From “Blue Collar” To High Tech: Rethinking Auto Careers Through Competition

Stacey Miller: 0:12

Welcome to AutoCare on Air, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Stacey Miller, Vice President of Communications at the Auto Care Association, and this is Traction Control, where we chat about recent news from the global to the local level and what it may mean to the industry featuring guests on the front lines. Let's roll. We're back in the studio AutoCare on Air at Apex 2025. I have someone very special in my studio, and that is Bernard Tanzi. He's the shop owner of Euroclinic in Santa Clara, California. Welcome, Bernard.

Bernard Tansey: 0:46

Thank you for having me. It's so super exciting.

Stacey Miller: 0:48

Oh man, I'm super excited to have you. You're looking very dapper today.

Bernard Tansey: 0:52

Thank you. I got the memo that I had to dress nice to keep up with you guys. So it's my best.

Stacey Miller: 0:57

You match the branding. You like are hitting one of the gradients in the wall too. So I am loving it.

Bernard Tansey: 1:02

Perfect.

Stacey Miller: 1:03

Um I would be remiss if I didn't say that we're missing your other half, right? Michelle Tansi.

Bernard Tansey: 1:09

Yeah, so she is here. She is at Apex25 with us. Um, she's been a big help with everything. And I'm sure that we can get into where she's at in a little later. Yeah. But um we'll we'll definitely bring that up. So uh yeah, Michelle Tansi is here. She's been floating around. Um, as you know, she's big with women in auto care, so she's been helping out a lot with that and also with uh something I had going on. And um, yeah, so we're super excited that we're all here.

Stacey Miller: 1:29

Yeah, shout out to Michelle. We miss you, Michelle. We're gonna get you on the podcast next. Um, but I'm really excited to have you because we did something brand new at Apex that we have never done before. So I hear we had some students fly in and have a competition to break down and rebuild some engines. So tell me about this because I am so stoked.

Bernard Tansey: 1:53

Yeah, that's correct. Um, give them a shout-out earlier, but uh Mark Bodansky from Apex and the Auto Care Association, uh Lisa Collette from AutoZone and Women in Auto Care, they had this vision of bringing some more excitement to Apex. Um, they wanted to bring this engine building competition uh to Apex, to Joe's Garage. They brought me on and uh we made it happen this year. Um super excited that I was even honored to even be a part of it. Um so what we did is we reached out to some of the top tech schools in the country. Now, you know, when it's your first one, it's hard to get some traction going, but we got a couple schools here. Um one school was from Kansas City, two schools were local here in Las Vegas, and um yeah, we we made it happen. The kids did great. The full teardown, uh, full reassembly. There were some hiccups along the way with all the teams. And I think the best thing that we saw is how the instructors engage with the their students, how they listened to direction, um, their organizational skills, figuring out what went wrong, getting it put back together, and and all three teams succeeded. And it's it was really exciting.

Stacey Miller: 2:49

Oh my god, and what what kind of engine was it?

Bernard Tansey: 2:52

Uh your typical Chevy, like small block V8, these were 305s. Um, it's gonna be similar to any kind of small block Ford Chevy. Once you know one, you can kind of do them all. And it's something that I felt that most of the tech schools would be familiar with because it's a great training engine. It's very common, very popular. Um, we weren't gonna hit them with a crazy like W-12 Audi engine that has like nine timing chains or something. So um it was really good. They did a great job.

Stacey Miller: 3:15

Oh my gosh. And how like so it was a brand it was a brand new engine or a used engine? I was like, how does that work?

