Paying It Forward

THE COLLECTOR CAR world has never been more robust than it is today, but even so, there are challenges on the horizon. One fundamental issue is the aging out of a skilled workforce — the mechanics, painters, trimmers, restoration techs and beyond. The collector car world relies on these people to make it work — and we’re entering a time when torches must be passed for the state of the art to be maintained, let alone pushed to new levels.

Classic cars have a draw all their own, but for those young people who feel a calling to vintage steel, the professional path forward isn’t always clear or free of obstacle. That’s where The Piston Foundation comes in — a public charity that’s designed to help support young people on their educational path into the collector car world.

Someday is a very real concern for Jeff Mason, President and COO of The Piston Foundation. We sat down with him to learn more about the group and its efforts to leverage today into a better tomorrow for both the hobby and a new generation of technicians.

Tell us about the mission and the goals of The Piston Foundation

The mission of the Piston Foundation is to create a career path for young enthusiasts to come into the collector car industry.

That career path has a couple of key parts to it. There’s supporting education, so that young people can… it’s really about turning their interests into a career. Our goal is to build that career path, because that’s the thing that we see as missing. The jobs are there. The demand is there. There are great shops that need people. There’s just not a path that’s easy to see, for young people to get there. So really, that’s the mission. And that means bringing more young people into these careers and supporting them along the way so that they can be successful — particularly as they get started.

And what does that support look like? How does it work? Walk us through the process… you’re a student and you want to make that step. What do you do?

One thing to remember with Piston is that this is just our fourth year, so everything is being built and everything is new. But the support really comes in a few steps: First, it’s education, which is our scholarship program.

We’ve awarded 33 scholarships over the past two years. We just started in 2022 with our first cohort of 10 scholars. In 2023, we had 23 scholars. In 2024, I hope to have even more.

The scholarship program focuses on supporting students who are in an auto tech program, or a restoration program of some kind. Because technical education is expensive, and just like every other college path, that can be a barrier. Tuition cost can be a barrier.

And so we seek out young people who are interested in a career in classic cars, and are enrolling or are already enrolled in an auto tech program. And that can be at a two-year community college, in a basic auto tech program, or it could be somebody in a four-year program such as McPherson.

The next piece is hands-on training. Even a graduate of the best restoration program in the country isn’t ready to be a full time, billable, resto technician. There’s just too much to learn, too much experience that needs to be gained. So this is the thing that we’re building this year, and we’re really seeking support for, which is our apprenticeship program.

The apprenticeship program seeks to take qualified candidates and place them in a full-time job at a shop that is a partner with the Piston Foundation. Because that shop has the capacity to teach and train and develop that talent.

Often there are some other financial barriers to apprenticeship. It’s not uncommon that the living wage in a city where a quality restoration shop exists, that living wage is higher that what a young apprentice can be paid. So there’s usually this one to two years where that apprentice isn’t fully billable, so it’s difficult for the shop to fully pay them. So in our apprenticeship program, we provide a training grant that makes up those wages so that an apprentice can afford to be an apprentice. And the shop can afford to invest and
develop that talent.

It’s a model that we’re trying to prove out. We have our first apprentice this year, and we’re running a pilot program this year to figure out how to make this work. But we know that there are young people who are interested in these careers and these jobs, we know that there are some barriers for them that include not only getting over that wage piece, but also getting introductions to those shops, and finding those shops, and finding those opportunities. We’re working on figuring out how to help them overcome those barriers, and then help shops find the talent they need, and then develop that talent.

I can’t say that the apprenticeship program is… it’s not a fully baked ready-for-primetime thing. We are very much seeking partners to work through this and figure this out. We know the need is there… There’s supply and demand. There are jobs that need to be filled and there are young people seeking those jobs. We’re trying to overcome the things that are keeping those two apart.

If you’re a shop, or a potential donor, what’s the best way to get involved?

Well, those are two different people.

If it’s a shop that’s interested in participating, working with us, they should contact us through our website — pistonfoundation.org/contact. They should contact us and express their interest.

For donors, there’s a lot of ways that people can get involved. The Piston Foundation is a public charity, meaning we only work for the car community.

