Who Belongs at the Table? (Hint: You Do.)

by Jordan Hendler, WMABA Executive Director

There’s an old saying in business: If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

When you spend your weeks buried in the shop—putting out operational fires, wrestling with delays, and trying to keep up with the endless tide of technical updates—it’s easy to feel like the industry is happening to you, rather than with you. You start to wonder if anyone else is dealing with the same headaches, or if you’re just alone on an island trying to figure out how to make the math work.

That is precisely why Industry Week in Las Vegas exists. And it’s why the theme of this whole season comes down to three words: find your people.

Whether you are holding this magazine on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center right now, or reading it at your desk back home with a bit of late-season regret, I want to talk about what “finding your people” actually means for your bottom line and your sanity.

The Power of a Shared Experience

“Community” can sound like a soft word in a hard-nosed, trade-driven business like ours. But community in the collision industry is pure muscle.

When you sit in a room at the Collision Industry Conference (CIC), you’re not just listening to presentations—you’re realizing that the shop owner sitting next to you from across the country is fighting the exact same battles over repair procedures, rates, and insurer friction that you are. Suddenly, you aren’t just one shop making noise; you’re part of a collective voice that’s driving standard-setting conversations.

That feeling of shared purpose is where real confidence comes from. This same effect happens at every WMABA meeting!

Education as Your Competitive Edge

You can’t defend what you don’t understand, and you can’t charge for what you don’t know exists. That’s where the SCRS Repairer Driven Education (RDE) series comes in.

This isn’t theory taught in a vacuum. The classes lined up in the Las Vegas Convention Center (South Hall Skybridge) classrooms this week—covering everything from capturing mechanical labor and building bulletproof repair plans to managing shop liability—are built by people who walk in your shoes. When you take your managers and estimators into those rooms, you aren’t just earning credits; you’re collecting tools that immediately increase the value and safety of every repair that leaves your shop.

Add in the high-level insights from the OEM Technology Summit and the quick-hitting ideas at IDEAS Collide, and you come away with a multi-year blueprint for growth rather than just surviving day-to-day.

Your Action Plan

If you’re in Vegas right now: turn to page 24 of this issue. Use our event guide as your playbook for the week. Walk the show floor, attend the RDE classes, pull up a chair at CIC, and make it a point to strike up a conversation with someone new. Even cheer the best of the best at the Collision Industry Red Carpet Awards or the SCRS SkyVilla party. If you get lost or need a point in the right direction, call me!

And if you’re back home reading this issue: don’t just toss it on the breakroom table. Dig through the coverage, digest the insights, and make a firm commitment to put yourself in the room next year.

We are always better, smarter, and stronger together. Go find your people, lean into the education, and let’s move this industry forward together!

Want more? Check out the November 2026 issue of Hammer & Dolly!