Bernard Tansey: 3:20

Yeah, these were remanufactured. Um uh again, we had some great, great sponsors that helped us out along this whole thing. Uh new tech engines that are remanufactured, so you can buy their engines directly from them. There's cores. Um, they provided the engines by way of AutoZone, got them shipped over here. Um, so we got that together. Dorman uh was nice enough to donate some engine stands for us. So we got those to sit on, and the rest, man, we had so many vendors that were actually uh supplying a lot of stuff, a lot of sponsorship opportunities. Top Don, Milton, Carlisle, uh Lyle Tools. Um Ratchet and Wrench was there. They're documenting a lot of this stuff. Um, I'm forgetting a bunch. I have a list. Well, we should definitely make sure we shout them out here soon. But yeah, yeah, it was super exciting.

Stacey Miller: 4:01

Yeah, if um at the end, if you want to, if there's a if you have a list, we can pull it out. And I would love for you to shout them out because I think it's definitely it's such a cool, it's it's an amazing thing that we're doing, right? Like we're fostering the future of the industry, we're showing how amazing this industry is. Like, what a great opportunity to come to Vegas and have a huge live audience, one watch a bunch of high school technicians and do this thing they're passionate about.

Bernard Tansey: 4:23

So nerve wracking. I mean, we had a uh one of the groups was was a high school team and two of them were for a vocational uh vocational trade school. So I mean, you you've got different aspects of it, and all of them came together and it just worked really well together. I'm super excited for all of them.

Stacey Miller: 4:36

Oh my God. How um how big were the teams? How many students?

Bernard Tansey: 4:40

So what we had is we had uh two team of three teams this this year, um, each one composed of two students and an instructor. So the instructor was allowed to give as much guidance and direction as possible, but they just can't get hands-on. I said, put your hands in your pockets. However, I wanted to start helping. You know, I got so excited at some points and I could see something going wrong, and I just wanted and you gotta hold back, you gotta let the students do their thing. The instructors were great about that. And then the uh the students themselves, they did such a great job. Their organizational skills, you could tell that they practiced and they were they were loving it. They were having such a great time.

Stacey Miller: 5:12

Oh my gosh. I imagine like uh going, I mean, we're in Vegas, so I imagine a boxing match and the coach is ringside like yelling at the boxer to tell them like what move to do next, right? Yeah, you can't do anything, but you can't.

Bernard Tansey: 5:24

You want to get out there so bad and help out, you know, but but you can't, but they did such a great job with it, and uh, I'm super excited for the kids. I mean, um, one of the teams, like I said, was a high school team, one of the and they won. The high school team won.

Stacey Miller: 5:35

Well, hold on.

Bernard Tansey: 5:35

It was high school versus like two uh college teams.

Stacey Miller: 5:38

Oh my gosh.

Bernard Tansey: 5:39

So it gets even better. One of the students, they're both 17. Um, Tayum, he actually his birthday was yesterday. He turned 17.

Stacey Miller: 5:47

Oh my god.

Bernard Tansey: 5:48

So you imagine this. When you're 17, you're spending your birthday in Las Vegas, you're gonna go home a champion. I mean, you're getting uh a bunch of awards. Um our company, Euroclinic, we donated five hundred dollars of snap-on gift cards to each winner. Uh Milwaukee Tools was big. They were one of our biggest sponsors. They helped out with a uh the pro pack-out systems, um, three eighths and half-inch electric impacts. I mean, a lot of stuff that these kids can take home with them right now on the plane. A bunch of goodie bags of a whole bunch of stuff in there. It was super exciting.

Stacey Miller: 6:16

Yeah, what an opportunity. They are it's a pick up.

Bernard Tansey: 6:19

Yeah, I was a tech school graduate myself, and I look back on this, it was a long time ago, but I said, if I could have had the opportunity to do something like this, yeah, you know, and and where can that career take you? And you're doing this on one of the biggest stages like Apex. Um, one of the things I noted down is like, how many shop owners do we have in here? And when you come to to Apex, you're one of the elite shops. You know what I mean? These are um companies that invest in themselves and their companies, and you're seeing the talent that's being produced, everyone needs good technicians. Yeah. And here they are right in front of you. Oh my gosh. And these students, they're looking for a job. You know, they're they're investing in themselves, they're paying for school, they're gonna have to buy a lot of tools. They wanna be able to have a great job, and you got all these elite shop owners. So I mean, this could also c turn into a great uh job uh opportunity as well.