There are other charitable organizations within the collector car space… they are private foundations. So they have their needs. They’re working for their agendas, whatever those are, right? All good stuff. Everybody is working and pulling in the same direction.

As a public charity, we have no equity stakeholders. We are publicly aligned and aligned with the interests of the car community. So we view this as… our job is to engage the whole car community to help solve this problem of… this graying workforce that doesn’t have young people coming in to learn those skills and fill those roles. That is a community problem for all of us who want to continue to enjoy our classic cars.

We have a stake in the game, because there aren’t enough car museums to take even all the great 911 Porsches that are out there. These cars all become yard art if we can’t keep driving them. And to keep driving them, we have to be able to maintain them. To maintain them, affordably, for anybody, at any level, there has to be a workforce trained in this.

It’s a community issue. And being a community issue, we’re trying to really create an umbrella that everybody can be under.

So for someone who is really interested in what the Piston Foundation is doing, I would say subscribe to our mailing list. Go on the website at pistonfoundation.org, go to subscribe. Just get involved, and start to hear, and get the information on what we’re doing. We do interviews with our scholars, so you get to hear who these young people are in their own words, and see what they’re really interested in. We’ve got stuff about events, and partnerships that we’re doing and all that.

If someone wants to give, they can give at any level, and again, they can do that on the website.

If they have the means, they can sponsor a Piston Scholar. You can sponsor an individual scholarship. Or if you have the capacity to donate a vehicle, you can donate a classic car to Piston and we will work with our auction partner Bring a Trailer to sell that back into the community and take all of those dollars and put them into our scholarship and apprenticeship fund. Your classic car can literally be what funds the education of a future technician.

Businesses can partner with the Piston Foundation in a number of ways, to assist us in spreading the word, or developing an event, or a fundraiser together… Lots of ways that Piston can work with businesses within the community and within the industry.

Are you aiming specifically at restoration work, or is there room here for modification? What about building custom cars and hot rods?

We talk about the collector car community, which for us is the biggest umbrella we can draw that includes everything from restoration of Brass Era through modern classics, as well as shops that are building Hot Rods and Restomods.

We see all of that as part of the enthusiasts that we’re trying to support. The reason is that the skills that we’re trying to connect young people to, that we’re trying to preserve, those skills are kind of universal across all of that. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a Model A or a Pagani, right? There’s metal work. There’s electrical work. There’s trim. All those skills transfer, and so our focus is really on providing a path into those skill-based jobs, not into any particular era or subset of the car community.

In what ways has the Piston Foundation already reached out to the car community?

As a young organization — and one that’s focused on being a good steward of our donor’s dollars, we are building our outreach to the car community in a methodical way. Sort of a slow and steady build. We’re also a virtual organization. We have no home office — we’ve got folks spread across the country. So our primary outreach has been directly to the schools that are educating. The auto tech programs. So that we can get connected with those young people who might want our assistance. We’re working with our partners such as Lime Rock Park, to be at Lime Rock for a number of events during the year. That’s really our home base community, the northeast car community. Working with partners such as Bring a Trailer to not only have auctions that are fundraisers for the foundation, but also to spread the word. We’ve got some cool things planned later in the year.

We’re stiving to find partners who will help to bring Piston into their own local communities. Because we support Scholars nationally, we can’t be in all those places. We could literally spend all our money just showing up at car shows. It’s impossible. So we are, right now, very engaged in developing an ambassador program, so people who are ambassadors for Piston, who can bring Piston into their local car communities. Whether that’s setting up a table and handing out stickers at a cars and coffee in their local scene, or whether that’s showing up at a larger concours event and doing the same.

This year, developing that group of ambassadors is a real focus for us. We try to communicate as broadly as we can, but we’re really trying to build a group of dedicated ambassadors — people who care about this.

One thing we do know for sure, a lot of people care about this issue, and so we’re trying to connect with people who do in order to build a local footprint in every place that we can.

How has the reception been within the car community so far?

There’s great alignment with the mission. We’re looking to find support for the programs and ways to create the funds that we need to execute on that. We’re still finding our feet there and finding the right partners for that.

