I-CAR released a report Thursday that covers what it believes to be its key achievements, initiatives, and reinvestments last year; all of which President and CEO John Van Alstyne told Repairer Driven News was done in response to industry needs and feedback.

Key highlights from the report include:

• • 97,419 unique students trained in 2023, up 17.5% from the prior year
  • 12,121 total shops trained, a 6.5% annual increase
  • 9,240 Gold Class repair facilities, a 4.4% annual increase, and 33 OEM and insurance network program partners relying on I-CAR training
  • 36,119 Platinum technicians, achieved through ProLevel 3 completion and ongoing annual training
  • 632 career technical schools using I-CAR’s education-sector curriculum bringing in $1.5 million in revenue
  • 57 Sustaining Partner program members helping to support and offset the cost of industry training.

In 2023, I-CAR grew its full-time staff by 16 to 255 and decreased its number of instructors by 20 to 249. Some of the instructor positions were due to retirement and others were converted from part-time to full-time, Van Alstyne said. Most new employees were added to I-CAR’s technical team which handles course development and technical information and research.

“We do have a handful of instructors that do web-based training today, but we’re not in classrooms like we were 10 years ago,” he said. “Our instructors today are focused on going into shops and delivering skills training, like welding, MIG brazing, spot welding, and rivet bonding. We’ve had to kind of morph our instructor mix, if you will, to instructors that are skilled in those areas as opposed to the more general instructors that could handle our training of the past.”

Total I-CAR employees and volunteers combined by the end of 2023 was 1,099 compared to 1,199 in 2022.

In response to questions about I-CAR training costs and pricing, Van Alstyne said more complex vehicles largely contribute to cost, just as it does to repair costs.

“Vehicle technology has driven significant changes to repair processes, content materials, everything,” Van Alstyne said. “We’ve also evolved our training program to be really focused in on these more complex skills, especially in the structural repair area. There is more training required. And as the industry told us, we had to increase that level of training to more people within the shop.

“The total cost to train is up, but it’s up in the same relationship that cost to repair is up because the cost to repair a vehicle is greater than it was 5, 10 years ago. You have ADAS today, you’ve got mixed materials today, you’ve got a lot more technical content in vehicles today than we had just a few years ago.”

Pricing, overall, he added has been either flat or improved since 2019 depending on the type. The only price change made since 2010 occurred in 2016 which was by 3%, according to Van Alstyne. He said that was in answer to what the industry wanted — to “raise the level of training in the shops” while keeping pace with relevant vehicle technology skills training.

“It’s not a pricing thing,” Van Alstyne said. “For shops thinking that they’re spending money on I-CAR, it’s only because vehicle technology is more complex and the industry agreed that the level of training prior to 2019 was too low to ensure a complete safe and quality repair for the consumer. That one guy who was trained in the old world was on vacation. Well, who’s fixing the car?”

The I-CAR release states the Sustaining Partner Program members, half of which are also Industry Training Alliance partners, help to support and offset the cost of industry training. The alliance offers I-CAR credit for courses taken with OEMs, suppliers, and other qualified training providers.

“By virtue of the Sustaining Partner Program, we used to charge $57 to $114 to get a cross-credit for an OEM course or a supplier course,” Van Alstyne said. “Effective in 2019, we dropped that to zero so we no longer charge the shops for those alliance credits. And that’s thanks to our Sustaining Partner Program. That’s a direct benefit that the shops got.

“The other thing that we’re now offering too is an unlimited subscription. I would say over 70% of our Gold Class shops today take advantage of the subscription, which we didn’t offer prior to 2019. This provides the benefit of unlimited training so they don’t necessarily just have to take the required training.”

• • $20.9 million over three years focused on attracting, training, and retaining technicians that “will fuel the future of the industry.”
  • $7.8 million over two years on the I-CAR Technical Center to advance emerging technologies and EV/ADAS training in best-in-class facilities.
  • $1.1M over 1.5 years researching emerging technologies “to enhance the learning experience and education accessibility.”
  • Investments in system enhancements, course updates, and technical support.

I-CAR reserve levels are governed by not-for-profit best practices for organizations with similar scale of operations and service levels, according to the release.

“Reserves are there to help weather emergencies or recessionary pressures, provide for necessary capital investments, and to support strategic initiatives that directly support industry needs, allowing I-CAR to self-fund versus incurring debt,” the release states. “I-CAR has diligently re-invested in strategic initiatives that further industry training outcomes, strategically expand services driven by industry voice, and annual support for CREF [Collision Repair Education Foundation] all geared to create industry benefits that align with I-CAR’s vision and mission.”

Total reserves listed on the reserves recap on the financials website totaled $82.8M.

I-CAR has also provided an opportunity to request a copy of I-CAR’s Form 990 on a new webpage created for visibility.

For more information about I-CAR’s achievements and financials, visit i-car.com/governance/financials.

IMAGES

Featured image: Mike Mertes, Tom Marek, James Busam, Jeff Peevy, Kyle Thompson, Tim O’Day, John Van Alstyne, Jon Petrillo, Bud Center, and Dirk Fuchs cut the ribbon during a ribbon cutting ceremony to mark the opening of I-CAR’s Chicago Technical Center (CTC) in Vernon Hills on Aug. 24, 2022.