Stacey Miller: 7:03

I mean, the thing that I that I think about, I mean, i it can be really expensive to get into the trades. It is one of the barriers, it sounds like can be the cost of tools to to start, you gotta bring tools to the shop sometimes, right?

Bernard Tansey: 7:16

I you can't show up with no tools. You know what I mean? So you're expected day one to have something to at least get yourself going. Now, the other uh part that's really intimidated is normally you're young, um, you have no experience, you don't have very many tools, you started a new either be a shop or a dealership, you don't know anybody, and what's the first thing you're gonna ask? Can I borrow some tools?

Stacey Miller: 7:36

Yeah.

Bernard Tansey: 7:36

You know what I mean? And depending on who's working next to you, you don't know what kind of answer you're gonna get from that. You know, so if we can help these students and and get them a little bit of an edge up and get a little bit of a starter set going for them and a little bit of education, a little bit of experience, that's gonna give them confidence too. And I mean, this high school team winning this championship in Apex, you want to talk about confidence? I mean, I'm I'm super excited for all these teams.

Stacey Miller: 7:59

That's a major, major brag and rights. We got to get with them on like what the press looks like back home because they're gonna be heroes back home. Like, you got to go to Vegas to the world's biggest automotive trade show and be on that stage, like you said. It's wow.

Bernard Tansey: 8:11

Well, the thing about this, they're walking around high school campus right now. You know, when they get back, yeah. You know what I mean? If that doesn't put you in the yearbook, I don't know what does.

Stacey Miller: 8:21

I mean, they're gonna have some swag for sure when they go home and they they totally deserve that. I mean, it makes me, you know, going back to the cost of the tools. I mean, thank you so much to the generosity of the sponsors that you able you were able to gather and and bring to this because we couldn't do it without the sponsors and the generosity of the biggest.

Bernard Tansey: 8:39

Yeah, one of the biggest sponsors was like AutoZone. Um, DuraLas had provided all the tools for the the teams to actually use while they're doing the builds. Um, so I mean, without all their support and all their help of all these these sponsors, this wouldn't have happened. And I mean, just think about what it did for the kids to get them that start.

Stacey Miller: 8:53

Yeah. And the fact that you were a really big part in bringing this together and making it a possibility and like organizing the logistics. I mean, that says a lot about you and Michelle and how much you care about the future of the industry.

Bernard Tansey: 10:15

So as shop owners, we know how hard it is to find technicians. So if we can do something to help mold them and bring them up, is one thing. Uh again, as a a tech school grad myself, if I would have had that support and and to help me out, that would have been great. So this is my chance to give back. Yeah. You know what I mean? I hate to say it, but now I feel like the old guy. Oh. You know what I mean? So at least I can help out these young students that are coming through. Um, I gave them all my personal information. I said, hey, reach out. I don't care if it's six months, a year from now. If you have a question on a car, if you want to know if this is the right tool to buy, if you're looking for a job, message me. Like I don't give you my personal information unless it's if if I mean it. And if I can help these kids out, that that helped. That makes me feel good.

Stacey Miller: 10:53

And those things mean a lot.

Bernard Tansey: 10:54

It does because it's so hard to have, you know, friends that quick in the industry, and you need that support. You need you need somebody to rely on.

Stacey Miller: 11:01

Especially if, you know, back home we don't know, you know, do they come from a family, an automotive, or do they have friends who are an automotive, or you know, are they the only ones? So if we think about like the retention rate or when they get into the industry, how likely are they to stay? They're probably more likely to stay if they have support and it's a that's really good.

