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Vol. 41 / Issue 02 / February 2023 REGIONAL NEWS
At CARSTAR Fort Collins, Process Produces Performance
Romans Group Releases 2021 Profile of the Collision Repair Marketplace The Romans Group announced its 16th annual white paper, A 2021 Profile of the Evolving U.S. and Canadian Collision Repair Marketplace, is now available. The pinnacle year for the collision repair industry was 2019, with an alltime high total addressable market (TAM) of $38.3 billion. Repair facilities were flush with repairable vehicles and had the manpower and parts to service the demand. The recovery years of 2021 and 2022 were and continue to be awkward and choppy, as the collision repair industry attempts to bounce back within the constructs of numerous macro industry challenges and opportunities, U.S. economic and geo-political headwinds despite the many post-pandemic recovery advances within the collision repair
industry and throughout the broader interconnected auto physical damage landscape. In 2021, despite a continued reduction in repairable claims, the industry’s TAM recovered to $38.6 billion despite fewer repairable claims, which were primarily supported by an offset increase in higher severity.
At CARSTAR Fort Collins in Colorado, the new facility was designed with organization and performance in mind. The location, which had been used a as granite storage facility, provided ample room for owner Doug Kaltenberger to install the repair process system of which he had dreamed. First, Kaltenberger and his team designed the production area with technicians in mind, pulling from his 30 years of working as a collision repair technician. Each bay was set up with air hoses, power wash, in-ground lifts and focused lighting to make it more efficient for technicians to work on the vehicles. Building during the pandemic
Then, with General Manager Tylor Balistreri at the helm, they implemented a labeling system that tracks vehicles and their repair status throughout the facility, initially developed by Kaltenberger in his previous location. l CONTINUED ON PAGE 11
REGIONAL NEWS
TSTC Graduate Comes Back To Teach in Auto Collision and Management Technology Program
Our near-term future view sees a coalescing of several trends that portend industry growth with both risks and opportunities. From the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 and continuing throughout 2022, demand for collision repair services exceeded technician capacity for most of the
William Graham, of Teague, TX, began teaching in October 2022 in Texas State Technical College’s auto collision and management technology program at the Waco, TX, campus. Graham is a graduate of Teague High School and TSTC’s auto collision and management technology program. Recently, Graham talked about his new role and what he hopes students can learn in the program.
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Collision Repair Industry
provided a unique challenge, but the team was able to open the facility on time and ready to serve customers as they got back on the road.
INSIDE THIS ISSUE 12
Columnist Mike Anderson: Alignments Are Too Critical for Collision Repair Shops to Not Do Them In-House
19
Columnist Abby Andrews: UAF Accepting Applications for Scholarships from More Than 40 Organizations
34
Columnist Ed Attanasio: Auto Painter Invents Linear Blocking Tools While Looking for a Better Paint Job
6
Columnist John Yoswick: Auto Body Shops Struggle to Control Access to, Use of Estimate Data
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