AGSC members listen in during the annual meeting.
The Auto Glass Safety Council™ (AGSC) held its annual member meeting last October and provided several updates, including ones from the Education, Credentialing and Marketing Committees.
During the Education Committee update, chair Jeff Olive, training manager for Glasspro in North Charleston, S.C., announced that there is a new testing website for the AGSC certification program and it is in full operation.
“We are also adding questions to our item bank,” he said. “Our goal is to reach 1,000 questions that will rotate randomly through the certification test.”
AGSC’s Education Committee had held a marathon eight-hour meeting the day prior that was dedicated to updating the industry’s replacement-certification program by going tenaciously through a data bank of exam questions and answers.
Credentialing Committee chair Jean Pero, along with Penny Ouellette of Orion Registrar Corp. in Arvada, Colo.; Dale Malcolm, outgoing technical manager at Dow Automotive Systems Aftermarket in Dayton, Ohio; and Bob Beranek of Automotive Glass Safety Consultants in Sun Prairie, Wis., led a session about how AGSC Registered Member Companies can best be prepared for third-party random audits.
“No major changes to the program have been announced,” noted Ouellette, whose company, Orion Registrar Corp., oversees the auditing program.
“When a location has been selected, you are notified ahead of time,” she said. “We send you information about the validation process. We explain how it happens and what you can send us now. If you have one technician, it may only take one hour.”
Auditors like to complete their compliance checklists by watching the technician while he works, she said.
Bob Scharaga, president of All Star Glass in San Diego, Calif., Mike Schenian, president of City Auto Glass in St Paul, Minn.,and Peter Brown, AGSC Marketing Committee chair, led a session on marketing.
“We all struggle with our marketing message,” said Schenian. “We include an AGSC message on our voicemail. We point out that we’re an Auto Glass Safety Council Registered Member Company. We say that people should look for an AGSC member. It’s incumbent upon all of us to share this message.”
Scharaga’s customer service representatives tell prospective customers: “For us, safety is our No. 1 priority. That leads us to being a proud member of the AGSC. If they are looking at other glass companies, we recommend they visit www.safewindshields.org. Sometimes we’ll show them how to get there.”