We are funded entirely by private donations, and we’ve been successful at funding through the car community, so I would say over the past three years that we’ve operated to date, we’ve gotten almost 800,000 yesses. If we said every dollar that we’ve raised is a yes, then we have 800,000 yesses from the car community. But we need to build that. Because to actually make a dent. To change this dynamic. To be 10 years on, and for everyone to look and say, you know what, there’s a lot of young people coming into this industry. This industry is vibrant and growing. To get there, collectively, we all have to decide that this is going to be something that we’re going to do.

Ultimately, we’re going to have to put our resources to it. I think we’re still moving toward that, and finding the right people to be involved in that.

I will say, currently, we’re in our scholarship period. By the time this prints, that will be over. Our scholarship window ends at the end of April and then awards will be made in June. Then we’ll be into a second scholarship window in the second half of the year. But for this current scholarship window, I’ve got more than 200 applicants currently applying for a scholarship. So from the youth community, from young car enthusiasts that want to take this career path, it’s a very strong response.

How do you measure success in this endeavor?

We measure success on the success of our Piston Scholars. On those who we support, number one, that we can support them through their education, and that they complete their programs and move on to a job. That’s the first measure.

The second would be the later stages of that. How many of those Piston Scholars can we get into an apprenticeship, get into a full- time job. Where they are really getting the hands-on training they need to start a career. Those are really the most important metrics.

Beyond that, we can look at the reach of our organization and say… We now, today, have about 300 individual donors who are supporting the Piston Foundation. If in five years that’s 3,000 or 6,000, then I know that we are engaging the car community in this issue, and we’re all working together, so that would be a very important measure of success. If it’s just a handful of industry players that are supporting the Piston Foundation and that’s where our funding comes from, that’s not the goal.

I hope to have those leaders in the industry be a part of what we’re doing, but we’re going to do it with or without them. They can be a part of it or not… that’s up to them. But because we’re a community-based organization, it’s very important for us to bring more and more people into it.

PISTON SCHOLARS in their own words:

Sean Whetstone, Piston Scholar, Senior at McPherson College

How did you first get involved with cars?

In my junior year of high school, I was offered this technical course at our local community college. There was a program… the public school and the community college were working together to get the students into it. The school didn’t have a shop class, so I was pursuing my interest in cars, and that’s what first allowed it to become… where I started learning about them.

My parents were not car people.

What genre is what started it for you?

American muscle started it for me, but I’ve moved away from that as I’ve learned more and grown in taste.

I gravitated from American muscle to American early 1960s jet set pre-muscle, like beatniks, stuff like that. And European stuff of the same era. That’s where I’m at right now.

How has the Piston Foundation helped?

I am in my senior year, I’ve been awarded the scholarship the last two years, which is $10,000. This year has absolutely glided by as compared to previous years. Actually, the year before — my sophomore year — I started, and in the spring, I realized that I simply couldn’t afford the tuition. I had not figured out how to pay for it. My dad had to take out a private loan to pay for my tuition for my sophomore year. And he was like, “I’m not doing that again… you need to figure something out.” He’s not of means, so that was a big deal for him. So being awarded a Piston scholarship not only allowed me to cover the cost of school, but also relax and focus on my education.

What are you studying right now?

My senior year, last semester, I have advanced electrical, woodworking, applied diagnostics (which is basically automotive tune-up, carburetors and ignitions and testing, stuff like that), and we have a senior project where I’m actually casting a part for a 1921 Oldsmobile. And I’m also working to cast the trophies for our college car show at the same time.

Where do you see yourself after graduation? Where would you like to be, say, five yers down the road and 10 years down the road?

I have just secured a job — I’m going back to Denver, and I’m going to be working as a technician on high-end collector vehicles and race cars. I spent a little bit of time with Racecraft in Englewood, and he absolutely loved me. And I loved it, because he gave me a lot of responsibility and a lot of freedom to just go and take care of the cars. I was working independently most of the time, and it was exciting high-end cars and a very comfortable shop compared to what I’ve been used to… In my own personal life, I have to work in a storage facility. So it’s like… now we’re getting somewhere.

I would not mind working there for an extended period of time. I think that not only can he afford to pay me properly, but I also think he’s got a lot to teach me. He keeps talking about taking me to races. He went to Sebring this year, so… it may well be that I’m there for 10 years.

