Solving the Diesel Tech Shortage Crisis - The DL S3E16

Solving the Diesel Tech Shortage Crisis - The DL S3E16 is now available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, IGTV, and YouTube.

In this episode of The DL, Diesel Laptops’ Founder and CEO, Tyler Robertson, is joined George Arrants, Vice President of ASE Education Foundation. George tells us what the ASE Education Foundation is and why it exists, why it’s important to be involved with local schools to train future generations, the importance of providing defined career paths, the role of female diesel techs, and more. 

Please like, subscribe, and share. If you have questions or would like to learn more about a particular topic, drop a comment and let us know. 

As always thank you for watching and listening!

CONNECT WITH GEORGE ARRANTS & ASE EDUCATION FOUNDATION:

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-arrants-bb28a47/

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/asefoundation/

Website – https://aseeducationfoundation.org

Transcript for Solving the Diesel Tech Shortage Crisis - The DL S3E16: 

Tyler:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the DL. Thank you for joining us today. This is the podcast show where we talk about everything to do with heavy truck repair, equipment repair, little bit of automotive, little bit about our industry. And today I'm excited to bring someone on because I've actually worked with this organization when I was a service manager, and I know the value provided to the shop I work for. I know the value provided the technicians that partook in it, and that is the ASE group. So today I got George Aarons here who's the vice president of the ASE Education Foundation, which we're going to talk about a lot as well. So George, thank you again for taking some time to come on the show here.

George:

No, thank you for having me. Some people don't want to hear me.

Tyler:

Well, I'll tell you for, for the audience that doesn't know, I got to meet with George quite a bit here because we were both doing this thing for HDAW at the SOLD event, the Service Opportunity Learning Days. So got to know each other a lot there and talk through some things. I'm like, man, I got to get him on the show. So very, very glad to have you here, but there might be some people in the audience that doesn't quite understand ASE and what it does. Can you just break down that a little bit for everybody here?

George:

Sure. So for folks, most of you're familiar with ASE that certifies the technicians auto collision, truck, bus, all of those. We are the ASE Education Foundation. We are part of ASE, but we work with schools and employers to one, accredit schools at both the high school and what we call the post secondary level, which could be a community college, a tech college, a private for profit, private for nonprofit. And we accredit schools to national standards in auto collision and truck. We have approximately 2300 accredited programs around the country. And many of them may be in your community. This year, we will impact over 126,000 students in our programs. Now our accredited programs only make up about 45% of the total programs in this country. So if you do the math pretty simply, there's probably about a quarter million students taking some sort of transportation training in this country every day.

And also we work with our foundation partners and employers to try to develop work-based learning or apprenticeships or internships for the students to get experience in the workplace while they're still in school and hopefully foster loyalty between the student and the employer to provide full- time employment after graduation. So that's who we are in a quick nutshell.

Tyler:

So why is it important for a high school or a post-secondary to get the accreditation? What does that do? Is it a feather in the cap or is it to provide some value? Can you unpack that a little bit?

George:

So it's a really great question. So accreditation is all about program improvement. It's an evaluation of your program. And if you haven't done an evaluation of your program in a long period of time, how do you know that your program has all the resources it needs, but more importantly, that it's teaching what industry needs in an entry level technician? The cornerstone of our accreditation process is industry advisory committee. That's the tax paying businesses in your community. And having those people come into your program, review your program, look at your facilities for safety and environmental, look and make sure that you have the proper tools and equipment that your program needs, that your curriculum is made ... or up to current standards. And it's also a way for industry to learn more about you, your program and your students, and then hopefully it fosters that loyalty long term for employment.

So it's really about program improvement. For an administration, it knows that their program meets national standards. For students, it knows that what they're learning is relevant and reflective and should help them with an entry level position. For instructors, once again, getting the administration to learn more about their program, inviting business and industry in and really reviewing the program to ensure that they have everything they need to be successful. And for business and industry, it's a local pool of future workers right in your own community that you have input into the decisions that are made in that program. And that's it in a nutshell.

