The Automotive Industries Association of Canada (AIA Canada) is proud to announce the appointment of Stuart “Stu” Klein to the newly created position of Senior Director, Collision.
In this position, Stu will join the Association’s senior leadership team, which helps guide AIA Canada’s support and advocacy for the Canadian auto care sector. Stu will play a vital role in helping to direct AIA Canada’s efforts involving the collision sector of the industry.
The appointment was officially announced at the Canadian Collision Industry Forum’s (CCIF) Toronto meeting on February 3, 2023.
Industry experience
Stu brings over 45 years of real-world collision industry experience to AIA Canada, having worked his way from the shop floor to the corporate office. He is a Red Seal technician with 20 years of experience working in repair shops in various roles, including collision technician, painter, production manager, estimator, and general manager. He then moved to the insurance side of the collision industry, spending ten years at State Farm Insurance where he rose through the ranks from appraiser to monitoring a territory of direct repair facilities. Stu joined Fix Network in their head office, where he has been working for the past 15 years. There, he worked closely with shops to help them focus on improvement, before he was chosen to run Fix Networks’ state-of-the-art training facility in Milton, Ontario, when it opened in 2019.
An advocate of continuous training and learning, Stu has been an instructor with I-CAR Canada, a skills-training and recognition program for the collision industry, run by AIA Canada. He is a certified welding trainer and maintains his personal I-CAR Platinum status as a structural technician, non-structural technician, painter, and estimator. He has been involved in countless events aimed at promoting the industry to youth, including lending his expertise and experience to Skills Canada, serving as a judge at both the provincial and national levels.
“While my decision to leave the Fix Network training centre is bittersweet, overseeing AIA Canada’s collision programs opens the opportunity to have a positive effect on the industry at large,” Stu said.
About the position
The new position of Senior Director, Collision, reflects AIA Canada’s commitment to supporting and strengthening the Canadian collision industry.
“The creation of a new position builds on recent moves by AIA Canada to drive success for the collision sector—including enhanced support for the Canadian Collision Industry Forum and the creation of a Collision Repairers Council,” said Andrew Shepherd, AIA Canada’s senior director, industry programs and executive director, I-CAR Canada. “Stuart will be part of AIA Canada’s senior management team and will be engaging in all facets of the collision repair industry including manufacturer relations, I-CAR training and government advocacy.”
