Owens Community College showcased its latest in innovative academic resources as the college unveiled an upgraded “green” Auto Body Refinishing Laboratory last week.

With this new equipment, Owens becomes one of the first academic institutions in the Midwest to feature BASF environmental-friendly waterborne refinish technology.

Curtice resident Ben Frazier, a lab technician in Owens’ auto body refinishing laboratory, says the collision industry is on the “threshold” of becoming more environmentally friendly.

“We got lucky enough to get a hold of the technology. I think we are the second school in the country to have this available to us,” Frazier said. “It will definitely put (Owens’) skill set at the leading edge of technology.

“It’s going to be a big change for a lot of shops. We’ve seen it on the automotive side with changes in refrigerants and lower emissions from vehicles and things like that. So the technology ramps up when you need these specific parameters. I think you are going to see that on the collision side as well — the technology needs to ramp up to adjust to the future of the business,” Frazier continued.

The newly upgraded lab will support and promote experiential learning at the highest level through various state-of-art resources including a new ONYX HD Waterborne Basecoat System and other equipment, which were donated by BASF through the I-CAR Education Foundation.

“The initial charge of the paint industry is to make a greener product,” Frazier said. “VOC (volatile organic compounds) is a by-product of painting that is a hazard, so the waterborne technology is much lower in VOC than the solvent-based stuff. But an added side effect is that it ends up spraying out a lot better, there’s less work after the fact it’s sprayed out, so it does end up being a better product.”
Tracy Campbell, Owens chair of transportation technologies, said, “The new waterborne basecoat technology is becoming the standard leader within the automotive industry as more and more organizations are moving toward the more cost-efficient, environmentally-friendly low-VOC coating.”

As a lab technician, Frazier is in charge of making sure equipment and the lab scenario are in place for instructors. He has worked at Owens five years, and says safety is a big part of his job.

As Frazier is talking, students John-Paul Huntoon and Andrew Billmyer were demonstrating. “Right now, one of the students is in the mixing lab mixing up some of the new waterborne paint. He’s doing a spray-out demonstration so people can kind of see the process that it goes through in order to prepare the new system,” Frazier said.

“Anybody else here might not see a big deal in it, but people who are used to dealing with solvent-based and spray-out, they are the ones who would see a big difference. You’d almost have to be right up on the fender to see how the paint is laying, and how it flows out of the gun cleaner and seems to lay better. It seems to be less work afterwards.”

Frazier pointed to two nearby autos to show how the product made a differences.

“This Grand Am actually was painted with the waterborne. It’s got a light metallic in it, and one of the things that happened with the Impala, if you look at this Impala, is the paint kind of flowed together because it’s metal and it is attracted to it, and on the waterborne it tends not to do that,” Frazier said.

School officials attending the demonstration were alongside representatives from BASF.

“It’s a large donation to the school on behalf of BASF,” Frazier said. “It’s actually bringing Owens Community College technology higher than what is in the current field. Most of the current fields are still using solvent-based and now we are on the leading edge of the waterborne technology.”

Also present were representatives from the I-CAR Education Foundation, which operates grant programs to aid automotive schools in keeping up to date with the latest technology.

The foundation, founded in 1991, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to securing donations that support philanthropic and collision repair activities that promote and enhance career opportunities in the industry.

The foundation was able to match Owens’s request for waterborne equipment through its 2009 “Ultimate Collision Education Makeover” grant application.

Owens lost to another school in competition for a major $50,000 grant, but did make out by getting the donation from BASF thanks to I-CAR.

“You had to record what your surroundings were, put what you would like to see in the program out of their grant, and then go apply for it. Unfortunately we didn’t get the grant, but only one place did out of I don’t know how many schools that applied for it,” Frazier said.
Owens assistant professor of transportation technologies Jeff Howard added, “This donation will provide our students the opportunity to be trained with products and equipment that are the way of the future. They will understand firsthand the benefits that this new technology will provide to the refinish technician, the repair facility and the environment.”
For more information on the foundation visit www.ed-foundation.org.

In addition to becoming one of the first academic institutions in the Midwest to feature BASF waterborne refinish technology, Owens officials say the school will be placing an emphasis on educating students about the importance of reducing basecoat solvent emissions from an environmental standpoint through its experiential learning curriculum.

Owens is the only public academic institution in Ohio to offer an Auto Body Refinish Technician program.

“We are hearing reports across the country how schools are closing or programs are being cut due to budgetary concerns,” said Scott Kruger, I-CAR Education Foundation Executive Director. “BASF stepping up with this donation not only assists Owens Community College with costs for their collision program but is also providing the school the opportunity to teach with the latest in waterborne equipment and tools.”

Owens students have the opportunity to pursue a certificate while preparing them for careers in automotive painting and refinishing at dealerships or independently-owned auto body collision repair centers nationwide.

Certified by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and a member of the I-CAR Training Alliance, Owens’ program requires 21-credit hours of academic coursework that includes panel and hardware replacement, sheet metal repair, plastic metal repair, refinishing and collision repair estimating. All refinish courses feature BASF products, which enables students to learn color matching using COLOR-MAX2, paint formula retrieval using SmartTRAKIII, as well as exploring operations using VisionPlus Business Solutions.

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