Bernard Tansey: 11:19

Yeah, and and you start looking at it, I don't even call this a blue-collar industry anymore. You know, it's not. Um the technology that's on these vehicles, the knowledge that these guys have to have and the amount of money they can make. Um, you know, there's a lot of families that say they don't want you to do a blue-collar job, they want you to make good money and and stuff, and I wish that we could get to those families and let them know that's not the case anymore. There's so many opportunities. I mean, I I was a kid that wanted to turn ranches. So I went to tech school, I started at dealerships, ended up opening up my own shop. And Stacy last month we were on Capitol Hill talking at Congress. You know, I'm I just want to turn what are we doing? You know, so there's so many opportunities. And another shout out, um, the booth that was right next to us in Joe's garage was AAC Secret Service.

Stacey Miller: 12:02

Yes.

Bernard Tansey: 12:02

I'm talking with Secret Service agents, and they're telling us that they need new recruits. And to think about what this industry can lead you to, you could be protecting some of the most important uh people in the country. And the neat part about that is you have to know how to fix the car, you have to drive the car, and you have to be able to protect whoever's in that car. So, I mean, uh this industry can there's so many different avenues to go down, it's insane.

Stacey Miller: 12:26

It's it's badass. I was freaking out when they showed up. I mean, big shout out to ASC for bringing them here. Yeah. And I talked to some of the agents, and he was talking about um, you know, hey, he was just in in Israel the other week helping bring hostages home and like how powerful is that? And his route was through being an automotive technician. Yeah. And they're gonna train you.

Bernard Tansey: 12:47

And the the thing I thought that was really great is um I come from a military background, so I kind of got a little bit of understanding of what was going on there, and they were really cool. They came up and said, Hey, we really want you to give these guys the first place. They gave a their patch that goes on their jacket. Um, and it's a secret service, and it's got two pistons crossed. And then they gave this is the part it actually gave me chills. They gave us their medallions, these coins, that has like their shield on it on both sides.

Stacey Miller: 13:10

Oh my god.

Bernard Tansey: 13:11

And I wanted to tell these 17-year-olds how important this is. Like, you don't understand what this means to somebody that holds this in their pocket. You know what I mean? And I I got chills when they handed it to me just to give it to the kids. So, I mean, again, all the support that we're getting outside for this this group is it's been tremendous.

Stacey Miller: 13:28

You're making me emotional, man, because like this is this is what it's all about. Like, this is what gets me up every morning. This is what gets me excited. Like, we are doing really amazing things here, and we are so blessed to be a part of it.

Bernard Tansey: 13:40

It is, yeah. And and like I said, I never pictured myself being in this position. I just wanted to work on cars.

Stacey Miller: 13:47

It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. If I uh if I ever have a a second life, I would definitely volunteer to be a Secret Service automotive technician because that's so cool.

Bernard Tansey: 13:55

I asked. I said, Well, hey man, I meet all those qualification because need help. And they said, No, you would be full-time living in DC. But I, you know, and I definitely said if you guys ever in our area and you need something, I will close my shop. You guys have my shop, my lift, my tools. We won't look at anything. But yeah, again, if it's some way that I can help, you know what I mean?

Stacey Miller: 14:11

Yeah. It's so gross. I have to like wipe my tears on a podcast. Why am I crying over the screw it? We're crying over the secret service, man. It's just so it's uh the whole this whole thing, like it's so powerful.

Bernard Tansey: 14:21

It is, and a lot of people don't don't realize that they it's not just changing oil and stuff, you know what I mean? And also the the educational aspect of it is I I tell all my technicians, we're working on cars that have more technology than the first space shuttle. You know what I mean? So think about that when you're when you're doing stuff, um it's it's and and where the future's gonna take us, also, you know?

