Corey Schnaare has a variety of interests. He is an outdoorsman, who enjoys hunting, water skiing—you name it. But it all takes a backseat to one thing: cars. For Corey, cars are a fact of life and they always have been. He grew up around race cars. As a child, as he says, all his toys had motors on them. And all those motors demanded attention. “We didn’t have money for repairs,” Corey says. “If something broke and you wanted it fixed, you sat down and read the books!”

Even now, as a Master Technician, Schnaare observes that there are times when he has to hunker down. “There are days when you might feel pretty beat down,” Schnaare says. “There are cars out there that make you feel like you don’t know anything. But if you give up on a car, you’re gonna give up on the next thing that gives you trouble. You gotta face your goals, move past ‘em. Crush ‘em.”

Corey emphasizes the value of knowing when to step back. “Sometimes you just gotta leave work at work, ‘cause it can get to be pretty hard on you.” Often, he cannot solve a puzzle until he puts it down. “I’ve been at home, sittin’ there for dinner, and I’ll go: ‘That’s it! That’s what’s gonna fix this!’ And my wife is, like, ‘What are you talking about?’” He laughs. “I’m like: ‘Nothing! But I know what I’m gonna do tomorrow!’ If you obsess, you won’t get that ‘Eureka!’ moment.”

Necessity pressed Horacio Echeverria into technician work. His car needed new brakes and it was cheaper to do it himself. It was as simple as that. He did the job. Afterward, Horacio felt a remarkable sense of relief but did not think much of it. Finally, after doing a few more jobs, it dawned on him: working on cars relaxed him. “It’s very calming to me,” he says. He started to do repair jobs for friends and family. People were willing to pay him to do something he genuinely enjoyed.

Straight off, Echeverria hit UTI, then went right to work. As an Infiniti lube technician, he was actively encouraged to do online training during his downtime. He remembers a UTI instructor told him: “You’ve got student loans to pay off, so always do your online training. It’ll only make you more valuable.” By the time he came to Nissan, the sheer amount of training he had completed prompted them to push him right through his Master Technician training. Once certified, he kept right on going. “I’m GT-R certified, LEAF certified and Hybrid certified,” Echeverria says.

Though technician work is still soothing, these days Horacio has found other activities to help him blow off steam. “I play video games,” he says. “And paint ball.” No shock that his favorite paint ball location is in nearby Allen, Texas. “They have this outdoor arena,” he says. “And they grabbed the whole design from a level on Call of Duty. So you actually get to play inside Call of Duty.” Which sounds fun, but not exactly relaxing!

Summer can be tricky for parents. What do you do with the kids when they are home from school for three months? Ryan Jarrell’s dad went with the simplest solution. Every day, he brought Ryan to the independent shop where he worked. “I just hung around the shop,” Ryan says. “I’d hand him wrenches, help out and whatnot,” Ryan says. “I was 7 or 8.”

And so it was that Jarrell’s technician training started early. And it has never really stopped. Constant learning, development and improvement are cornerstones of Jarrell’s mindset. Fortunately, his Nissan managers have always supported his drive. “My dealership works really hard to get technicians through training,” Jarrell says. “It helps the technician and it helps the dealership.”

Ryan and his father still work together in the garage, though these days it is on a project car. Ryan races the car at a drag strip in North Carolina. “It’s nerve-wracking, trying to get it to start right off the line,” Ryan says. “But it is really fun. Your heart gets to pounding.”

Pounding hearts have their place at the drag strip, but in the garage, Jarrell keeps his pulse steady. “Each and every little bolt might be stubborn,” he says. “But if you’re the kind of guy that gets mad and starts throwing wrenches, this probably isn’t the job for you! Just do your best and stay calm.” That attitude will come in handy soon; Jarrell is about to become a new father. “It’s a little girl!” he says.

Saul Davalos heads up a bona fide car family. He has two boys and both of them work with him at McGavock Nissan. He is training one now, and the other is on the cusp of becoming a Master Technician himself. On afternoons and weekends, they all run their own two-lift shop, which handles all kinds of work, from everyday repairs to modifications and restorations. Along with his sons, Saul is building a stable of “trailer queen” show cars, one of which was recently in Lowrider Magazine.

It was not always like this. Growing up, cars were hardly a Davalos family interest. In fact, it was just Davalos and his personal fascination with all things mechanical. At 14, he turned that interest into a business and opened a small shop at his house. “I was doing Fords, GMs, some Hondas,” he says. “Water pumps, rebuilding carburetors back in the day, distributors, timing chains, 350s, 305s, 302s.” Davalos dropped out of school in the 10th grade to attend vocational school. After a short stint with GM, Saul came to Nissan. He has been with Nissan for 21 years.

Saul is glad he stayed with one maker. “If you’re going to make your life out of this, stay in one place,” he says. “Don’t jump around from dealership to dealership. A guy gets to thinking he’s not making enough money in one place, but he doesn’t realize that politics are everywhere. It’s what you make out of it. If you’re not making the money here, ask yourself what are you doing wrong? Stick with one maker and really learn it.”