Tyler:

So I think there's a couple things to dive deeper into here. One being diesel technician shortages, not shortages, all that, but there's the other side of it. And we'll get to that in a second. The other side of it where it's ... I think what I look like, like Mr. Rubio was on the show, right? They have a great program going out there in Fresno, a ton of funding. They got all the equipment, all the things. And I've seen the other side of that coin though. I've seen other places that are struggling. They have older things. They don't have access to all the resources and all that. And one of the big differentiators I see there is private business out in Fresno. They got a lot of private businesses, big name companies, dealership groups, all these people that are helping make this thing work. And I've been involved in some places. And I didn't see quite that level. Does private business really pay a huge impact when it comes to helping with the situation that we have going on today?

George:

So that is a great question. Those of you that are on this call that are businesses, you're both a personal and professional taxpayer in your community, and you don't let any other form of government spend your money frivolously. Why would you let the schools? If you're not involved in your local programs, they're going to do what they want or what they think or believe that you want. And in turn, you're not going to get the product that you need. Many schools still believe that they need to be teaching engines. Well, there's not a one of you listening on this call today that's going to put a 19 year old on a $60,000 engine. It ain't happening in my lifetime. They better be able to write a repair order, look up service information, be able to do a PM, some basic preventative maintenance and know how to use a [inaudible 00:06:09], nothing to do with engine disassembly and rebuild. But if the schools are teaching to that, then guess what you get in return. You have to get involved.

And if you're not involved, you're part of the problem. You can't complain to anybody. You can't find technicians if you're not involved in your own programs, pretty simply.

Tyler:

Yeah. I think I noticed that common thread too. These organizations that are involved with their local community, they tend not to have the big diesel technician shortage problems like everybody else.

Right. Let's talk about the diesel technician shortage a little bit, right? I mean, there's a lot of jobs out there right now. I mean, just macro in the U.S. There's like 11 million open jobs. There's not that many people unemployed. And in our industry, I was a service manager 15 years ago, and I had diesel technician shortage problems then or I couldn't find people or qualify people. I feel like it's gotten worse and worse and worse as the years have clicked on here. Maybe it hasn't. You know what? What's your view on it? Are students still trying to get in programs and they can't, are they not going into it? Or what do you see happening?

George:

So that's the number one question that rolls around every day. First, I'm going to ask your audience, do you have a shortage of applicants or do you have a shortage of qualified applicants? Two different problems. If you have a shortage of qualified applicants, that means you have people interested in your industry and interested in coming to work for you, but for one reason or another, they're not qualified. That's where getting involved in your local school, you can change that. Also, I told you that we impact 126,000 students a year. Are they all going to graduate this year? No, but probably about 30, 35% are. But here's an interesting statistic that I think is important for the truck industry or the diesel industry period. Nearly 18% of student taking auto tech in this country want to work on diesel or truck. It's just not offered in their community. So think about what I just said a kid's interested in working on trucks or heavy equipment or whatever, but it's not offered in their community.

What are they going to take? The next best thing, automotive. And there are certain companies and we have one in Houston. It's a Caterpillar dealer and they grow their workforce literally through a local high school that has 12 automotive programs, not one diesel program, but automotive programs. The other thing is if you get involved in a local automotive program, those students usually have more electrical skills, sorry to say folks, and a lot more scan tool diagnostic skills, and a lot of what they learn will transfer directly to what you need in an entry level employee. So if you really want to open your pool, look at some of those other programs that exist in your community that may already have young people interested in your place of business. And the shortage is what you make it. Part of the shortage is we're eating our young. Our surveys over the last three years show that we lose 20% at the point of graduation and another 21% in the first two years. We're eating our young.

We take those entry level folks and expect them to be productive first day on the job. And they're not. And one of the things I said in our session at HDAW, the scenario is pretty simple. You hired this kid out of a high powered tech school. He brought in his shiny new red toolbox. You put him on a job the first day and he screwed it up. Well, did he screw it up or did he just do it different than you did? He was taught a certain way. And maybe you circumvented that process to get the customer's vehicle out sooner, but also was there anybody in your organization who onboarded that individual to show them how to do it your way, or what tools you used? And if the answer is no, that's your fault. That's not the student's fault. That's your fault.

