The tale of how two young people got involved with car audio can shed light on how to grow the base of car audio enthusiasts and future installers and engineers.
Bernnie-Jean Francois, 18, of North Dakota and Tanner Todd, 19, of Missouri were winners of this year’s SkillsUSA Mobile Electronics national competition. Bernnie-Jean won for the high school segment and Tanner won for post-high school (after winning in the high school segment last year).
Their experience shows the value of bringing SkillsUSA’s Mobile Electronics program to more states and more schools, as it is the teacher at the school, in both their cases, that encouraged these young people to get involved.
Bernnie-Jean briefly apprenticed at a local car audio shop and is interested in working at a dealer going forward, even though she has many interests, including robotics and computer repair.
“I’ve always been interested in electronics. Sophomore year, I took DC electronics in the career academy where you can take trade skill classes. Mr. Lee Gullingsrug, he introduced me to SkillsUSA. He’s the advisor of electronics for SkillsUSA. I’ve always been interested in doing extra curricular work, especially for STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics]. I jumped at the opportunity,” said Bernnie-Jean.
She started performing installs for acquaintances. “I don’t currently work at a shop, but would like to,” she said. She did, however job-shadow at Premier Audio in Bizmarck, ND, for two days in the summer. She helped run wires and install speakers for a number of car, boat and yacht jobs.
One of her goals is to become a master installer. She’s taken MECP courses and plans to take the exam for certification. Bernnie-Jean has been pursuing AP classes so she can get her Associates Degree in one year and plans to specialize in electronics technology and communications.
Eventually she’s thinking of becoming an audio or electrical engineer as a possible career. She said Kicker’s Aaron Malin and Jacob Luckey who help run the SkillsUSA championships helped her see how one might pursue this career at Kicker.
“Kicker is the sponsor [a sponsor of the SkillsUSA Mobile Electronics competition]. They have audio engineers. They need electrical engineers to design the amplifiers and speakers, so there’s a lot of opportunities.”
Tanner Todd
Tanner became interested in car audio at the beginning of his senior year in high school. “I wanted to upgrade stuff in my own personal car and had a radio put in by Best Buy. My speakers didn’t work, it was an older vehicle…I started wanting to put subwoofers in. I found out I really liked it.”
Tanner was in an automotive program in technical school and his instructor saw that he liked car audio and pushed him to compete in mobile electronics through SkillsUSA, which he found he enjoyed.
“When I was done competing, Aaron Malin from Kicker set me up with dealers around me. We had lunch and we agreed on a shop that would be good for me to work at. They like that I’m competing and taking the initiative and said they don’t see many young people taking an interest. I’ve been there over a year part time.” The shop is Independence Audio Video in Independence, MO.
At the shop, Tanner installs amplifiers, speakers, remote start, backup cameras and dashcams. He works on boats, ATVs and UTVs and party busses, as well as cars. He works along with two other techs and sometimes installs on his own.
Tanner puts in 24 hours a week at the shop and also attends Metropolitan Community College in Kansas city MO for electrical engineering.
As far as SkillsUSA, Tanner said, “I would recommend it to anyone in the industry that is looking for young people…to get involved. There are so many young kids in the competition; it’s growing. It’s supposed to be in seven more states. There were 20 kids, so seven more is a big increase. Aaron Malin and Jacob Luckey from Kicker are really pushing it. Also Chris Jack, who runs the competition. He’s very good, as well, and puts a lot of effort into it. It would be great for everyone to get involved. It’s hard to explain how big the national convention is [for all segments of SkillsUSA]. About 25,000 people were there in Atlanta, GA [for the national competition].”
Top photo: Bernnie-Jean Francois (center) flanked by Cody Wydick (right) and James Bass.
Fantastic, they are out there and shops need to go where they are. Robotics competitions, tech classes at schools etc. Present, sponsor and participate so kids know who we are and what we do.
Congratulations to both of you it was an honor to have had you in the contest
We need more young blood and energy in this industry!!