The Buffalo News reported that area collision shop owners are getting together, not as competitors but as a group, to reverse the massive shortage of new, young talent in the industry.
Around the same time that the Buffalo, N.Y., collision shop owners began to reach out to area schools, Erie 1 BOCES was looking for a way to increase participation in its two-year collision repair program, where enrollment dipped from 45 in the 2011-2012 school year to 29 three years later. There were 35 students in the program last year, compared to 142 in the auto technician program.
The shop owners, members of the Western New York chapter of I-CAR, the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair, met with BOCES.
As a result of the collaboration, eight students in collision repair programs at Erie 1 BOCES got their start making money in the business as part of a new paid pre-apprenticeship program this summer. The students worked at Carubba Collision, Gabe’s Collision, Joe Basil Chevrolet, West Herr and Collision Masters.
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