ATMC 2010 Conference a Big Success

The Automotive Training Managers Council took another giant step towards redefining itself with the success of the April 2010 conference in Chicago.  In a post event survey, attendees gave all the presentations high marks and rated the conference at 4.8 out of a possible 5 for the benefits received from attending.

"I want to thank all the sponsors, presenters and attendees for making this a very engaging event," said Dave Milne, ATMC President. "The information shared and the discussion that ensued with each presentation created tremendous value for everyone there."

Many of the conference presentations are available in PDF format in the members section of the Automotive Training Managers Council website titled Conference Presentations.

Darrell Rowe, Director of Education and Development for Bridgestone Retail Operations, Bobby Bassett, North American Training Manager for Gates, and John Saia, Technical and Body Training Development Manager for Toyota, each shared valuable insight into training lessons that their companies learned from crisis situations.

John Warzecha, Midas International Sr Vice President for Franchise Business Development, provided a frank view of the tangibles and intangibles that senior management assess when justifying the cost of training, and made suggestions on how best to present justifications to support expenditures.

Steve Cases' presentation on the emerging Web 2.0 technologies provided a glimpse into the future of utilizing formal and informal training methods through electronic networking.

In an encore to his very popular presentation of the results of an OEM survey on training benchmarks, John Saia gave the group another high level view of over 30 reported criteria that range from units in operation per tech, to students per class, and even square feet per training bay.

In what proved to be on of the most engaging presentations for training managers, Chuck Hartogh, Ben Ceyer, and Steve Ramirez, shop owners/service managers from the Chicago area, provided answers to members questions about how they utilized, scheduled and viewed the effectiveness of the various training available to them.

In addition to be involved in discussion surrounding the presentations, the attendees found lots of time for networking with other training managers and making new acquaintances during the reception, lunch and dinner events.

Sponsors for the Automotive Training Managers event included Navistar, Gates, Bridgestone and ASE.