Lindzie Archer, Piston Scholar, Junior at McPherson College

How did you first get involved with classic cars?

It was kind of a random thing in high school. I had a friend who loved cars and I liked them, but I wasn’t super enthused about them. But then he invited me to some car shows and I started going to those shows. Ever since, it’s just been something that I couldn’t get enough of.

I didn’t really have a plan of what I wanted to do for college… I was thinking a little bit more of an artsy thing. But ever since then, when he started taking me to those shows, it was like, this is what I want to do, so I just went for it.

Was there a moment when that became clear?

It was the summer before I went to college. I was making my dad go to all the car shows near us. I was like, “we have to go, we have to go!” And he said, “Why aren’t you doing this? Why aren’t you pursuing this? This is something you’re crazy about.” And so, it was honestly my dad who said, “you need to do this.” So it was right then and there.

How has the foundation helped?

Oh my goodness. It has done so much for me. College is always scary when it comes to money… for a lot of people. It has definitely blessed me, and I know that there are so many people out there who are supporting me through this, and it just makes me feel so much better about myself… knowing that I can afford to go to college and chase my dreams, and then that people are also supporting me in my dreams.

Where would you like to be, Ideally, in five years when your done with school? Where do you want to end up?

There are a lot of different things that I’m interested in. I might want to have my own shop. I might just want to do photography work, or a magazine — I’ve thought about that. I’m crazy into Formula One, so currently I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything for me that might be along those lines. But I honestly don’t know yet!

Zach Wiernsz, Piston Scholar and second-year student in the automotive program at Penn College

How did you get into cars?

It all started when I was small. I had an infatuation with loud things, and stuff that looked cool. I always had a Matchbox car or Hot Wheel in my hand. That ended up transforming into me holding the light for my dad. And seeing how he did things, and him trying to teach me at a young age. I don’t know how easy it is to explain how cars work to a 4-year-old. But he tried his best. I enjoyed working on cars with him, so from that point on… whatever he had. We had a ton of cars. From what I remember growing up, the longest that we’ve had a car was I think three years.

We ended up reconnecting with my grandfather, and he had a ’66 Cutlass. That was when I was about 13 years old. We’ve also had a ’72 Pontiac LeMans in the garage for a while. I was at that age where I really wanted to start working on things with my dad… get my hands dirty. Have a cool car.

So I had the option between the LeMans and the Cutlass, and I chose the LeMans. Sometimes I question why I did… but it is what it is. I’ve been working on that with him for seven, eight years now. It’s still not done. It’s a project car. I don’t think it will ever be truly finished.

How did you get into cars?

I went to school in McPherson for a semester. They have a lot of connections there. I noticed that my RA had an internship — the first one — through the Piston Foundation.

It didn’t end up working out at McPherson. Just too far from home for me. I live in PA and it’s a 24-hour drive to McPherson. Too far for me. So I was looking around and found Penn College, where I’m at now. Obviously as a college student, you’re looking to try and get scholarships, grants, anything. And I remembered that my RA had that internship. So I gave it a shot and I ended up being one of their recipients.

What are you studying?

I want to open my own shop down the line and build Restomods. I know, unfortunately, the classics are still going to be there. But the classics are also starting to become my daily — which is a ’97 Mustang, which is strange to think about. And even being 27 years old now, there’s still a lot of electrical components compared to a classic car. I’d rather have the knowledge of newer and older stuff, so that way I can adapt easier, and have that box ticked on a resume. “Oh, this kid knows how to hook up an EFI system and how to tune it and everything…” It’s just one of those… it would definitely help down the road, with what’s to come.

What’s the perfect job look like to you?

Working building Restomods at a performance shop. Stock cars are cool, but they’re not enough. I want to put go-fast parts on it, and have a good time and make it look good. And some cars you just can’t. They don’t achieve that aftermarket look per se. Sure, they could be fun. But they’re not as much fun as if you throw a ProCharger on it. Put big tires on it, lower it, you know how it is… you put more power to it, and then it’s like, “man, this is starting to feel slow.” So you keep putting more power to it, and more power, and the next thing you know you have 700 horsepower Fox body.

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