Who Am I? And How Did I Get Here?

Well, you guessed it - my name is Ian. I am an automotive technician of about two and a half years, which means you should absolutely not take any technical advice from me… which is good because I am not here to give it.

Unlike a lot of seasoned technicians/mechanics in this industry I did not grow up with a wrench in my hand. Sure, I did the basics of changing my oil, rotating my tires, doing brake jobs, and generally fixing up the beaters that my parents were kind enough to buy me while I was in high school and college. Instead, I grew up with a hockey stick in my hand, which, unlike the wrench, rarely leads to a promising career. Instead of going directly into the shop down the street to start auto tech training after high school, I took the traditional college path, because where else could I play hockey and get rewarded for it? Hockey was king. And after 4 years I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Hockey, Beer, and Women (it was actually Political Science/Criminal Justice).

After graduating from college, I took a job at a law firm and entered the exciting field of residential foreclosures in which I would work for the next six and a half years. During this time, I still did all of the work on my own personal vehicles, partially because I knew how to and liked the challenge and partly because I was too cheap to pay for someone else to do something that I could try to do myself. After about six years of working in a toxic and political work environment at the law firm, I was ready to move on to a new job and began looking at positions at other law firms. But it would have been just that - a job. The prospect of doing the same work somewhere else did not entice me.

During this time, I spent a weekend with my future father-in-law replacing the master and slave clutch cylinders on my VW Golf; it was a difficult but enjoyable experience. It later occurred to me as I was staring at a screen looking at a list of paralegal positions at other law firms that this was not what I wanted the rest of my life to be. My next thought was, “Hey, I just worked on a car all weekend. Maybe I could get paid to do that.” I had always been interested in cars, I loved going to Watkins Glen International speedway to watch the IMSA, Indy Car and NASCAR races, I enjoyed watching car shows such as Top Gear, Roadkill, and Dirt Every Day. So in that moment, instead of applying to a job at another law firm, I applied to the Toyota Technician Education Network program at our local community college (another post to come on the arguable necessity of school in this industry).

This was a terrifying thing to do at 28 years old. I had an established life. I had a fiancé, owned a home, and had bills to pay. However, over the six years prior I had challenged myself physically in as many moderately crazy physical feats as I could find time for, such as triathlons, half-marathons and trail races, strongman competitions, and even a half-marathon and strongman competition in the same weekend. I knew that if I brought that same hard work and dedication to school and whatever job I could find, I would be successful. So I took the risk.

My plan at first was to work my side hustle refereeing hockey to make ends meet while I went back to school. However, I was very fortunate to land a job at a local automotive salvage yard (Wilbert’s Premium Auto Parts) that would allow me to maintain almost full-time employment while attending school (a future post will focus on this experience, its helpfulness, and the importance of automotive salvage yards to our industry). I would wake up every day at 3 a.m., go to work at the salvage yard from 4 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., and then attend school from noon to 5 p.m. The following two years of my life were a roller coaster to say the least. I got married the summer before going to tech school, my wife changed jobs, there was a global pandemic, I had hernia surgery, and my wife had spine surgery. However, through the same hard work, dedication, and perseverance I brought to my physical goals, I graduated tech school as an ASE certified Automotive Master Tech (yes, another post to come on this topic as well) with an additional three ASE certifications in the heavy-duty truck category, and a record of making Dean’s List every semester.

After finishing tech school, leaving my job at the salvage yard, and taking a much-needed two-week overlanding trip through the southern United States, I started my career as an automotive technician. I began at a great little independent shop where I learned a lot about working on cars from the owner, who was my first real mentor in the field. It was a wonderful place to work and the owners were great people to work for. But after a few months of working there, I was presented with the opportunity to go work on light-, medium-, and heavy-duty diesel trucks at an independent shop much closer to the new house my wife and I had recently bought. I believed it was an opportunity that I must take, as working in diesel was my initial intention. Following a few months of working there, I was approached by a recruiter with a position with a significant increase in pay and a promise of a dedicated training program at a dealership working on heavy-duty trucks, so I jumped at the opportunity. However, after several months at the dealership I was getting sent home regularly because of a lack of work, and this combined with nonexistent training, political issues in management, and, admittedly, a lot of failures on my part, I decided it was time to move on to where I am now.

Yeah, that’s four jobs in two years - not ideal. And at this point you’re probably asking yourself why you should take any advice from me. Well like I said earlier, you shouldn’t take any technical advice from me which is why I won’t be giving it out. I have failed a lot over the past two and a half years since being a full-time technician, both on a technical level but also on a general professional level. But I have also learned A LOT over the past two and a half years. It has been a rough journey to get to where I am now, but I am finally at a shop where I am enjoying the work that I am doing and at a place that is as dedicated to my advancement as a technician as I am.

I intend to share the wisdom gained through these failures, successes, and mentorships here, partly as a personal outlet and in part so that maybe one or two new techs or techs-to-be will see that it is not just them who are struggling. As I said in my last post, this blog is here to help other new automotive technicians hopefully learn something from the insight, wisdom, and failures that I have encountered so far.

Written by: Ian Clayton

Edited by: Merielle Donaldson