Stacey Miller: 14:42

Yeah, it's I l I love sharing like those little bits and pieces of information because when you like when I talk to my friends and my family about what I do, you know, they automatically assume, oh you work in automotive, like what you sell cars, you work for a dealer. And then I have to like explain to them like what it is that I do and why it's so important and why we have the second largest trade show in the United States. And it's it's exactly that. The cars have more lines of code than F-15 fighter jet, all this the space shuttle, like there's so many things about it that just the regular driver or consumer doesn't know. Yeah, and how much like we do to keep the motoring public going where they need to go, when they need to get there.

Bernard Tansey: 15:20

What it takes to get from point A to point B is not as easy as what you think. You know, um I have a client, he's a uh VP of NVIDIA, and he's a really good friend of mine now. And we were at his car and I had my laptop and I was just programming something, uh a little feature he wanted on his on his Audi, and he saw me messing with coding and all of his binary bits, ones and zeros. Yeah. And he says, What are you doing? And I'm like, Oh, I'm telling the car how to how to think now, I'm telling how to react. He's all that's exactly what I do when I code my websites or I code my programs or my games or anything. It's the same thing.

Stacey Miller: 15:50

Yeah.

Bernard Tansey: 15:50

So I mean, you we're on the same level here, you know what I mean?

Stacey Miller: 15:54

But we have a per we have a perception that we've gotta we've gotta change because we're doing some really amazing things.

Bernard Tansey: 15:59

Yeah, and I think the best way to do that is coming to Apex every year and and showcasing all that stuff, seeing what the new technology is doing and everything. So it's it's great.

Stacey Miller: 16:08

Absolutely. So I saw some news the other day, um, and it got me super excited because uh Home Depot, everybody knows Home Depot, they're offering free pro training for the trades now. So basically, you can sign up through Home Depot if you want to be a contractor and learn a trade through Home Depot for free.

Bernard Tansey: 16:27

Wow.

Stacey Miller: 16:28

So basically they're trying to help supplement the trades by providing completely free training. And clearly they're working really hard to remove barriers in order to get more people there. And I think it's can we do can we do that in automotive?

Bernard Tansey: 16:40

Why not?

Stacey Miller: 16:41

Why not?

Bernard Tansey: 16:42

Yeah. Oh, you need is somebody to to do it, and if they want to volunteer and help out to do that, you know, I would love to do something like that. You know, that again, it's a way of giving back and it's also prepping the next generation coming in because we need those those skilled trades. Yeah. You know, the the automotive world, the plumbing, the the construction, that's what keeps America moving. That's what keeps the buildings going. That's what keeps everything uh flowing.

Stacey Miller: 17:03

And we'll see the ROI tenfold.

Bernard Tansey: 17:05

Big time.

Stacey Miller: 17:06

Big time. So we have a lot of really amazing organizations that provide training in this industry, right? Every tool manufacturer's providing trainer, you know. Shout out to ASE, shout out to Tech Force, all the training academies, like ATI, like it's it's crazy. Yeah. So many, but like if we could bring all of those together in order to create something.

Bernard Tansey: 17:24

Can you imagine that? That'd be great.

Stacey Miller: 17:25

It would be incredible. So that's a fun little uh pipe dream, you know. Maybe that's something we can work on together.

Bernard Tansey: 17:31

Let's do it. Start tomorrow.

Stacey Miller: 17:33

Oh, Home Depot, man. That's what what a cool thing. So I'm excited to dig into that. And you know, the other thing I was thinking about when you were talking, again, we're in Vegas, so everything is just Vegas related. Do you do you watch Battle Bots?

Bernard Tansey: 17:44

You know what, I've seen I've seen them on commercials and TV and stuff. I haven't watched an entire one, but I I do like what it does, what the aspect of it where they have to build and design and predict your opponent. Yeah. You know, like how can I defend my project but still annihilate the other one? Yeah. You know, how can I bring the firepower and still have the defense to it? And it's all robotics, it's all everything you're doing. I was big into RC cars and stuff like that, so it's similar. So I'm like, I'm looking at this and I'm like, this is really cool.

