Quinn, the founder of 911 Collision Centers in Arizona and Nevada, began his two-year appointment as chair in November. At the top of his "to do" list is increasing industry participation in CIC.
"I want to make CIC a place where industry participants can bring issues without fear or criticism, and create a process where our committees can develop work product that is valued by the industry," Quinn said.
To do that, Quinn hopes to accelerate the work that the committees are doing. CIC has been criticized in the past because of the slow pace of development of the best practices and recommendations it issues.
"One of the things that I want to try to create is a process to define how a best practice is created, to help these committees create more final work product and accelerate their ability to create a final work product and deliver it to the industry," Quinn said. "So I'm excited about that."
CIC has pared down and consolidated its committee structure in an effort to focus on a handful of key issues. The current committee and task force list includes insurance relations, business improvement, data privacy, definitions, education and training, governmental, human resources, marketing and parts.
The parts committee has absorbed the paint and material committee, and the data privacy task force has become a formal committee. The definitions committee will also be tackling a number of topics, including developing a definition of a green shop.
The human resources committee, which has traditionally only included one member – Cory King of Fine, Boggs, Cope & Perkins – will now include some repair shop representatives to help determine which issues will be addressed throughout the year.
The business improvement task force, meanwhile, will focus on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of CIC and its committees. "This is a task force that I developed to help create examples of best practices for creating best practices, if you will," Quinn said. "That way we can streamline some of the work that CIC does."
Because the number of committees has been reduced, there will be more time for multiple presentations from key committees like the parts group at each meeting.
Asked what he thought CIC's most important contributions to the industry have been, Quinn pointed to the Class A repair facility standard, and the work the group did on data formatting for estimating systems. He would also like to see the repair standards committee spin off as its own entity, much like the Collision Industry Electronic Commerce Association did.
"I think that was extremely significant in our industry," Quinn said. "I'd like to see the same kind of thing take place during my term with the repair standards committee. We'll start to define what that entity will look like, and we've worked closely with Thatcham in the United Kingdom on that."
Quinn said he hopes to have Thatcham representatives (Thatcham is the Motor Insurance Repair Research Centre in the U.K.), along with some insurance vendor representatives, address CIC in July.
Quinn noted that he wanted to increase the participation of insurance companies and other groups within CIC, and he is reaching out to repairers across the country in order to introduce some "new blood" to the committees. "We're one industry, and I believe all segments of the industry need to be represented and respected and need to participate," Quinn said. "We need to create an environment where it is safe for all participants to be able to speak freely and to speak candidly."
To that point, he also noted that so far the group's meetings had not featured an online component because some participants didn't want their statements or input to be broadcast over the Internet. But that could change in the future. "That could cause people to clam up, but in this day and age, with camera phones and texting and everything else, if you're in a public forum you can expect what you say will be public," Quinn said.
In future meetings, Quinn said there would be index cards available so that attendees can ask questions anonymously if they aren't comfortable doing so out loud.
Quinn also discussed CIC's January vote to have its annual meeting in November in Las Vegas in conjunction with the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) rather than meeting at the earlier NACE event in Orlando. This will be the second year in a row that the meeting has occurred in conjunction with SEMA.
The vote was close – 99 to 98 in favor of SEMA. "That indicates how split the industry is on this issue," Quinn said. "I think there are some basic fundamental changes in the way business is conducted and how people go or don't go to conventions. The Internet is changing the way people buy goods and services.
"By one vote the industry chose SEMA," he continued. "There have been a few difficult years here, but I think in the long term we'll work together better and come to some solutions that can satisfy all parties."
CIC's next meeting is scheduled March 17 at the Crowne Plaza Meadowlands in New Jersey.
