"A collision industry in which all segments work together efficiently, effectively, ethically and respectfully to enable a complete and safe repair while facilitating the most pleasant experience possible for our mutual customer, the consumer."

This vision statement, introduced by new Collision Industry Conference Chairman Rick Tuuri, was unanimously approved by a record breaking crowd in San Antonio, Texas, on January 13.

Tuuri, I-CAR business development manager, welcomed over 150 attendees to the January CIC Planning Meeting, fifty of whom were new to the Collision Industry Conference. His first order of business was to thank Roger Wright, AIG Insurance, past CIC Chairman, for his outstanding leadership and dedication to the Collision Industry Conference and the entire industry.

Tuuri then proceeded to get everyone on their feet and took the lead singing the National Anthem. He exhorted, "I know it is a hard song to sing, but sing it like you mean it." And everyone stood up with their hands over their hearts and sang it like they meant it.

Opening remarks

Tuuri spoke about the Collision Industry Conference's vision. "We need to deal with the difficult issues here, more like professional's in the same company." One of his goals as chairman is to encourage more group interaction. He is encouraging an open platform and more active participation. The interaction was slow to start, however, by the end of this meeting the group was extremely vocal and interactive in a very positive and professional manner.

Tuuri asked all committee co-chairs for a 2004 recap of their committees. All committees were represented with an overview of their last year. One of the major accomplishments of the 2004 Collision Industry Conference was the Definitions Committee successful project to update and revise the Minimum Recommended Requirements for a Class "A" Collision Center. This mandate has always been driven by CIC and is the nationally accepted standard used by most insurance companies and repairers. The updated release can be found at www.ciclink.com.

Another continuing project is the Estimating Commit-tee's Database Inquiries link on the CIC website, successful due to the unflagging efforts of March Taylor, Autobody Hawaii. This interactive program ex-plores repair procedures and database provider information.

Marketing committee

The CIC Marketing Committee co- chairs, Guy Bargnes of BASF, Stacy Bartnik of Carter and Carter, and Lisa Siembab of CAR-STAR, provided an extensive report on their mission to increase participation and awareness of CIC. In 2004, this group started measuring performance of committee presentations by creating a short survey ranking the presentation by relevance, interest level and value. Survey forms were on the table to be filled out and passed in after each session. Doug and John Webb, CSI Complete, donated their services to correlate the information. This data is available for review on the website.

Old business segued into new business with tremendous enthusiasm and support. The history of the Collision Industry Conference is robust. The conference is "a forum for the discussion of national issues affecting the various segments involved in the collision repair industry." The issues affecting the various segments have evoked passionate debate and some criticism. However, if not for a national forum of this type, where is the information exchanged?

Jeff Hendler, CIC Administrator, then spoke to the assembly. He commented that newcomers often leave the meeting saying "I never thought of that before. The minute that happens, this meeting works!" claimed Hendler.

The passionate voice of this industry then started asking the questions about the next step for CIC. 2004 Collision Executive of the Year Jeanne Silver emphatically stated, "Since I have been involved in CIC, I have seen marked improvement. CIC identifies issues for the industry."

CIC's role in the industry as a forum only, was up for debate. Tony Molla, Automotive Service Excellence, asked, "Does CIC want to be the implementer of change?" Erick Bickett of Fix Auto suggested, "We need clarity of the industry needs and concerns - clear voices." Andy Ingalls of Mannheim finally asked the question: "What is keeping us from being solution oriented?" This whole discussion seemed to center on clarity of issues, best practices, FOCUS, recommendations and how best to use this forum to implement change. It was agreed upon, by majority, that this forum would be expanding to seek resolution and implementation.