The Northwest Auto Care Alliance (NWACA) is dedicated to uniting automotive service professionals, including collision repairers, in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska and Montana.
A large part of the mission is providing training and education opportunities to its members.
“We try to keep our members engaged, to keep things fresh, because the industry changes so fast,” said Micah Strom, collision chair of NWACA and the owner of Modern Collision Rebuild and Service in Bainbridge Island, WA.
Strom and Brenda Wolslegel, NWACA executive director, provided an update to Autobody News on the alliance’s monthly, quarterly and annual collision repair education offerings.
Dateline
NWACA emails its Dateline newsletter monthly to about 2,500 service professionals. It includes a “Collision Corner” column, written by Strom.
Collision Roundtables
Once a quarter, NWACA hosts a Collision Roundtable, a Zoom meeting for collision members and local non-members who want to get a taste of how joining the alliance could benefit them.
Most recently, the Sept. 10 virtual event featured Jim Anderson from Real Shop Coaching who spoke about outside-the-box ideas for marketing a collision repair shop.
Next up, on Nov. 12, Steve Dawson of Hunter Engineering will speak about collision repair alignments. Strom said Dawson led a class on alignments at NWACA’s Collision Training Expo earlier this year.
“The feedback we got on that class was awesome,” Strom said.
On Jan. 14, Aaron Schulenburg of the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) will present on the blend study conducted by SCRS in 2022.
PAVE
NWACA is one of four partner organizations collaborating to put on PAVE (Professional Automotive Virtual Education), an annual two-day, virtual-only training event which will be held Feb. 21-22, 2025.
PAVE was born during the COVID pandemic, when in-person events could not be held. Next year’s will be the fifth edition.
“There’s still a need for virtual training because there’s some people who are not in an area where training is readily accessible,” Wolslegel said. “They don’t have to worry about the venue and trying to travel.”
In 2025, PAVE will feature more than 30 sessions, several of which will be geared toward collision repair. In addition to being able to attend the sessions live, registrants will have 30 days of on-demand access following the event.
Learn more at www.pavetraining.com.
Collision Training Expo (CTE)
NWACA held its first CTE in 2023. The single-day inaugural event was so well-received, the alliance expanded it to two days this year.
In 2025, the third annual CTE will be held May 2-3 at Clover Park Technical College in Lakewood, WA.
CTE features hands-on training, panel discussions and a trade show.
The agenda for 2025 is far from finalized, but Strom said the event will feature more trainers, some of whom reached out to NWACA to offer to participate. There are also talks of breaking down some of the three-hour training sessions into two 90-minute classes on two different aspects of the repair process.
“We’re not sure how that’s going to work out, but we’re thinking about how to change things up, so people have more choice,” Strom said.
More information about the 2025 CTE agenda will be available closer to the show date.
To learn more about NWACA and how to become a member, or to register for events or the email newsletter, visit www.nwautocare.org.
Abby Andrews