Our Newest Board Members
By Troy Mason
In my column this month, I want to introduce our newest NWRA board members. If you will be at Auto Glass Week this year, please take a moment to introduce yourself. The board of directors will meet on Wednesday, September 26, from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
We have two new members of the board, Korey Gobin of Delta Kits and Aric Haarala of Glass Mechanix, who joined last year.
Gobin has been in the industry for 10 years and counting. He got his start in the industry in an interesting way.
“I was an employment specialist, supporting individuals struggling to find employment,” he says. “I noticed that a lot of my clients’ creativity didn’t fit the corporate environment, so I researched ways for hem to become an entrepreneur and be their own boss. I kept seeing windshield repair and replacement ads, so when the county made budget cuts and cut my position, I met with Delta Kits, and the rest is history.” Gobin’s hope for the NWRA is “to continue educating/explaining the benefits of windshield repair and replacement to consumers so they are better informed than ever when it comes to getting their windshields repaired or replaced.”
Haarala has been in the industry since 2001, when he began working as an outside sales rep for Techna Glass with his “responsibilities centered on the beginning-to-end customer experience of a windshield repair service.” After four years, he ended up purchasing his own mobile windshield repair franchise. Two years later, he partnered with Fire House Car Wash and Detail and taught them to do in-house windshield repair services.
In early 2012 he started Alpha Glass Solutions, originally set up as a consulting business to help businesses add windshield repair to their product offerings. “About one year later I had the opportunity to become a partner in Glass Mechanix,” says Haarala. “It was a great privilege to become an owner of the tools that I loved to use. Today I still spend my days helping people start down the same pathway I did 17 years ago.”
Haarala adds, “As a new member of the NWRA board, I hope to help bring value to the business owners. With the emerging regulations and restrictions being placed on the windshield repair industry by state governments and insurance providers, the individual business owners need a voice on how these regulations and restrictions are implemented and by which standards they are based on.”
We welcome both Gobin and Haarala and appreciate their work with the NWRA. We also encourage others to apply to serve the NWRA in this capacity. There is much work to be done, and together we can accomplish it.
TROY MASON is president of the National Windshield Repair Association as well as
CEO of Techna Glass Inc. in South Jordan, Utah.
To view the laid-in version of this article in our digital edition, CLICK HERE.
