Struggling to Fill Skilled Positions? How NAPA and Hendrick Automotive Group Plan to Develop the Next Generation of Technicians

One of my proudest professional achievements took place 35 years ago when I completed my four-year apprenticeship and received my journeyman’s card. As a machine operator, I felt like I had arrived. We were the technical and informal leadership backbone of the manufacturing floor. Plus, I knew the accomplishment would serve me well as I worked to someday hopefully run a plant. (And it did.)

No matter how big the dream, everyone starts somewhere. My apprenticeship was just one step, but it was a huge step.

Apprenticeships also matter for businesses, and business owners. Take the automobile industry and its shortage of skilled technicians; the industry’s goal is to hire one million new automotive and aviation technicians over the next five years. 

“That’s the No. 1 priority for our business,” says Rick Hendrick, founder and chairman of Hendrick Automotive Group, a network of over 100 dealerships in 13 states. (“Mr. H,” as he’s known, is also the owner of Hendrick Motorsports, the winningest team in NASCAR.) “Service is the backbone. Do it right, and you build long-term customer relationships. We have spent a lot of money over the last five years to attract and retain young people, bring them into the fold, train them, and show them there’s a great opportunity to make a tremendous living.”

Hendrick Auto Group alone needs to add 250 new technicians over the next two years to support expansion and new facilities.

In a broader sense, that’s why NAPA, the nation’s largest auto parts and care network, with 6,000 auto parts stores and 18,000 repair and collision locations, and the TechForce Foundation, a nonprofit workforce development organization for technicians across all industries, just launched the NAPA Success for Techs scholarship program. Applications are open through November 30. Recipients will receive money and tools to help jumpstart their technician careers.

Add to new demand for technicans the fact that people keep their cars longer. The average mileage of a car on the highway is significantly higher than in the past. To meet that demand, Hendrick has helped build schools like The Hendrick Center for Excellence at Wake Tech, a $42 million facility opened earlier this year that allows the college to triple the number of students in its automotive systems technology program and add a new collision-repair degree program. 

Attending a technical school isn’t a prerequisite, though.

“We’re also trying to attract young people coming out of high school,” Hendrick says. “We’ll buy their toolboxes. They can come to work at an entry level, and as they take their ASE certification tests, their income automatically moves up. Some start at roughly $20 an hour, and within twelve months can make $50,000 or $60,000 [annually]. It’s a pretty good gig, especially when you don’t have to pay for your education.”

Granted, it’s also an expensive program. Hendrick can, in effect, be training people who could go on to work elsewhere. (As Eric Ripert, executive chef of Le Bernardin, once told me, “We’re in the business of training our competition.”)

But like Ripert, Hendrick is happy to be in that business. 

“If you have a good reputation,” Hendrick says, “especially for training people well, then other people will try to lure them away. That’s why treating people well is so important.”

So is having a sense of whether the people you train are truly interested in a long-term career, rather than a short-term job. Hendrick credits NAPA’s Auto Care Apprenticeship Program, an initiative that gives aspiring technicians a path to complete their ASE certifications over the course of 18 to 24 months, with helping to identify people with longer-term goals. Approximately 30 percent of entry-level hires stayed with the company for more than a year or two; the retention rate for aspiring technicians who have completed all four NAPA modules is close to 80 percent.

In short: Sure, I may want to get the job, but do I want to do the job? NAPA’s program not only trains aspiring technicians, it helps them understand whether the career is right for them. It also eliminates the brick-and-mortar training needs, since NAPA brings the training to the dealerships.

“We’re using it all over the country,” Hendrick says. “We just need more of it.”

Hendrick also leverages the popularity of its race team. This year, the top 15 technicians (by ASE test scores) came to Charlotte for a three-day engine build-off, streamed live, with a champion crowned. (Think Top Gun school for automotive techs.) 

“We want people to know there’s a pathway to making a great living, right out of high school,” Hendrick says. “You don’t have to spend four years in college and graduate and not know what your job will be. For us, our employees know when they pass certain ASE tests, when they check certain boxes, they’re going to advance in their careers.”

That pathway also resonates with Hendrick on a personal level. Working on farm equipment as a teen led to working on cars, to co-owning a used car lot, to becoming the youngest Chevrolet dealership in the country… to eventually building one of the largest dealership networks in the country. Hendrick is a prime example of a “from the ground up” mentality.

And so are many Hendrick Auto Group employees. Roger Mesiemore, the VP of fixed operations, started as a service tech. Brian Porta, the VP of education and training, started in sales. The general manager of Hendrick’s BMW dealership in Austin, the company’s largest BMW dealership, came up through the service department.

“For me,” Hendrick says, “knowing how to work on a car gave me the experience to work on and sell cars while I went to school. We have dozens and dozens of people who have risen to leadership positions, and that provides a real-life example for our employees of what is possible.”  

Research shows that approach pays off. A Joblist study found that nearly 70 percent of respondents prefer to be managed by an internal rather than external hire, a seasoned company vet who “climbed the ranks.” A study published in Industrial and Labor Relations Review found that having a highly competent boss — one who excels at “ability to get the job done” and “employee development” — has by far the largest positive influence on employee job satisfaction.

As the researchers write, “If your boss could do your job, you’re more likely to be happy at work.”

That mirrors my own experience. I felt more comfortable as a leader because I had in many cases performed the roles I was asked to lead. In time, I managed people whose jobs I couldn’t do, but they knew I had followed a career path they also hoped, in a general sense, to follow.

Everyone with dreams is, early on, an “apprentice.”

Which may be the most important aspect of NAPA’s training programs and scholarships, and of the initiatives Hendrick has put in place to train technicians: the fact that there is a path. That there are possibilities. That on the other side of hard work, application, and initiative lies opportunity.

“I don’t care what kind of business you’re in,” Hendrick says. “You’re in the people business. Get the people part right, and everything else falls into place.”