For three days, April 15-17 in Englewood Colorado, The Automotive Training Managers Council will use the collective experience of its over 140 members to address several important issues for the auto and truck training industry. The event will start Monday evening with a reception for attendees. Tuesday morning, noted consultant and author Kent Greenes will speak on best practices for helping a group to use its collective experience to share information and address common problems. The attendees will then break into individual groups in which they will address the questions: Where Will We Find Tomorrows Trainable Technicians? How Can Training Improve Technician Retention? How Can We Improve the Way We Share Information? And, How Can We use Current and Future Technology to Balance Training Costs? Later Tuesday the members will hear from Richard Gunderson of Identifix and iATN about the challenges and successes of building a format that thrives upon harnessing the collective experience of automotive professionals.

ASE has recently been given the responsibility for the administration of the Continuing Automotive Service Education (CASE) accreditation program for training providers. Don Dew, coordinator for CASE, will talk to the group about recent changes to the standards as well as ways that members can participate in the administration of this important industry accreditation. The group will also hear from George Flynn with OSHA on Employer Training and Compliance Requirements for New Global Harmonization Standards. The conference will finish with a review of the OEM and ATMC Benchmark Survey results.

Following the conference the ATMC Board and the OEM Training Forum will meet separately.

The ATMC is a non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of training and personal development in the Automotive Service Industry. The Council sees itself as a "think tank" of sorts, using the collective experience of the members to look into the foreseeable future on how people will learn and helping each other prepare for that future. About one-third of the members work for OEMs, one-third for Aftermarket firms, and one-third for firms that serve the training industry such as software developers, publishers, industry organizations, tool and equipment manufacturers, etc.

For more information about the ATMC and the Annual Conference see our website www.atmc.org. To see who is currently involved as members check out the Public Directory at the About tab.

David Milne
Educator/Instructor/Technical Information Specialist
ASE - ATMC
Leesburg, Virginia, USA