Fourteen students ages 12 to 15 spent three days learning to change oil, jump-start a car, remove and reinstall a battery, and rebuild a small engine from scratch. Campers also rode along in electric and self-driving vehicles, pairing traditional shop skills with the technology now showing up on dealer lots. Voss Auto Group sponsors the camp as part of a long-running partnership with Sinclair, and treats it as an early pipeline into its own technician ranks.

🎙️ Listen to today's Automotive State of the Union episode for the complete discussion, additional context, and the conversations that shaped our perspective.

Our take is that this camp works because it gets to kids before they've decided what they want to be. A 12-year-old changing their first oil filter or riding in a self-driving car isn't filling out an application, they're falling in love with the industry on their own terms. That's a technician pipeline built years before a store ever needs to post a job.

Paul's point cuts right to it: you don't need to be a major metro store to do this. There are kids everywhere sorting out whether college is the only path forward, and plenty of them are already mechanically curious. A partnership with a local high school or community college costs far less than a recruiting budget, and it turns curious kids into applicants who are already sold before they walk in the door.

Reach out to a local high school or community college this month and ask what a hands-on partnership could look like, even something as small as a shop tour or a single ride-along day. Sinclair's numbers make the case on their own: 95% of graduates find industry work within a month. That's a pipeline worth building before you need it, not after.