Stacey Miller: 18:17

Yeah. And it's like teams of like all ages, young kids, all the way up to enthusiasts that are retired. And, you know, they were in Vegas last year, and I didn't get a chance to see them, but I love watching that on Discovery, and I think about the stage that something like that has. And it there didn't used to be a stage like that for STEM and robotics, and now it's really, it's really hot.

Bernard Tansey: 18:37

But think about it, uh, like you said, they're kids, they're younger kids and and they know how servos work and and hydraulic rams and everything. Now, you apply that to a lot of different trades, which is insane. You know, elevators, uh, automotive, you know, there's so many different aspects. Once you learn that, you know, the world is is your opportunity.

Stacey Miller: 18:56

Yeah. So I think I think your student engine rebuilding competition, like, we're gonna make the BattleBots version of that an automotive, right? Like we got an audience here today.

Bernard Tansey: 19:05

Yep.

Stacey Miller: 19:06

We gotta blow this up, we gotta make it bigger.

Bernard Tansey: 19:08

Yep. Next year's gonna be at least double the size.

Stacey Miller: 19:10

Yeah, we gotta like live stream it. Like, we need ideas. So I mean, whoever's got ideas, whoever's listening in, like, contact us, like blow this thing up.

Bernard Tansey: 19:19

If there's uh any anything that's been produced that they see anything later on and they say, Hey, I I watched the program, I watched how everything went down. Um, you guys should do it this way, or do this, or you shouldn't have done that. We we want all the feedback, we want all the comments, because we take that as uh a very healthy feedback so we can make them next year even better.

Stacey Miller: 19:38

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, that's so there's I think there's a good reason why Michelle is in here, and it has to do with the competition. So what what happened?

Bernard Tansey: 19:48

Okay, so the team is from Kansas City. Yeah, and you know, we got some of the crowd and they're talking to them, they're cheering them on and whatnot. And uh someone made a joke that, hey, if you do really good here, we're gonna take you and buy you in and out. And they said, We've never had in and out. So Michelle says, All right, if you guys win, I'm taking you guys out. Wouldn't you know if they won?

Stacey Miller: 20:09

Oh my gosh.

Bernard Tansey: 20:10

So they actually came here with um uh I'm probably gonna script the number. I think they might have like 12 or 13 other students that came to support and watch them, and they got the instructor and everything else, and she says, I'm taking you guys all out.

Stacey Miller: 20:21

Oh my gosh.

Bernard Tansey: 20:22

So I think there's like 20 of them all going over in and out right now.

Stacey Miller: 20:25

Oh my god, they're having the best time.

Bernard Tansey: 20:26

Yeah, exactly.

Stacey Miller: 20:27

So they got to go to Vegas, they got to do a competition and win in front of like the aftermarket's largest audience. Now they're having in and out. Like, what's next, man?

Bernard Tansey: 20:35

Well, and the cool thing about it is everything they got to take home, like I said, the goodie bags, we had trophies made for them, so they have something that they can sit on. I mean, these kids were so cute. They're standing there holding them the whole time as we're wrapping everything up. I'm breaking down stuff over there, they're still holding their trophies. You know, we also had a a larger trophy that can take back with the school, so they can put in their glass case and show what they did. And when they walk down those halls, you know, they see that every day and they're like, I'm coming for you again next year.

Stacey Miller: 21:01

Yeah.

Bernard Tansey: 21:02

You know, so it so so much fun.

Stacey Miller: 21:04

Oh my gosh. This is just just just amazing. You know, we talk a lot about workforce development in the aftermarket, getting kids more involved in this. Like so we talked about this was high school and college level in the competition. And I've been hearing that um that like maybe you need to get them involved even younger. Like even middle school is where we should start be introducing these programs in the schools.

