The Positive Power of Teamwork

Hello, ASA members! It’s been a busy first of the year for the ASA board, our operations committees and our awesome ASA staff.

You’ve probably heard that we’re launching new regional training programs. We had a great time recently in Orlando, Fla., doing our first sessions. And we have more cities scheduled this year, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Redondo Beach, Calif., and Las Vegas, which will be staged in conjunction with our co-sponsor: AAPEX.

In talking with our members, we learned that the program they’d most like to see is one focused on modern shop management techniques. That’s why we’ve been pleased to recruit Bob Greenwood, AAM, CEO of the Automotive Aftermarket E-Learning Centre, in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, for the Friday part of our two-day sessions. Bob’s day-long, AMI-approved classes give our shop owners and managers an engaging, interactive experience.

Based on member input, we’ll also offer technical and service adviser classes during the Saturday session. So that everyone can get to know one another, we’ve scheduled a networking get-together on Friday evenings and intimate tabletop trade shows that will feature sponsors.

Our other initiatives so far have included freshening up our relationships with almost every organization in the industry. For example, we’re excited to have the Autocare Association and the Automotive Aftermarket Suppliers Association (AASA), who put on AAPEX, as partners in this broad member outreach.

And speaking of industry relationships, we’ve just completed another project that’s focused on providing you and your techs with a quick way to access information from automakers that shops most often need. Working with our friends at the Auto Alliance, we’ve created the ASA/Auto Alliance service information portal.

Our third-party, service-information providers do an awesome job of making information available in a standardized way. Often, however, there are pieces of information that don’t fit their purview and aren’t available from the provider.

We determined that standardizing the way you find these hard-to-find items would save time when you’re learning about how a specific OEM does its scan tool or data regarding training, security, immobilizer techniques and service information. Now, every member of the Auto Alliance (autoalliance.org) is represented on the site. And since launching scantoolresource.com, we’ve also completed all the information for several carmakers that are members of the Global Automakers Association (GAA).

Soon, we expect to add the remaining members of GAA to provide you with a complete offering of their information and services.

I’d like to thank the ASA mechanical operations committee, and specifically Pete Rudloff, for the many hours they’ve put in on these recent projects. I also want to thank Autoshop Solutions, which gave us an enormous amount of assistance in constructing the site and updating the scan-tool resource page. It’s now completely refreshed and contains lots of new entries. Last but not least, hearty thanks to members of the Auto Alliance for their cooperation and vision in supporting ASA members and independent repair shops.

You build an industry with a team, and I’m proud of ours. I hope you are, too.