After a roller-coaster year that included staff layoffs and a change in top leadership, I-CAR leaders worked hard at the training organization’s annual meeting in late July to convey that I-CAR is newly refocused on its customers, volunteers and mission.

    “When I see what an improved and improving organization was able to deliver in fiscal 2008 in a difficult economy by most measures, I’m optimistic about our challenges and our ability to meet them over the next 18 months,” CEO John Edelen told attendees at the annual I-CAR gathering, held in Scottsdale, Ariz.
    Neither Edelen nor board chairman Robby Robbs made any effort to gloss over the struggles I-CAR has had since announcing a $1.1 million dollar loss in 2007. Last fall, Edelen moved from his position as board chairman to become interim CEO when long-time I-CAR employee Tom McGee was asked to step down from that position. (McGee is now I-CAR’s director of industry relations and product operations.) Last March, after months of internal restructuring, I-CAR laid-off approximately 10 percent of its staff. And in June, after an executive search process during which the board changed its profile for the ideal candidate, Edelen, a retired Allstate executive, was chosen to stay on as CEO.
    The changes helped I-CAR slow its financial losses, ending its latest fiscal year with a loss less than half that of the previous year. And Edelen was able to report another piece of good news: a 15 percent rebound in attendance at I-CAR classes. The 115,000 “student units” taught – one unit equals one student taking one class – was still far from the peaks of 150,000 or more in the late 1990s through 2002, but was about equal to I-CAR’s average annual student counts for 2003-2006 fiscal years.
    Chairman Robbs said I-CAR has made progress and that those who have seen only “doom and gloom” for I-CAR are being proven wrong. Still, he acknowledged, I-CAR can do more to reconnect with its customers, volunteers and instructors.
    “We need to continue to work toward a better understanding of market needs, and to be clear in our long-term strategy so that our underlying core technology supports our future direction and, most importantly, provides simplicity for those wishing to do business with I-CAR,” he said.

Feedback and suggestions
As part of that effort to listen to the various segments of the market on which I-CAR depends, the organization set aside three hours of its annual meeting as an open forum to hear feedback from shops, insurers and automakers. About 150 people turned out to share their questions, frustrations and suggestions for the training organization.