Bernard Tansey: 21:28

Like how it'd be neat um if they just had like some simple things to see how things work or how things react. Kids love explosions and fire. Show them how a piston and spark plug and everything works, you know, or something like that just to grasp their interest. Simple things like Legos. You know, once you start working with something like that, working with your hands and building and and modeling things, you you start to to gain that that energy and you're like, well what else can I do with this? Yeah. Oh maybe I can have it electric. You know and now that now they might go to the EV side. Now they're looking at like well now that I understand it, well how does a Tesla actually work or how does a a Prius actually work? All of a sudden you got them hooked. Yeah. You know and and once they have that passion and drive they're so successful and they do so well. Because they love what they do.

Stacey Miller: 22:10

Do you have a lot of Teslas out in your area?

Bernard Tansey: 22:12

We have a lot of them. Also Tesla is in our area. Okay. So the the main plant in Newark is is about 20 miles from us. We got Stanford College and they have a big uh test facility there. Um that's where the cyber trucks basically started popping up. So yeah every stoplight in in our area in the Bay Area they're everywhere.

Stacey Miller: 22:29

Okay yeah so um I'm out in Virginia out where all like the data centers are like 85% of the US's like web traffic goes through there. I don't know it's it's crazy. It's like data center alley and every single person has a Tesla. Yeah and um it's just like so funny how it happened overnight and um you know there's a lot of kids in the area and like the comments you hear from the kids are like I want a Tesla or like oh my God a Cybertruck is so cool. Yeah. And I'm like okay how do we harness that you think this futuristic really crazy looking thing is cool. How do we harness that and get you interested in like working in that industry and learning about how it works mechanically or learning about how you bring a vehicle to market or how you make the parts for the market like I think there's so many cool ways to harness that just by that I mean like you said the cyber truck is so cool looking it's unique it sparks interest now how does it work how would I fix it?

Bernard Tansey: 23:21

What what are the capabilities of it? What's the range? When you start something that that attracts attention and and gets questions you're gonna want answers and that's where you start sparking that interest. Yeah you know um and and anything they can do to promote their stuff we were just in Austin in March for Moto GP races. Oh cool and um we're driving down the freeway we're heading back to our Airbnb and it's the new Tesla facility and that is one of the most massive structures I've seen. Really massive buildings. It's I mean you're driving 65 70 miles an hour and you're looking at it and you're still driving you're still you it it takes a while to get past this building it is massive. It's gonna be an insane facility I would love to tour that someday yeah I wonder if we could get a tour.

Stacey Miller: 24:01

Yeah Elon, what's up? Yeah help me out here bud yeah we're trying to get some kids into your workforce yeah exactly like get a get a training academy going get these kids working on the electric vehicles that would be really cool.

Bernard Tansey: 24:12

We were in uh in Detroit uh earlier this year and we got to tour the Ford factory and to watch them assemble everything. You know and and the numbers they were spitting out I think they said that they they produce a vehicle every 53 minutes I believe. Whoa so each station is only like eight minutes. So when you're putting a fender on you got eight minutes. It goes down back glass you got eight minutes. You know you put in the the center console in eight minutes. So and as you finish it I think they were s uh a new truck was going off the line I believe it was every 53 every 56 minutes a new truck was rolling out the door. What perspective that gives and and obviously I've been working on cars all my life and it's it was still so impressive to me to see it on that scale and the organizational factor of it. Everyone knew exactly what they were doing and just to watch this thing unfold in front of you it was really really impressive.

Stacey Miller: 25:00

Wow I would love to do that one day. Alright we got a lot of tours that we're gonna take we're gonna reach out to a lot of companies we're gonna be busy. There's some options here.

Bernard Tansey: 25:07

Yeah.

Stacey Miller: 25:07

So um to wrap up kind of there's so much excitement around this and I want to help build on the momentum of what you've done because it's really tremendous. So you know what can the aftermarket do to continue supporting what you're doing and you know try to get these these kids into the trades. What do you think are some of the biggest opportunities we're missing?

