S T R A T E G Y
CASE STUDY
CREATING A CAREER PATH FOR GEN Z TECHS
Be ready to help them learn and grow their skills once they enter your doors. By C AROL BADAR ACCO PADGET T
A S A COL L ISION R EPA I R SHOP OW N ER,
what do you do when a promising young tech walks through your doors? How can you entice them to want to stay, grow in the field, build up a strong and sustainable career, and then pass down their hard-earned experience to others? For Ed Kalinowski, owner of Phil’s Collision Center in Schererville, Indiana, he strives to show young techs a solid career path they can get serious about, and then he gives them the tools they need to navigate the journey.
November 2025
Here’s the formula Kalinowski used to bring in two strong Gen Z techs, Waylon (24) and Brendan (22).
The backstory Kalinowski was born and raised in Illinois, 10 minutes from his family’s auto body shop. By the time he got to high school, a new vocational technical center had opened with a track for automotive techs. It was an instant attraction. So Kalinowski studied there and went into the family business after graduation in 1981. Then,
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in 2000, his father bought a shop in Florida, and the family moved there for a time. Ed eventually took over the reins of the Florida business from his father. “By 2014, we’d done well in Florida, but my father wanted to come back to Indiana to see his grandchildren, so we ended up selling the Florida collision shop,” Kalinowski says. Once in Indiana, they found an auto body shop for sale with an excellent reputation for outstanding work, Phil’s Collision Center. “Phil’s had a reputation for quality, so we took it over,” Kalinowski says. “Today, we’re
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