Collision school programs from eight states will be represented at the Collision Repair Education Foundation’s Cars, Careers, & Celebrities Expo being held on September 18th at the Chicagoland Speedway (Joliet, Ill.) in conjunction with the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup taking place that weekend. Collision schools from Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Texas will be in attendance, which will include hundreds of high school and college collision students who will have the opportunity to meet with industry employers and view product demonstrations.

“Central Nine is thrilled about participating in the upcoming Cars, Careers & Celebrities Expo at the Chicagoland Speedway this September,” said Central Nine Career Center (Greenwood, Ind.) auto collision repair technology instructor Edward Callico. “We are bringing 46 excited collision students and looking forward to taking a shop tour, meeting industry employers, experiencing and learning from the product demonstrations. As the icing on the cake, the students are excited at the chance to go down into the pit at a NASCAR race and experience the excitement of the race up close and personal. We all thank the Collision Repair Education Foundation for facilitating such an awesome experience and the next generation of auto collision repair professionals.”

Washburn Institute of Technology (Topeka, Kan.) collision instructor Eric Showalter said, “Being able to travel and take students to see what the collision repair industry has to offer outside of Topeka is an excellent opportunity. There are well over 100 career fields in our industry and showing the students it is not just about repairing dents, replacing parts and painting is part of what teaching is about. There may not always be enough jobs in our immediate market area to take on the influx of graduates if you only focus on the collision repair aspect of the business. But if you take into account all of the other opportunities that the training you receive will lead into that relate to our industry, that is the bigger picture. By attending the Cars, Careers & Celebrities Expo it is a kind of a one-stop shop for job opportunities in this field. Talking one-on-one with those at the event about all of the different career options is much more gratifying than looking at the Sunday newspaper classifieds and seeing one or two job openings for a body man or painter at local shops. Last year’s Cars, Careers & Celebrities Expo in Arlington was very eye opening for the students as well as our advisory council and administration that attended. We are looking forward to attending the event in Chicago this year.”