Nobody onboarded them into your culture and didn't mentor them into your culture to be successful. And many of the students that leave our industry sadly enough, go to work in other industries using their hands. They're just not working with us. So you got to sit back and look at your shop environment and the way you do business. Do you want to grow your own workforce? That's probably the way to do it. Do you want to steal somebody else's problem? I don't think that's what you really want to do, because those bad habits continue to be bad habits. But really if you're not utilizing the pool that already exists in your community and the pool that you're already paying for as a taxpayer, shame on you.

Tyler:

Yeah. You're hitting a lot of key points that I see, right? And I was literally just last night on a Facebook group and someone's asking about new technicians and one guy's like, oh, the new ones come in. I always roast them a lot because that's what happened to me when I was a technician and I'm sitting there reading this. I'm like, man, it is so hard to find good people and you're making it even more difficult on your management and the other people inside your organization by roasting them or giving them a hard time and doing these things. It's a different generation and you're right. They're taught a different way. And you're a hundred percent. I've seen this story unfold. I saw it unfold with the emissions. I'm like we went through emissions with trucks, but automotive went through ... It was the same thing. And now we have [inaudible 00:11:26] going on with advanced driver assist systems. I've seen this story unfold. I know exactly how it's going. And I'm on the forefront of diagnostic and scan tools. And I'm like, I've seen this play out in automotive.

I know how this is going to play out. It's the same story over and over again. And it's really unfortunate. There's a lot of businesses out there that just seem kind of stuck in the old ways. And they think people are walk in the door with ASE certifications and some OEM certs and 20 years experience. And they're going to roll their toolbox in magically. Those days in my mind are long gone.

George:

So the other thing too, and Tyler, you bring up an interesting point is this generation ... We blame this generation for a lot, but those of us that are parents and grandparents, it's our fault. We created them. You know what I mean?

Tyler:

Yeah.

George:

We've been giving them a trophy for the last place since they were 6-years-old when we should have said pick another sport. But the other thing too is many of us gray hairs and no hairs, we were brought up in a time where mom and dad had the same last name. Mom stayed at home and there was one car. That's not the makeup of the family today. Look at all of your employees, especially your entry level. You spend eight or nine hours a day with them five days a week. You spend more time with them than anybody else in their life. And if they don't have that family environment that they grew up with, that may not exist in many communities today, the old Ozzie and Harriet and stuff like that, they're looking for that in their place of business or their work. They want to be part of something. If you can show them that they're part of something, and they're part of a family, they're staying. If not, they're leaving and they're going to go somewhere else.

Tyler:

Yeah.

George:

Also, if you can't see your children or your grandchildren working in your shop, neither can I.

Tyler:

Yeah. A hundred percent agree with everything you're saying there. It goes back to the adage. People don't leave jobs. They leave atmosphere. They leave coworkers. They leave bad bosses, right. That's what they leave for. And I have another question for you here as you were talking and again, I'm not a huge automotive guy, but my understanding is most auto shops are flat rates. They're not hourly. And HD is kind of going that way too. Is that a good thing or bad thing when it comes to retaining technicians in your mind? Have you had experience or heard either side of the coin on that one?

George:

My youngest son is a diesel tech and that's ... where he works is not important, but for this generation, think about this. And it was important to us, but it's really important to this generation. They need to know what they're going to make every week so they can budget for that. They're more about their time instead of work time. We as the gray hairs and the no hairs, we live to work and they work to live and maybe they got it right. So we have to be conscious of their earning potential from the start and as they move through. Tyler, you said it best. Most people don't leave for money. You think they leave for 25 cents an hour, but we've been telling you that for four decades. What they're really saying is the unknown is better than staying with you. Think about that. They leave supervisors. They don't leave companies. And it's normally not for money. It's because the unknown is better than staying with you.

And it festered inside of them long enough to make that decision to jump.