Bernard Tansey: 25:25

Um with it with the opportunity there it's the sponsorships that obviously helps it goes a long way because as we mentioned before the kids don't have fifty hundred grand to put up right away um if there's some sponsorship opportunities for like apprentice toolkits now we're not looking for handouts by any means but let's say what do we have to do to do that? What kind of contests, what kind of entries, you know um that makes it exciting. You know, you bring that level of competition to it like what we just did earlier. You know and like I said we had stuff for every single person that that entered it wasn't just the winners. Yeah. You know so everyone's a winner basically you know it sounds kind of cliche but it's it's true. I was giving out bags of other stuff to even the other students that came just to cheer on their students. Yeah. Like here you guys are gonna be chewing the trade take a bag of goodies. There's a bunch of stuff in here to help you out. Um and it's just getting the information out there. Make it exciting for them. You know if if all they know in their area is dirty and greasy and changing oil it's not that exciting. But you know you start entering other other fields like uh performance aspects of it. Right. You know like we're gonna have Formula One here in a couple weeks um if anybody's never seen those guys work in a pit or watch them prep a car or drag races um you know NASCAR anything like that. You know we've got some people that are in the auto care association part of the NASCAR and stuff. So anything that's to that level you can see what opportunities are out there. Yeah. Look at some of the Mo Hayan dealerships and see what they're doing, see how elevated they are you know and it it's it's something that could be very exciting.

Stacey Miller: 26:53

I d I totally agree and like I get so much inspiration from what's going on in the mainstream because I I wonder why we're not more mainstream. And I think like we're we're really working on our story. And like everybody watches Netflix and I'm sure a bunch of people listening have caught the F1 series on Netflix. Yeah. And for someone who wasn't a race fan or flipped through the TV channels and saw F1 on TV and just saw a bunch of cars going in labs it probably wasn't that interesting and they kept going. But if you gave that series on Netflix five minutes you got something totally different. It was the excitement it was the rivalry it was the colors it was the sponsorships it was the strife like everything that went into it and then you really understood it and you really felt it and you got hooked. Yeah and I think that we have a similar story here and you're helping us start to tell that and it's like you know why can't we be the next Netflix series that gets people hooked because I think these Netflix series like there was the golf one there was the F1 yeah and then NASCAR came up with one and I think these are brilliant marketing moves by these industries in order to attract the younger generation into sports that are lacking younger generations in sports because I've seen the stats on it. I've talked to all of them. Yeah again just being attractive we're here we gotta be attractive we got to make it sexy. Exactly so we're gonna we're gonna do some of that. I'm sure we will I think um like we we love SEMA because the performance side is very sexy a lot of people go over there check out the cool cars. Uh uh myself included yeah yeah like I go over there and I'm like but wait we're sexy too like we just don't really tell the story that way.

Bernard Tansey: 28:28

But you might go over there to see them and you might see the crazy you know 70 Chevelle. You might see the big lifted trucks outside you might see all this stuff but you gotta come to Apex this is where it starts. Yeah this is where you're gonna find the tools and equipment to do that. This is where you're gonna find the products to to paint those vehicles to get those wheels and so I mean Apex is where it's at start with Apex and then go go to Sima. I'm not I'm never gonna run down Cima. I love Cima. Yeah let's see the cool stuff. Yeah but it it starts somewhere it has to happen somewhere and this is where it happens.

Stacey Miller: 28:55

Yeah it's like we're the necessary stuff to keep the car running. Exactly and then you start putting all the cool stuff on it to really make it yours. And it's just such a beautiful relationship and I love I love seeing that story unfold and I can't wait to keep telling that story to more people. Yeah I'm super excited. Yeah thank you so much Bernard thank you thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care on Air Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. And don't forget to leave us a rating and review that helps others discover our content. AutoCare on air is a production of the Auto Care Association dedicated to advancing the autocare industry and supporting professionals like you. To learn more about the association and its initiatives visit autocare.org