I-CAR, the Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair and ASE, the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, announced a collaboration that aligns and builds on I-CAR’s training and curriculum and ASE’s testing and certification program.

I-CAR and ASE have been working for more than a year and a half in close collaboration on a set of high-impact joint initiatives for the benefit of technicians, students, schools and the industry.

I-CAR CEO & President John Van Alstyne and ASE President & CEO Tim Zilke made a series of major announcements at the 2016 NACE | CARS Conference and Expo in Anaheim, Calif. The announcement was made at the Collision Industry Conference meeting at the Anaheim Marriott Convention Center.

The organizations worked to collaborate to better recognize investments made in I-CAR training, related industry work experience, and ASE certification testing accomplishments.

To that end, ASE will now recognize I-CAR ProLevel2 or 3 Platinum status to satisfy the requirements for ASE collision repair and refinish work experience.

I-CAR will now grant two credit hours toward Platinum annual training requirements for technicians who hold an ASE Collision Repair certification.

This collaboration will eliminate redundancy for technicians who seek to earn both designations, reduce the total training time and reduce the time required to earn those designations.

A second important need for the organizations was to better collaborate in relation to curriculum and accreditation for career technical school collision repair programs. The collision repair industry defines training standards for these programs through the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF), which accredits those programs that meet the standards. In 2012, I-CAR launched the Professional Education Program Education Edition (PDP-EE) to align the collision repair training delivered by schools with the training I-CAR delivers every day to the rest of the industry.

To alleviate any misperception that NATEF Collision Repair and Refinish Standards task list and I-CAR’s PDP-EE were not aligned, or that schools that sought NATEF accreditation could not use PDP-EE, the organizations worked to clarify the alignment and remove any related barriers.

A careful review by both organizations confirmed that I-CAR’s Professional Development Program – Education Edition curriculum aligns with NATEF’s Collision Repair and Refinishing Standards task list. The newly updated “Official I-CAR CTE Curriculum Crosswalk to the NATEF Collision Repair and Refinishing Standards task list” documents this alignment and the Crosswalk will be available from both I-CAR and NATEF.

With this collaboration between I-CAR and NATEF, schools that are using, or wish to use, the PDP-EE curriculum will find it easier to match the NATEF task list. This will benefit collision repair and refinish programs, instructors and students. It will improve these programs and encourage them to use the I-CAR PDP-EE ProLevel 1 curriculum and become NATEF accredited.

Students will now be able to graduate from NATEF accredited programs with I-CAR’s Platinum recognition and the ASE Collision Repair and Refinishing Student Certifications.

“It’s important to know that through these collaborations, one doesn’t replace the other,” said Van Alstyne. “Rather, I-CAR and ASE programs work together synergistically.”

Zilke added, “The combination of I-CAR training, NATEF program accreditation and ASE certification bring our industry full circle for finding and creating world-class collision repair and refinishing technicians.”

Additionally, I-CAR is offering training classes at the ASE Industry Education Alliance Instructor Training Conference every year, and will present the first-ever I-CAR Collision Repair/Refinishing Technician of the Year Award at the ASE Fall Board Meeting.

This partnership approach to aligning and building training and curriculum will help advance the role of education and knowledge across the collision repair industry, and elevate the impact of recognition for technicians who have earned both I-CAR and ASE designations.