And for this generation especially, if you show them that they're part of your organization and show them that you care and they're making a decent wage that they're comfortable with and they can grow, they're there. They're there.

Tyler:

Yeah.

George:

Does that make sense?

Tyler:

It makes a hundred percent sense to me. And I can tell you just my little microcosm here at diesel laptops, we classify when employee leads, it's either regrettable or unregrettable. And when I always look at the regrettable list, almost every time it goes back to, we didn't give that person a clear career path. They're just kind of stuck at a level. There's nowhere up for them to go. And I get it. I'd probably be out of there too, unless I was being paid really like overpaid to sit there and do nothing. Right? So that's what it comes down to is you got to give people a path towards where they want to go with their career and their life.

George:

That's interesting you say that, because we surveyed a large number of high school automotive students last spring to find out a lot of things. But one of the things we wanted to know is why they weren't taking the next course offered at high school. Number one reason is no defined career path. And for those of you on this call, career path for this generation isn't 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. It's six months, 12 months, 18 months, two years. What if they come to work for you? One, are they going to be able to continue to learn? You're going to provide training. That's huge. And what do I have to do to get to the next level? A major truck OE ... I had this conversation with them and they literally went out and started asking their technicians why they were leaving and others. And guess what? It came back to exactly what I said, not about the money. I don't feel like I'm part of the group. I don't feel like I'm appreciated. All of those different things. And folks, it goes back to we created this generation.

They are very powerful, tremendous amount of resources and they will work, but they got to know that they're working for something and that somebody cares. And I really hope that makes sense to everybody.

Tyler:

Yeah. One, 100%. And again, a microcosm, but I went through the exact same thing with my software engineers. We were great getting them in, 40, 45, 50 grand a year and they're entry level. That's fine. What we didn't realize is by about year two, their salaries doubled, and that's what the market's paying. Right. And we weren't doing that and we were losing people and we're like, okay, why are you leaving? And what's going on? So I think for hopefully people listening to this, it's not just, yeah, there's some more effort you got to do now to get diesel technicians and attract them and get them. But you also got to focus on retention and putting together some great things to make sure they're welcome. They enjoy working there and they know where they can go.

So all along those lines of the training side of it is here in the U.S. we have no apprenticeship program, right? You can hire a guy to go wash trucks the next day, be like, dude, you're doing oil changes. Probably a bad idea with a little help, but it can happen. In Canada, it's not really that way. They have an apprenticeship program. I don't know how much you guys do in Canada or how much up there. I really don't know much. I guess I'm more curious. Is the problem as big up there? Is it better here? Do they have better quality? What do you see?

George:

So we hear their dealing with the same thing that we're dealing with. And as of apprenticeships, we at the ASE Education Foundation received the U.S. Department of Labor, registered apprenticeship for automotive. And we started our pilot in Phoenix. We have applied for a medium, heavy duty truck registered apprenticeship along with our friends at TMC and we're waiting for our approval. And if so, we're going to start our pilot in Arkansas and potentially Kentucky. And the reason for the pilot is to get our feet wet, work all the bugs out of it before we open it up across the country. The cornerstone of it will be our ASE accredited schools, because they'll be delivering the training. But also for some of you that are looking to hire folks, some of these students that are underprivileged or economically disadvantaged, being part of U.S. Department of Labor registered apprenticeship, there's funding from the state through workforce commissions and others that can help offset their cost or also help pay for certain things while they're in school and going through this apprenticeship.

So there's all of those opportunities. We did find that any of the students that did any sort of work-based learning, internship or apprenticeship with companies while they're in school, those individuals stay with our industry long term. Those students that graduate on Friday and went to the job first day on Monday and had never experienced the workplace before, they fall into that category that we lose very quickly because they were never exposed to what the true real world environment looks like. For those of you that are involved with companies that want to get involved with your local schools, those internships and those work-based learning pay huge dividends.

