Graduates of Crash Champions' Associate Service Advisor Program embark on a career with a chance to advance into leadership roles.

Technician apprenticeships are a prevalent part of feeding new talent into the industry, but what about front-of-shop mentorship?

National MSO Crash Champions is seeking to answer that question with its Associate Service Advisor Program (ASAP), an internship setup with an eye toward preparing service advisors for roles within the company, said Chief Operating Officer .

Enhancing training for the service advisor role plays directly into the larger Crash Champions ethos, Saviano indicated.

“It's a people-first culture, and that's really our commitment,” he said. “We're in the people business, and that really centers around two things: creating a trusted brand that treats people right because we truly believe that's the right thing to do. And if we're doing that, we're taking care of our customers first and foremost, and then, of course, investing in building the industry's best workplace.

“We know we're in the business of fixing cars and helping people. And that's a big deal. It's something we should all care about.”

ASAP harkens back to Saviano’s roots. He began as a service advisor intern two decades ago at a small MSO in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. He found the team-oriented feel matched his experience in the military as a U.S. Navy SEAL.

“The teamwork between the front and the back of the shop really mirrored the camaraderie that I experienced in my 10 years in the SEAL teams,” he said. “After spending so much time in the seal teams, I had a lot of the skill sets that I needed to be successful in the civilian world, but I didn't have any barometer. I was pretty ignorant when I got out of the military about how the civilian world worked.”

The internship helped him get a toehold and begin working his way up in the industry, and he knew he wanted to bring the same type of structured program to Crash Champions.

Darren White, an ASAP graduate, joined the program after 16 years in the food service industry and now works at a Crash Champions location in Mokena, IL. Saviano and , senior vice president of operations for the Western U.S., worked closely together to develop ASAP, with Foster running the day-to-day aspects and promoting the program.

ASAP went into effect in September 2023, and recently celebrated its 100th graduate, , now a full-time service advisor at Crash Champions’ shop in Ontario, CA.

“This milestone to me means a lot,” Passey said. “I proved to myself that with hard work and dedication, anything can be done. This opens the door to future career opportunities, becoming a better service advisor, and gives me a footprint for upper leadership within Crash Champions.”

Saviano said program advisors have focused heavily on making sure it’s an equal opportunity for male and female enrollees. ASAP currently boasts 50% female participation, and an overall 85% retention rate.

Having an ASAP intern at each of Crash Champions’ 650 locations could soon become a reality.

“We don't have one in every single shop, but that is definitely our goal,” Saviano said. “We’ll probably obtain that over the next year or so.”

Interns learn under a mentor in an experienced-based environment.

“It's very structured around estimating; they shadow a mentor. It's not really something you can learn from reading in a book, but they learn estimates and, of course, repair methodology,” Saviano explained.

The program typically takes nine to 12 months to complete, and interns earn an hourly rate in the first two stages. In the following two stages, they begin bringing in commissions.

The company sources about 70% of its candidates internally and 30% externally, Saviano said. Graduates typically earn between $60,000 and $70,000 a year as full-fledged service advisors following the same compensation structure of tenured service advisors.

A lot of graduates, he said, go on to become location general managers and directors. The high female participation rate, he pointed out, ensures women are progressing to management positions.

“It gives them a career path to really elevate, just like I did and do something more,” he said. “So, they tend to be very loyal because they were given opportunity.”

ASAP is also ultimately advantageous for Crash Champions.

“I would probably love a world where most of them came from the intern program because then they don't have any bad habits,” Saviano said. “They came from us. We gave them opportunity. There's a loyalty there from us in them.”

Giving people an opportunity they didn’t know they could have or pursue, he contended, adds to the team feel he deeply values, and it helps build the culture the company espouses.

Like technicians, front-of-shop employees age out of their positions, he said, so eventually more of the workforce will come from the internship program. The average age right now of graduates is younger — Saviano estimated most are in their mid- to late 20s. But some come from back of shop, where they were once techs or painters, or they come from outside the industry from other careers.

“It's about changing lives. It changed my life. Coming out of the military. I never thought I would work at a body shop,” he said. “That's really what we're trying to do. That's what the program's about.”