Educator Works with Industry to Invest in New Grads to Solve ‘Labor Shortage’

03/06/2025 by I-CAR

Something very unexpected happened to Raven Luna on her way to a higher education. Ranked academically third in her high school class and holding down a highly responsible, part-time bookkeeping job at a grocery store, the 17-year-old was college-bound. She was the pride of her family as the first generation to be college-educated. So, why did she feel four more years of the same would be a grind? She attended a career fair. To her surprise, as well as to her family and friends in the small Texas community of Snyder, she became intrigued by collision repair. “It was something different, and that's what I wanted. I was feeling burnt out,” she says. The high-achieving academic student registered as a technical ed student at a community college to learn the trade of collision repair.

It took several pivots in her career and a decade before Luna, now a collision repair educator at Collin College in Texas and an I-CAR® volunteer resumed her higher education. She went on to complete undergraduate and master's degrees and is currently aiming for her highest aspiration of a PhD. On the technical side, she is I-CAR Platinum™ and holds ASE certifications. These credentials make her a standout among her educator peers teaching collision repair. It's also given her credibility as a media source. Outspoken about opinions she's formed from her industry research and experience, she's been interviewed by the trade press and invited to participate at industry events (hear her speak at 2024 SEMA).

Luna's aware of the ironies of her career. In high school, collision repair felt like an exit ramp off the main college prep route most of her peers were traveling. She had no clear destination in view, but that exit ramp led her to her true calling: a professorship at a technical college.

Luna recalls that her bold choice to pursue collision repair was initially met with pushback. “My mom told me, 'You got the brains I didn't have. You should go and run with it.' Somebody else told me, 'You're really wasting your brains doing [collision repair].'” Luna was not deterred. “I was going to do what I wanted to do. And maybe it's in my blood. I had a grandpa who liked to paint cars, though he died when I was young. We have a photo of him next to a school bus he painted.”

In 2011, Luna entered the workforce with an associate's degree in auto collision repair. She started knocking on shop doors, a young female candidate seeking a 'man's job' in an industry not always impressed with school training. Even worse, she had no one to vouch for her. She has since resolved that this will never happen to her own students. Even though Luna was open to “anything entry-level, there wasn't a lot of interest in me.” Had her brave decision to pursue collision repair been a mistake?

Still a tough field to break into: Luna believes there are enough entry-level people coming into the field but not enough shops willing to train them. Her master's degree field research reveals that the much-bemoaned labor shortage is actually a shortage of skilled techs. “I have 79 students who need to find a job in the industry. Out of those 79, I do have a handful that are employed, but they are far and few between.”

With her confidence shaken and no job placement support from her school, retail grocery was an easy fallback. Plus, the pay and advancement opportunities were better. Luna went full-time at a grocery chain and worked her way up within two years to management. Among her responsibilities were hiring and training. She discovered a talent for onboarding new hires, guiding and mentoring them to success.

Lunda lives by the motto, “Sometimes life makes decisions for you.” A collision repair job lead surfaced when her job satisfaction was waning. She jumped on it even though it meant a pay cut. “It was hard as ever to get your foot in the door [of a collision repair shop], especially for women. But now I had someone to help me get into the trade.”

Luna started as a prepper in a busy paint shop that ran 500 hours a week. In two weeks, she was acclimated to the fast pace. Altogether, she'd spend five years in industry jobs, eventually balancing one foot in the field and the other in academia. She signed on as a part-time adjunct professor at Collin College in 2020, which had recently opened a state-of-the-art technical campus.

Never having taught before, Luna jokes that she'd burn her first lesson plans if she ever came across them. It was the right time to fulfill her destiny to become a first-generation college graduate, especially with a new role at Collin. A 2021 pandemic layoff from her shop job prompted Collin to offer Luna a full-time post as a lab technician. A year later, she was promoted to collision technology professor and administrator. In quick succession, she earned bachelor's and master's degrees, specializing in education. She's currently taking an instructional technology class and has doctoral ambitions in her quest to better understand learning theory and curriculum development. “I want to get better at helping my students succeed.” Her advocacy for her program and students has been recognized with two awards, most recently, Collin's presidential medallion in 2023.

Piloting I-CAR Academy: For the 2022-23 school year, Luna advocated to participate in an I-CAR Academy pilot at Collin College. I-CAR's latest iteration of technical school curriculum focuses on five key entry-level skills identified by the industry. Enthusiastic praise from a Collin student is featured on the Academy website for the new program.

Collin relies on I-CAR Academy “as a big part of our curriculum. It's industry-recognized and gives our students an upper hand because shops like to hire students who have I-CAR training.” At the same time, Luna says, “I never want to use just one source. I pull in videos, podcasts, all kinds of resources. I've pulled in case law to talk about liability in collision repair.”

An additional requirement at Collin (not part of I-CAR Academy) is to earn co-op credit, attending class part-time and working part-time at a shop. Luna puts a lot of effort into building relationships with shops but on average, finds jobs for only three of five students. “We're not getting enough help from industry, so we're planning a shop management course as an option to replace co-op credit.”

Luna believes collision repair educators are recruiting and training enough students to solve a top industry concern - the labor shortage. Collin's enrollment has been steadily growing: “We started in 2020 with about 10 students. This year we expected 24 students, but there was last-minute interest, and 42 enrolled.”

Some of the co-op partners Luna targets are willing to hire her students only if they quit school. “If there's no hourly rate and hours are flagged, how do you pay for work by someone who's not staying [to complete it]? That is a problem, but I ask my students if they want to work someplace that doesn't support or value their aspirations to complete school.”

The bigger problem behind the labor shortage, Luna believes, is “nobody wants to train. Shops want an experienced painter, an experienced estimator; and they want them now. There's a focus on profits today instead of taking someone and training them for the future.”

The best co-op partners working with Collin offer on-the-job support. “I have a couple students who can do full-fledged repairs because they had good mentors [at their shop].”

Mentors give needed emotional support too, because this is a tough business to learn. A mentorship is an extension of the safe haven educators like Luna create in a school setting. Whenever students show up in a class they're not registered for, Luna knows something went wrong and they need support. She recalls a student who showed up unexpectedly in one of her classes. “He was upset and didn't know where else to go after breaking a windshield [at co-op job].”

While the school pipeline is delivering new talent, shops risk losing entry-level employees if they don't do more to retain them. “Students are used to getting feedback. Many want to continue learning. Then they go to a shop and don't get that. They get pushed into a corner where there's no advancement or growth.”

One change that new grads are helping bring to shop culture is good news for female collision repairers. In a school setting, “it's normal to see women in shop classes. Male students are used to hearing feedback from women. It's still a man's world, and I tell female students they need to have a thick skin. But the cultural norms are changing.”

Lunda's advice to all her students is simple: if you don't have a mentor, find one. “A mentor will help keep you grounded.”