Also, back to what Tyler was talking about. Hey, right now on the medium, heavy duty truck side, you guys pay a lot better than the automotive guys. And if you're working with a local high school or college automotive program that's got a kid that wants diesel, you're going to look better than some of the other employers in the community. So right off the bat, you got it. But you just can't walk into career fair with a bunch of trinkets and expect everybody to line up for your table. No, you have to get involved with the program either through a guest speaker or even have them come tour your facility to see what you have to offer and drive your brand in that local school. When it comes to time for placement or employment or career fair, they know who you are and you're just not another table with useless trinkets. 

Tyler:

And I-

George:

And that rolls us into our adopt a school program.

Tyler:

Yeah. And I think every business or every school out there is looking for businesses, give a tour, come in and talk to our people, explain what they pay, explain what this is like. They want that interaction and they just need people to reach out to them. If business owners are listening to this or shop managers, service managers, reach out and yeah, I would love, yeah. Please talk about your adopt a school programs. I think it's a wonderful thing you guys are doing over there.

George:

In October, we've launched an adopt a school program. So our website is the ASE EducationFoundation.org. And right at the top, you'll see three major buttons. One is find a rep, find a program and adopt a school. We have reps in all 50 states that could help. We have programs across the country. And you can just go to find a program, put in a zip code in a mileage range. They'll tell you all the programs, but then our adopt a school. It's created for you as business and industry. Many of you your last time when you were leaving school was probably not positive like mine was. And you're really not wanting to walk in and knock on the door and go I'm back. No, you need some help. So we've created different solutions and solutions in a box. Something as simple as being a guest speaker, who should be a guest speaker, what should you talk about?

Who should you get in contact with? Having somebody tour your facility. Maybe a beautification of a shop or a classroom to your brand. Maybe getting involved in the local advisory committee or career fair or helping with a student project or helping the instructor with e-learning or training that your company provides that the instructor could take or share with their students so that drives your brand deeper for these students taking that. Also shadowing activities, how to shadow a student in your place of business to see what your company's about. How to create a mentor or how to train a mentor and then how to take an apprentice or put somebody in a work-based learning. There's all these different solutions. And you can start with whatever is simple and easiest for you or if you've already done some of these, here's some other things.

When it comes to guest speakers, if you've got somebody in your organization that went to that school, that is the best person to send because they walked the halls. They sat in those seats. They can relate to those students. Back to us, gray hairs and no hairs, they're really not going to listen to us. They got to have somebody that they can relate to, but also building that relationship with the instructor and the administration. Show them your facilities. Some of you have magnificent maintenance facilities and nobody knows what they look like. You need these students to get out of their comfort zone and put them in your comfort zone.

Tyler:

Another thing that I've recently researched a little bit here was when I looked at the Department of Labor stats, there's a number there and 96% of the people employed in the diesel tech are male, right? So I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, I'm like, man, can we even fix this with only 4% with only half the eligible working population? I don't think so. I think we need to get women more involved in this and I know there's pushes and you mentioned some funding out there for underprivileged and some other things. Are you starting to see more companies starting to look at that? I mean, I know they are with truck drivers.

Are, are you seeing that on the technician side?

George:

That's an awesome question. We are working on some projects to engage more females in all of our transportation industries. Some schools do a really good job of it. And then some schools are not. For those of you that know about TMC super tech, I chaired it for 14 years and then the future tech still involved with both organizations, but I really pushed the future tech. I can tell you the female students that we had compete, every one of them that was sponsored by an employer is still working for that employer. How's that? We have a great school. I'm going to do a shout out to Foresight Tech in Winston, Salem, North Carolina. Alan Dobb is the instructor. Last semester, he did a thing for us. He had five female students in his program, all were employed. I know that the folks at [inaudible 00:24:54] Tech, they have a large number of female students there.

And they're looking to make an all female potential team to go to future tech. So there are some things that we're trying to do, but you got to make sure your workplace is ready because got to tell you, females make better techs than we do as men. They're more particular to detail. They're process oriented. And when they get to step three, they do go to step four where we jump to step six, because we go, nah, it can't be that. We laugh, but we go, yeah, we did that. You know? Oh, and they'll read instructions. At our instructor conference this year also, we're going to have a session that's going to be moderated by a female. Hopefully, if she comes over from England, her name's Kat Trainer. She did a thing for us about a year ago. And we had female students and female technicians with their bosses and talked about the work environment and the school environment.

