The Collision Repair Education Foundation announced that the Alcoa Foundation, the philanthropic arm of aluminum company Alcoa, awarded a $60,000 grant that will provide aluminum repair-focused training and technical presentations to high school and college collision instructors and industry professionals attending the 2014 NACE event in Detroit.
Working together with I-CAR, collision instructors will attend aluminum-specific training sessions in Detroit the week of NACE, and aluminum technical presentations and discussion panels will be conducted on the NACE show floor.
“Aluminum is the second most used material to build cars and has grown every year for the past 40 years, so it’s not a new material to the auto industry,” said Michael Murphy, vice president – commercial, Alcoa Automotive. “However, we know that some in the market would like to understand better how they can work with and repair aluminum. Our goal in teaming up with the Collision Repair Education Foundation, I-CAR and all the partners at NACE is to educate people and have them understand that repairing aluminum isn’t difficult, it’s just different.”
Added Collision Repair Education Foundation Executive Director Clark Plucinski, “After the overwhelming success of the 2013 Alcoa Foundation grant where collision instructor and student pairs attended aluminum repair technical training at the I-CAR Tech Center, we were thrilled to hear that Alcoa has increased their level of support with this new grant. Working together with I-CAR and in conjunction with the NACE 2014 show, this grant will help bring additional aluminum repair training to both collision school instructors and attending industry professionals.”
Automotive Service Association (ASA) President Dan Risley added, “Alcoa’s commitment to educate instructors and the collision repair industry on aluminum repairs is unparalleled. In addition to the classes and material presented by I-CAR on aluminum, we will be assembling a showcase on the show floor highlighting current model vehicles that are aluminum intensive. We anticipate providing live demonstrations on proper aluminum repair techniques to further supplement an already outstanding lineup of aluminum content and information.”
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