Pub. 13 2014-2015 Issue 2

N E W J E R S E Y C O A L I T I O N O F A U T O M O T I V E R E T A I L E R S I S S U E N O . 3 , 2 0 1 4 22 new jersey auto retailer The Future Looks Bright for NJ CAR’s Academy BY ROBERT C. MAY , NJ CAR MANAGING DIRECTOR & STAFF COUNSEL The NJ CAR Academy was created in 2008, in partnershipwith Judy Vann of JV Solutions. The driving force behind The Academy’s creation was to provide consistency in the delivery of education and training services to Coalition members and their employees. With nearly three decades of experience in the retail auto industry, Judy specializes in sales,marketing, F&I andmanagement training. She is an AFIP-Accredited Facilitator for the AFIP Certification Program and has assisted hundreds of F&I Managers through the certification process over the last five years. Judy’s proven training methods, which incorporate her real- world experiences with a meaningful approach to classroom instruction, have resulted in some of the highest test scores in AFIP’s history. Judy is the training specialist behind the NJ CAR Academy. Since theNJCARAcademywas created, all of theCoalition’s training and education programs has been offered under its umbrella. In addition tonumerous andvaried seminars,webinars and in-dealership training sessions offered by NJ CAR Academy, the Coalition’s educational programming is further supplemented with NJ CAR’s Motor Vehicle and Compliance Training, and the Webinar Program provided through DealersEdge . Training offered by the Coalition can take the form of “in-person classroominstruction” (i.e. a traditional seminar ); electronic training ( i.e. a webinar ); or customized instruction provided on-site at a dealership location. Over the last 6 years, the NJ CARAcademy has developed numerous training materials so a program can be customized to accommodate the needs of any individual dealership or dealer group—on virtually any topic. One of the benefits of in-dealership training is that there is no travel (“down time”) required for dealership employees. And, byoffering bothamorning and anafternoon session, all dealership employees can be trained with minimal impact on a dealership’s daily operations. In part, the NJ CARAcademy grew out of the successful compliance training certification program that NJ CAR offered, which complimented the publication of the NJ CAR Legal & Regulatory Compliance Guide. The guide was written by Patrick Cox and myself and published by the Coalition in 2008. At that time, the publication represented the totality of the staff’s knowledge on an extensive list of topics. The Guide was a five-volume set, with two supplements and included over 1,500 pages of information. Keeping all of the information current that was included in the NJ CAR Legal & Regulatory Compliance Guide became a monumental undertaking and necessitated that users of the Guide check both a separate Index (for the latest developments in the law ) as well as theGuide, itself. Over time, the format became cumbersome for users to work with. Ultimately, a newapproachwas taken, beginning in 2010, when individual guides on selected topics were published by the Coalition. To date, NJ CAR has published the following management guides: Volume I: The New Jersey Sales &Use Tax; Volume II: Consumer Fraud