So we are trying to push different groups to be involved in our industry. We're alienating almost 50% of the workforce because they're females and those that want to be in our industry, we need to welcome them with open arms. We have our ASE entry level test, which is what students take. It is a work readiness credential. And for those of you that are employers, it only carries a two year value, but if a student shows up with that on their resume, that means they have the basic skills to enter the industry and that discipline. But I believe nearly eight or nine percent of the students that take those tests are females. We've got to find a way to take them from student in the classroom and move them into our workplace. And we're working on different things. But Tyler, as you know, it's a lot of work and there's a lot of pieces to that puzzle also, but we are on it. Yes.

Tyler:

Yeah, no, I think it's an important piece. I've had some women diesel techs on the show. They're totally capable and you're right. They generally follow direction. All these behavioral things you don't like with your diesel tech, you probably don't get with the female technicians. Right. Lot of good reasons to do that. I was a service manager. I had my employees. We rewarded them monetarily if they passed ASE tests and everything.

George:

Yep.

Tyler:

And I've been around enough. I got to ask these questions and again, I see them on the Facebook groups. [inaudible 00:27:23] a couple questions that people ask about ASE. First of all, who writes these questions, right? That's a question that comes up all the time. Can you explain that a little bit?

George:

So I'm not on the testing side, but what I know they get groups together of subject matter experts. Mainly they're technicians in the field that are working on these vehicles and working in these every day that in specific areas, as you know, engines, electrical, stuff like that. And they work in these work groups to develop questions. I can tell you a question is not developed overnight. It is staggering the amount of time it takes to develop a question. There's also the piece ... Tyler, I know this comes up all the time. You were a tech. You sat in an ASC test. I sat at an ASC test. You look at a question and go, what were they thinking? Well, some of the questions on your test are test questions that are being developed. You're not being graded on them, but we're putting them out there to be tested by you, the professionals, to see the results, to see if those questions are good, bad, or need modification.

Sometimes if you're coming up for reaccreditation or re-certification, and it may say that this test is going to have 45 questions that are part of the test, but you may actually take 50 or 50 something questions, those other ones are potential test questions that are being developed. And from what I know, that's where the rubber meets the road. They're not counted. They're not counted against you. I know they drive you nuts, but you're actually part of the process to make sure those questions are good. And I hope that helps.

Tyler:

Well, I'm thinking a lot of light bulbs just so went on in a lot of people's heads that have taken your test before been like, oh, that's why that was on that test. That totally explains it. Here's the last one that I ... the pushback, right, is anyone can read a book. Anyone can pass a test, but what you do in the field is really what matters. And by the way, it's usually the experienced guys that don't know the theory. They just know the how to fix something and are saying those things. I'd love to hear your response to that question.

George:

There's things in ASC test question. Some are theory. Some are applications. Some are diagnostic. One of the things is that ... and if you're like me, I started off in this industry and I learned on the job. So the theory side was foreign to me. All I know is if it made that noise, I replaced that part or adjusted that widget. When I went into teaching, I really learned how much I didn't know, but I had to learn it pretty quick because I had to teach the theory side of things. Once I understood the theory side of things, a lot more things made sense and it made my diagnostic skills increase to where I understood root cause. For a technician that's been doing the job for 20 or 30 years and knows that that sound means this and that means this, you may not know why it did that or what it's doing or what caused that, but you know that's what I do.

So in the ASE test, they're focused on all three aspects of what a technician should possess. And that is the theory side, the book side, the hands on, the application, but also those diagnostic skills that come from knowing the theory and practicing the hands on because all of a sudden, when you really get good at diagnostics, you realize that certain things you did early on in your career, well, I was just replacing the part that wasn't the root cause. And I really didn't take care of the failure. I took the problem at hand. That's where the ASE test provide value. And that's why many of the fleets look at the ASE test as for pay increases and many other companies do also. And they work very hard on the test writing side and work with a person called a [inaudible 00:31:46] to really evaluate those questions for clarity, accuracy and all that. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes on behind the scenes for even one question to make it to a question pool.

