December/January 2022

DECEMBER/JANUARY 2022 AFTERMARKET 59 www.aftermarketonline.net Being in Devon, Kevin is lucky enough to be relatively close to Technical Topics and its founder James Dillon: “Most of my training courses have been done at Technical Topics with James Dillon. He is the man I look up to most. “I have also done training with Bosch through work, and we also use Our Virtual Academy. You are talking to these people, and if you are clever and honest with them, they will share their knowledge with you. That is where I am very lucky.” Top Technician Kevin continued to be humble about his success: “Let’s be honest, none of us know everything, and it takes everybody to know everything. You can’t get every job right. I might be Top Technician 2021, but some people I know could wipe the floor with me, but they don’t enter. I’m not going to put myself down, but it is the truth.” He was the one who stuck his neck out though, we pointed out: “Yes,” he laughed, “but that is very unusual for me.” Talking about the actual competition aspect all the way through, he observed: “I might have been really nervous at the final, but I loved it. There is no other way of putting it. I look forward to the questions coming out every year, the challenges, and the fact that it really shows your weaknesses. The questions they put in are really challenging. Some of the things they put in, I have honestly never heard of. When I do the tests online, I tend to write down the ones I answered easily, the ones I struggled with, and I will make a note if I have no idea on something. “The feedback the judges provide really allows you to pinpoint your weak areas. Also, what helped me all the way through was that I have a wide knowledge of the overall subject. It’s not all about diagnostics in the competition, but people often focus on this aspect. They shouldn’t, as it’s all-encompassing. One of the tasks in 2017 was customer-facing. When you are Top Tech you have to be able to describe the problem to the customer, and explain how you are going to resolve it, in a way that they can relate to. You have to be able to put it across in layman’s terms, or by using analogies. This is as much of a skill as anything else. Then the next year we had to do a little lecture, training a fellow technician. Then, another year there was a MOT element to it. It can be anything.” Technical With the breadth of knowledge in mind, we asked Kevin how he has been focusing his training. Was he trying to take in as much as possible across the broad scope of the industry? Or did he focus on particular areas? “During the last part of my training, the focus has been on electric vehicles, because that is the natural way our trade is going to go. That being said, I think hydrogen is going to be the biggest thing going forward. I think we are still going to be using the internal combustion engine, but with a few bits added, or changes to how it is injected.” He likes to keep his hand in across all areas: “You can’t just say to yourself ‘I don’t need to do any more diesel training’. Here at FRL Auto Services, we’ve still got hundreds of diesels on our books. You can’t think ‘I’m not going to do any more petrol training’, because petrol is still out there. People are still buying petrol engine cars. Customers of ours are still buying brand-new diesel vehicles. We had a customer sell a Tesla and actually go back to a diesel Volkswagen. This was because of range anxiety, and the fact that he couldn’t go from Devon to Scotland without stopping.” Tinkering Kevin is clearly looking forward, but we wanted to discuss his background: “I didn’t do any real qualifications until I was nearly 40,” he said. “I always tinkered with things, be it a pushbike, a car or a motorbike. I’ve worked in a farm workshop, and I have played around with combine harvesters, ploughs, tractors, the whole spectrum. I have been very lucky in life. “I started when I was 17, and I am 57 now. The owner of the local small independent garage also had a farm workshop. I went in there for five years, and we worked on everything from the combine harvester to the car, right the way down to the garden tractor, and classic cars. We did a lot of classic cars. From there I went working on commercial vehicles, self-employed. I did all light commercials, heavy commercials. That again was in another small independent workshop. Then I moved to FRL with the previous owner. That was 1986, and was only supposed to be for a couple of months to help them set the place up. It’s been 35 years now, and now I know some of the customers’ parents and grandparents. It’s like a little family I work in.” If that’s where he is at, and where he has been, we wondered where Kevin is going, and what his plans are for the future? “I’d like to be able to make the most of being Top Technician,” he concluded, “in whatever lane that takes me.” I’d like to be able to make the most of being Top Technician, in whatever lane that takes me ”