Caliber’s Technician Apprentice Program (TAP) reached a major milestone with its 2,000th graduate, as it works to address the ongoing national shortage of skilled auto body technicians.
Rashard, a Texas-based graduate, became the 2,000th individual to complete the program, which provides paid, hands-on training designed to prepare apprentices for a career in collision repair.
“I don’t have to do odd jobs because I have obtained not only knowledge, but a career,” said Rashard, who plans to work in Texas as a technician. “I also gained the confidence to be a certified technician.”
Rashard said TAP’s on-the-job training better helped prepare him for the fast-paced workflow of a real collision repair shop.
"The best aspect of the program is that the jobs are real cars for real people from real situations,” he said.
"The most valuable skill I learned was that everyone knows something different and it’s OK to share your knowledge, as well as ask for help,” Rashard added. “Everyone treats each other like one big family."
Launched in late 2022, Caliber's Technician Apprentice Program pairs apprentices with experienced mentor technicians, ensuring they receive one-on-one guidance while working in real-world repair environments. The program’s structure enables graduates to enter the workforce with salaries that often surpass those of four-year college graduates, making it an attractive option for those seeking financial stability and career growth.
Eddie Hightower, Caliber’s senior vice president of sustainability/social responsibility, told Autobody News there is a lot of interest in the program.
“We are experiencing…sustained growth in the program, and it's continuing to just be an amazing opportunity for us and for the participants,” he said.
In fact, the “sole limiting factor” in the rate of growth, Hightower said, is the number of mentor techs – the waiting list of would-be apprentices outnumbers the available mentors.
“When someone asks me how many people are in the program, we always say it's about 1,900 apprentices in the program at any time,” he said. “And then, of course, they ask me the next question, which is how many mentor techs do you have? And I say it's about 1,900 mentor techs at any time.”
Hightower said mentor techs are compensated financially, but they also often get their first taste of a leadership role, and the relationships they build mean they tend to stay longer both with Caliber and in the collision repair industry.
“I think [mentors] really have a sense of fulfillment in the connection to the business, connection to the mentees, the ones they've trained,” Hightower said.
Recruiting apprentices varies regionally based on local school districts, Hightower said. For instance, in South Texas, one leader has been inviting high school students studying automotive repair to visit Caliber centers, which has made that school district a “feeder” for TAP.
“It just varies by the school districts, but obviously we have a large reach, being in 40 states and 1,800 locations,” Hightower said.
When TAP was first launched more than two years ago, the program consisted of 16 competencies based on I-CAR training, which apprentices must demonstrate they meet to graduate. The self-paced training generally took about 10 months to a year to complete.
Hightower said the requirements have been increased a bit since then, requiring apprentices to show competency in more skills.
“It takes a little bit longer to complete, but the apprentices are graduating on the other end with even more skills, and it is still largely based on the I-CAR-identified competencies,” Hightower said. “That's important to us, because I-CAR certifications are really what the OEs are looking for in our centers to let us work on their vehicles.”
Caliber is seeing “good retention among our TAP apprentices,” Hightower said. “Technicians that we have gotten through the program are staying, on average, longer with us than those that we hired that did not come from the program.”
Hightower said growing TAP would not be possible without Caliber’s corporate partners.
“We are really fortunate to have some great partners, like Snap-on, who helps provide the tools to our apprentice graduates, Car-O-Liner with training on use of products, and other partners as well,” he said.
Companies interested in partnering with Caliber to facilitate TAP can reach out to Hightower on LinkedIn or email him at Eddie.Hightower@CaliberCollision.com.
Abby Andrews