I really appreciate you asking that and it does, it takes up all aspects of you being a technician and making sure that you have all three components that make up that individual that's servicing today's modern automobiles and trucks.

Tyler:

I hope what our audience gets through all this is, and again, this goes back to the business owners, the service managers. You know what your business is today. And if you been in the industry, you probably knew what it was 10 or 15 years ago. And it's where cars were. What I'm saying to everyone here is look in the mirror and ask yourself, are trucks going to get more complex or less complex? They're going to get more complex, right? Are there going to be more computers or less computers? There's going to be more computers. Will the government keep putting more standards on emissions and move us to EVs? Probably, right. You can start looking at those questions and ask yourself, what do I need to get good at in my shop in order to service these things? And you're absolutely right.

I look at automotives. I'm like, man, those are complicated electrical pieces of equipment. And I been sitting there for years. Now I look at today's commercial trucks. I'm like, wow, this looks like cars 10 years ago. These are getting complex electrical equipment. You got to make sure your technicians are efficient at these things. And they're just not throwing the parts scan at them. They have to know the theory. They have to know the practicality. They have to know how to fix these things properly. It's great what you guys are doing there at ASE.

George:

There is a company I did some work for years back. They're called [inaudible 00:33:20] Learning, and they developed a gap analysis tool. They call it CSAT. But anyway, it's a test that an individual can give to a technician or potential. And it's a 60 question test, and you have to sit for it. You can't get up.

Complete it. But in the report, it breaks down the theory knowledge, the application knowledge, the diagnostics, but it also breaks it down by area that ASE tests you in like battery starting, charging. It can really help a company know what that technician's true ability is. And I did work for another company that used it extensively and really learned a lot about the people that were in their organization and also where they needed to focus additional training. Because Tyler, like you said, if you're an experienced tech, your application is going to be out of this world, but your diagnostic skills is probably going to be pretty close to what your theory knowledge is maybe off by five or 10 points.

But if you're an entry level, you're probably going to have some pretty good theory, some fair diagnostic, but your application is going to be minimal because you really don't have the hands on experience. I'm not promoting that. But I do know that it exists and it did help some companies understand what the gaps were in their organization and there's different things out there to help. Is there a perfect solution? No, no, but if you're not getting involved, you are part of the problem.

Tyler:

100%. Doing nothing is a choice, right? And that really comes out. Unfortunately, people doing ... There's a lot of people doing nothing right now, which is making the problem even worse and worse and everyone's hoping for a magic wand. And that magic wand is not coming.

George:

Don't sit in my meetings thinking there's going to be a magic wand. The magic wand is you leaving that meeting and getting involved. That's the magic wand.

Tyler:

100%. George, again, I want to thank you for coming on the show. If people want to reach out to you or learn more about ASE and the education stuff, where should they go? Throw some contact info out us.

George:

My email address is simply George dot arrants, A-R-R-A-N-T-S, at ASEeducation.org. If you Google me, that's borderline scary. It really is borderline scary. My kids don't know what I do for a living. And they tell their friends, just Google my dad and they still don't know what the heck I do. And probably a lot of people don't know what I do, but I got to talk to you today. That was pretty cool.

Tyler:

I know more now. I mean, honestly, that's why I love the podcast. I get to sit down with someone for 30 minutes and I get to pick your brain for 30 minutes. I learn more on my own podcast show than I do anything else during the week. It's always great to have experts on like yourself. Thank you again very much for coming on. And again, we're going to end this episode. And as I end every episode, it's not just diagnostics. It's diagnostics done right. To do diagnostics right, you got to have the technicians trained. You got to know their skill set. You got to help them. It all goes back to that. Thank you everyone for watching and listening. We appreciate you liking, commenting, favoring us, sharing, whatever it is. It's all great stuff. Thank you for watching, listening. We'll catch you on the next episode.

George:

Thanks, Tyler. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day.