Gary Prins
Auto Body Repair Instructor

What is your current position?
I am an Auto Body Repair instructor at a technical trades school for 11th and 12th grade high school students.

What prompted you to pursue a career in the automotive industry?
I have always loved anything with a motor, and my focus was always on the appearance of it. Everything needed to sparkle and shine looking it's very best.

Tell us about your journey - where did you start in the industry and how has your role changed over the years?
I actually took the same class that I am now teaching when I was in high school, I graduated in 2005 and entered straight into the industry at the age of 17. I worked my way through the entry level tasks and was very fortunate to be surrounded by great technicians that were willing to share their tools and knowledge with me. I think that is why I have always been passionate about training apprenticeships and helping new technicians throughout my time in the industry.

I learned the refinishing side of the industry, and filled in for painters as needed over the years, but I gravitated towards the "heavier hits" or the "structural repair" side of the industry. By the time I was 20 years old I was fully certified through I-Car, the state of Michigan, and aluminum certified for the C6 ZO6 Corvettes, I had also begun training new technicians when they were hired in at the dealership along with my daily technician role. This combination of being a technician along with training one or two apprentices at a time, even helping to teach new estimators the repair and estimating process, took me through the first 11-12 years of my career after high school.

The 6 years prior to accepting my current role as an instructor, I worked at a smaller family owned body shop in town, still with zero thoughts or intentions of ever becoming a teacher or instructor by the way. During this time I was a structural technician, I helped establish an apprenticeship program, I taught the apprentices as they were hired in, and I was a part of a small team that tripled the size of the company within those 6 years. Things were good, I was the production manager for a rapidly growing company, I loved the people that I worked with, I loved what I did in my current role everyday, and I was blessed to go home everyday to my beautiful wife and 3 little girls.

The final 3-4 years of the journey you just read about however, was accompanied with chronic migraines that specialists couldn't diagnose. Living like this and putting on a good face everyday for both my family and my team at work while being miserable inside my head really began to change my priorities in life.

I don't know how much of this story (if any of it) will be used, shared, or edited, but I am going to share this for whoever needs to hear it today. I am a Christian, even on my darkest days I know that God loves me and that he has a plan for my life, but even believing this, it was getting dark.

I finally began to change the way I prayed for help and relief, rather than the anger and desperation cries through my prayers, I began to pray that whatever God was preparing me for through this daily pain, (which had changed all of my priorities in this life), "God just show me what it is, show me what you want me to do so the pain can stop".

Well, a couple months after this attitude shift, (still living life feeling like my brain was trying to escape through my left eye socket) my phone rang one day. It was the director of the Career Line Tech Center, he was wondering if I would ever consider taking the role as the lead instructor of their Auto Body Repair program... At first it was a no, I had never considered anything like that, teaching high schoolers? Taking college courses myself for CTE certifications? No way.

That's when it hit me, this was what God has been preparing me for, this is why I needed to have less focus on how much money I make, or how many cars went through the shop each week, or what might change in my workplace setting. I mean, God just appearing to me in a cloud or something sure would have been a lot easier... but God doesn't do easy, he does big hard things with average flawed people when they are finally ready.

After much consideration, conversations with my wife, and meeting with the school director, I accepted the job offer. I hope I haven't lost you yet, because here comes the good part, my daily migraines from the past three-plus years? GONE, in a matter of days after accepting this new role as a CTE instructor, the migraines were gone...

I was excited for this new chapter, not angry, not scared, not bitter. I wake up everyday excited to see my students, excited to spend another day building into their futures with them, and hopefully being able to be just one small part of their success story someday.
I still live with some nerve issues in my spine, and I have to be careful with some things that I do, but still to this day, my third year in this role, I have no migraines daily challenging my will to live a happy life here on this earth. Nothing explains those migraines, no Dr., not the specialists that I'd seen, nothing.

Naturally, human nature wants to debunk this, or try to come up with a different reason, most suggest it was the stress of my role in management prior to accepting this new role, some wonder if the physical labor aspect changed, but I know why the last several years of my life played out the way that they have, not to mention the stress of jumping into the instructor seat five weeks after school had already started for the year far exceeded the stress of managing a team of very capable technicians everyday.

I hope that this story doesn't offend anyone, I share this story with anyone who will listen these days. I share this not to tell anyone how they should live, or what they should believe.
I choose to live each day with gratitude and purpose. This is now my third year teaching, occasionally the fear of migraines coming back creeps in my mind, or the fear of not being adequate for this role, but then I remember this story, the story of my journey, and then I get back to work.

My name is Gary Prins,
This is my story, and it isn't over yet.

What ASE Certifications do you currently hold?
I currently hold the ASE certifications of B2, B3, and B4.

If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice what would it be?
Take Spanish classes in school!

Who or what is your biggest inspiration in the automotive field?
That fact that we get to restore a form of order in this world one vehicle at a time.

Do you have a project vehicle? If so, please describe it.
I have a 1976 Jeep CJ-5 that my dad and I built from the ground up before I turned 16. I mowed a lot of grass and shoveled a lot of horse stalls to pay for that Jeep!It still sits in my garage today and brings me joy every time I walk past it. And it's a Jeep, so it's always a project!