NC Community College hosts high school summer camp to feed collision program

The Blue Ridge Community College Collision Repair and Refinishing Technology program, located in Flat Rock, North Carolina, has grown over the last couple of years, thanks in part to two summer programs — one for middle schoolers and a new one this year for high schoolers.

The BRCC program offers instruction in structural and non-structural repair, refinish, estimating, and ADAS. The enrollment deadline for the fall 2026 semester is Aug. 6.

Brian Foster, the program’s lead instructor, said he noticed a need for more students, starting at a younger age, to be informed about the career opportunities within the collision repair industry. In answer to that, he started a summer program at BRCC for middle schoolers in 2024.

“Every October, Henderson County high schools bring all the juniors on campus, and these students get to pick three areas that they would like to tour as potential career paths,” Foster said. “The problem that I see with that is, even though they’re bringing them all, most of them already have a career path, and most of them have already started working towards that career path. Getting them to change is slim to none, really.

“In talking to them, one, you’re trying to explain what an industry looks like that they likely have never really heard of. They know a car goes to a shop if it gets wrecked, but that’s about the extent of their knowledge of the collision industry. When you’re out there trying to talk to them about what the industry looks like, I’ve found that you get about 30 to 60 seconds to get your point across, and then you lose them.”

Foster added that’s what led him to the realization that BRCC was “going to have to start looking outside the box.”

He said he began wondering, “How do we get to these students earlier than even before it’s time for them to start thinking about career choices? Not necessarily when they’re in the heat of it, but how do we get to them early on?”

That led to the launch of the middle school summer camp. The first year, the students were able to paint primed and prepped pinewood derby cars. This year, the middle schoolers sanded, prepped, and painted metal model Chevrolet Cameros.

“Since they’re metal bodies, we can work on prepping and proper sanding techniques,” Foster said. “We can work on masking because there are some things that have to be masked off on the vehicle. Then, we can actually step into the booth. I let them do stripes, whatever they want to do. I do help them lay the stripes out, or the decals and the stuff that they want.”

But then Foster realized he had to get parents’ attention to bring in more students to feed the collision repair talent pipeline.

“I’ve spent my entire career in the collision industry, so I know how viable the collision industry is,” he said. “Your average parent doesn’t, so how do I bring the parents in also so that they can see what the collision industry truly looks like? And not the body shop I started in at 14 years old. I did this graduation party afterwards where the students get a certificate; they got to take their car home. I invited the parents to come and see the graduation ceremony. It really started opening the door to a lot of questions about what the collision industry looked like.”

Foster told parents that the BRCC program trains students to be collision repair engineers because “essentially, you’re going back through the same process that engineers went through to build the car if you’re repairing it by OEM procedures,” he said.

“Some of it’s terminology. How do we change that terminology? Terminology changes perception,” Foster said. “It really started opening the door to these parents being a little more explorative about their child actually going into an industry. And when you start putting the numbers in front of them of what the average technician makes in the Asheville/Hendersonville area, because I’ve surveyed shops and gotten those numbers, I mean it floors some of these parents. Some of these parents are like, ‘I wish I could afford to make a career change. I would change careers.’”

Foster said a student of his who graduated in 2023 made $107,000 his first full year as a standalone technician. Foster also noted that this month, a former BRCC student is beginning BMW’s STEP program in Greer, South Carolina, at the automaker’s collision training center.

“Obviously, everybody goes to work to make money and is in search of benefits, so how do we put all this in front of them? The middle school summer camp really opened up the door to more students coming in the following year,” Foster said. “What’s the one thing every kid does when he or she does go back to school in the fall? ‘Hey, what’d you do over the summer?’ They want to know what each other did, so my second year it was even bigger.”

While this year’s participation was about the same, Foster said it does have its limits.

“I will only take eight students because it takes me two trips to get them through the booth,” he said. “With it being only two days and one day we have to assemble our model cars, eight’s about as many as I can do. If it starts growing a lot, I’ll do more than one middle school summer camp. But after last year, I had several students that were aging out. They expressed the desire to do a high school summer camp. Now, unfortunately, none of them came to the high school summer camp, but I did get some other high schoolers going into high school as well.”

During the first annual BRCC high school summer camp, which wrapped up in June, students painted on training bodies.

Students came to the campus for the one-day camp for about seven hours.

“It’s just a really cool way to introduce them to the fun side of the industry,” Foster said. “I was a painter when I was a technician, so painting was always fun to me. It always came natural. …I see students that come through this program that I really have to focus on their application technique.”

Makayla Honeycutt, 23, was one of the “naturals” when it comes to painting vehicles.

“With her, it just comes natural, and that’s her career path, to be a painter,” Foster said.

Honeycutt said her interest in collision grew from helping out in her grandfather’s shop.

“My grandfather actually owned a shop [when I was] growing up, right downtown here,” she said. “I grew up hanging out with him during the week, in the summertime actually. I’d go and dust the shop; that’s always dusty. And then when I was older, we painted my old 4Runner. We painted it together, and that got me a foot into the painting aspect of it. It took me a couple years, but I finally took a leap and started classes. I’ve loved it ever since, so I’m enjoying it.”

Foster asked Honeycutt to help with the middle school program this year, in part to inspire female students to participate.

“The first two years we had females in the program, [but] …in the past, having one or two females in the program, I always felt like they were maybe a little intimidated by being around a bunch of males,” Foster said. “You’ve got two male instructors here, and you’ve got male students. …I was hoping we were going to have some females this year also, and I wanted them to see that there is a place for females in the collision industry. That’s actually a big push of mine right now — is to bring more females in.”

He added that three female students are beginning the BRCC program this fall, whereas it’s typically been one per year.

“I wanted the young ladies to see that they can do this as well through Makayla; that it’s not solely a male-dominated industry,” Foster said. “There is a good place for females in the industry and that they can have some confidence in their abilities through seeing Makayla’s ability.”

When asked what sold her on becoming a collision repair painter, Honeycutt said painting came more naturally to her. She also competed in SkillsUSA for the first time this year, placing eighth out of 15. She plans to compete again next year.

Images

Featured image: Malkovstock/iStock