|
Page 1 of 2
Al Estorga was fuming.
Estorga, at the time a collision repair shop owner in Long Beach, Calf., had once again been told at an inter-industry event that it was not the appropriate time or place to discuss an issue he raised. Heading back up to his hotel room after the 1983 event, Estorga expressed his frustration to the small group of shop owners in the elevator. They became determined, he said, to develop a forum in which it was "always the right time and place" to discuss the issues most important to the collision industry.
For more than 18 years, the forum "created" by Estorga and the others on that elevator and now known as the Collision Industry Conference (CIC), has offered shop owners a time and place to raise issues, discuss ideas, and at times develop solutions to the industry's problems, large and small. Over the years, CIC has been criticized by some as being too elitist, too unproductive, and too controlled by insurers, vendors, large shops or certain associations. Too much deal-making goes on in the hallways outside of the meetings, they say, while too little is done for the good of the whole industry inside the meetings.
But many regular CIC participants say most critics don't participate often enough in CIC to understand the value it offers and to see the progress it has made. Despite attempts to hold its meetings in various locations throughout the country - and regular coverage of the meetings in Autobody News and other trade publications - CIC remains little-known to many in the collision repair industry. CIC supporters are convinced that the more that members of the industry - shops, insurers and vendors - know about CIC, the more they will see why their participation is well-worth the time and expense of attending.
Whatever happened to...?
Al
Estorga was a rebel. A fourth-generation body man - "the rest of the
family never made any real money in the business" - who was willing to
put it all on the line to get fair treatment from the insurance company
claims offices.
"When I started organizing a conference, my
goal was to get rid of adjusters. Back then, it wasn't an honest
business; too many kickbacks and such. I knew the insurance companies
were wasting their money, yet I wasn't being paid properly. I wanted to
solve the problem, which I knew was with local claims managers. We
needed direct access to the corporate people.
"We wrote a
white paper on the problems between body shops and local claims offices
and a group of us took it to NAII (an insurance industry group). We
went into this room with a conference table that must have been 100
yards long. They weren't interested. "It's your problem," they told us.
"The local claims managers then ostracized us. It hurt some guys badly."
Later,
as they organized what would become the Collision Industry Conference,
they found themselves sitting in a room with government anti-trust
people. "Someone told them we were getting together to do price fixing.
Not true. They left and never came back."
In the early 90's
Estorga formed the original Caliber Collision. When the investment
group bought the business, Estorga left - taking some stock with him.
He worked on building Estorga's Auto Body in Long Beach and profited
from a bidding war among consolidators, eventually selling to M2
Collision in 1998.
|
The structure
In the beginning, CIC was known as the Collision Repair Conference and was open, as its name implied, only to collision repairers. Early attendees say the first meetings were small - only 10 to 20 shop owners from around the country gathered in a hotel room. But Estorga and the other attendees realized early on that if the meetings were going to be much more than gripe sessions, more (and more diverse) participation was needed. "We could've sat in those hotel rooms and bitched about insurers forever and nothing would've changed," one attendee at those early meetings recalled. "We figured out we had to get the insurance companies and the (estimating) database providers and the other players in our industry all in the same room with us.
Getting a good mix of participants at CIC is a problem that some say has dogged the conference all along. Often only a handful of insurance companies are represented, and at some meetings the industry vendors and shop consolidators may outnumber independent shop owners. But as the diversity of the attendees grew in the late 1980s, the conference was renamed the Collision Industry Conference to better reflect the participation of more than just the repairer segment of the "collision industry."
Regular participants say some of the criticism leveled at CIC is based in part on a lack of understanding of its somewhat unique structure and mission. It has no members, board of directors or bylaws. It has no executive director. Jeff Hendler, who was CIC Chairman in 1987-88, now serves as CIC Administrator, making meeting arrangements and overseeing CIC mailings. It is, in fact, more a series of regularly scheduled "events" than an "organization." Its mission is solely to "provide a forum for discussion of national issues affecting the various segments involved in the collision industry."
Organization without members
"Some people come to one CIC meeting and say all we do is talk," Hendler said. "But providing a forum for talking and discussing and trying to improve communications between the various segments is what CIC is all about. Solutions and resolutions are often a by-product of the discussion in that forum, but you may not see that if you only attend one meeting." Everyone who attends CIC is an equal participant, with one vote on the rare occasion when a vote is taken. Participants pay a fee (currently $40) to attend each meeting; this fee helps offset the meeting site and mailing expenses. Many regular CIC attendees participate in the "Gold Pin Sponsorship" program; for an annual fee (currently $300), they receive a CIC name badge and name plate and do not pay meeting registration fees. While regular CIC meetings are held four times a year, Gold Pin Sponsors can attend a fifth annual meeting, held each January, at which the plans for the coming year are discussed.
A meeting chairman is elected annually, and the chairman selects one or more chairmen for each of the CIC committees. The number and names of CIC committees change from year to year based on the key issues or topics facing the industry.
Attendees must abide by a few simple rules. A summary of anti-trust guidelines is read and followed at each meeting. While speakers may be critical, verbal abuse or harassment in any form is not tolerated. Because of CIC's mission, issues discussed are expected to have a national impact rather than just affect a few individuals.
"That means the issues being discussed just aren't little pet peeves or problems one shop owner is having, but issues that are important to anyone in the trade," Bill Rupp, owner of Akins Body Shop in Santa Clara, Calif., said. "I find it's worthwhile to participate in CIC because you get a chance to be on the leading edge, to really find out what's happening in the industry and where things are headed. And you can bring that information back to share with your colleagues." In the early years, meetings would be broken up into committee sessions, with a number of committees working simultaneously. Over the past decade, however, no break-out sessions are held; the entire group meets all day (or two half-days) with each committee having time on the agenda for its presentation or discussion.
|
