for industry classes or awards to attend industry training events.
In a similar spirit, John Gustafson, president of Gustafson Brothers Inc., has worked hard to incorporate lessons learned from the shop’s business coaching. For instance, Gustafson and Cynthia Varnell, administrator, marketing director and human resources manager for the body shop, decided to start a camp for auto technicians to learn more about the trade.
“We founded the Gustafson Brothers Education Foundation out of a need to find technicians, estimators, mechanics and service advisors,” Gustafson says. “The pool of candidates is empty, so we work really hard to try to help the industry, as a whole, with recruiting.”
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