“Never stop learning,” says Joe Foster. “Learn something new every day.” This is the cornerstone of Foster’s technician philosophy. It is how he keeps the job fresh and interesting, and it extends to the kinds of jobs he prefers. “I like weird electrical diagnosis,” he says. “Especially if it’s something nobody’s ever seen before, and you figure it out, it’s like, ‘Wow!’ It’s very rewarding.”

No surprise that Foster found Master Technician training fun and worthwhile. “You encounter a lot of specifics, for sure,” he says. “It definitely gives you real-world training because even just doing a simple reprogram if the battery voltage is too low it won’t even go through.” Foster also enjoys the brain trust that occurs around training centers. “You can talk to other techs about things you deal with at the dealership.” Having passed the training, Foster can spout specs and procedures off the top of his head. “I don’t have to go by the book all the time now,” he says. “The book is great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not always the fastest way to get something done.”

But how does Joe learn new things every day when he is not at the training center? “Getting into other people’s business,” he says. “If somebody’s having trouble, I like to go see what they’re up against. There are opportunities to learn every day. If you’re curious and you like learning, you’ll find them.”

To do what you love is a gift. Efrain Salazar keeps that in mind. “I’m grateful to Nissan for letting me work on their car line,” he says. “They’re straight-forward cars, good to work on, and you should always remember where you come from.” Efrain loves his work but came to it by necessity, not passion. Time was, he never thought about cars at all…until the timing chain in his vehicle went out. That first repair visit shocked him. “The mechanic really charged me a lot,” Efrain says. “I said: ‘From now on, I’m going to do my own repairs, and I’m going to study to be a mechanic.’”

Peterson got into cars watching his father and uncle work on a series of 1962 Chevy Impalas. “That was their car,” he laughs. “Not the ’63, not the ’61; just the ‘62.” Peterson has been with Nissan for the last 16 years and praises their Master Technician training for being “flat-rate compatible. It’s really designed to help you maximize your time.”

And so he did, regardless of outside resistance. “Different managers have a different point of view toward training,” Salazar says. “My current managers are great, but some of the management, they slow you down.” Ultimately, Salazar developed his own momentum. “As soon as I got my first ASE, it just motivated me to keep going.” Now that he is certified, Salazar enjoys greater confidence and more clout. “It’s good to have that certification to back you up,” he says.

After work, Efrain enjoys soccer, barbecues and beer. And—you guessed it—working on cars. After 10 years under the hood, turning wrenches is in Salazar’s blood, and he has a hard time stepping away. “I work on friends’ cars, family’s cars.” He continues: “It’s been a rough road, with plenty of obstacles. But I always think in the morning, I started at the bottom, and I really enjoy what I do. I’m gonna get through the day and I’m gonna remember where I come from.”

The managers at the dealership where Jaime Gonzales works were not too concerned about him getting his Master Technician certification. Their thing was the OBDII certification. Master Technician status had been on Jaime’s mind, however. Once he had proven himself with the OBDII, he casually asked if he could continue on and get more certifications. Happily, they said yes. “I just wanted to learn all I could about the cars I work on,” he says. “I want to learn everything I can.” Eighteen months later, Jaime became a Master Technician.

“The training was really helpful,” Gonzales says. “It makes things a lot easier, diagnosis-wise. Especially learning basic electrical. Everybody should take that class. It could seem repetitive, but it’s not. It keeps changing. And if you don’t pay close attention, you won’t pass it.” Gonzales says schematics are crucial to the contemporary technician. They constitute a whole other language, and though that language is simple, it must nevertheless be mastered to perform proper electrical repair. “And if you don’t understand something, ask questions. You might read the manual and not understand it. So, go and talk to another technician. They explain it, then you go back to the manual and all of a sudden it makes sense.”

Jaime likes to drag race. He will buy a car, fix it up, take it to the drag strip for a while, then get tired of it and sell it. “Then I get another one,” he laughs. “We have a drag strip fairly close by here. The rest of my time goes to soccer. I’m a coach for my kid’s soccer team. That takes up my whole week!”

Let’s say someone was considering a career in technician work. What advice would Tim Morrison give him? “Don’t,” he says. There is a long pause, and then Tim starts laughing. Tim has a love-hate relationship with technician work. After decades fixing other people’s cars, Tim says: “It’s become a job, let’s put it that way.”

But Morrison became a technician for some very specific reasons. He made the decision at the age of 12. “I was working on bikes in my neighborhood. I was the guy patchin’ all the tires! I decided I didn’t want to be stuck in a factory job. I wanted to do something that was different every day, and that would be a challenge. And it has been that, in a good way.”

But in terms of recreation, these days it is all about ATVs. “My son and I ride our four wheelers, snowmobiles. We go camping,” Tim says. “And when we’re not doing that, we’re on our motorcycles. He enjoys it, and I enjoy it, so it’s a good chance to spend some time together.”

But, wait a minute. Seriously, how would Morrison tell a new technician to approach his career? Morrison gets serious, just for a moment, and lays down some bona fide veteran technician wisdom. “Don’t be afraid to take risks,” he says. “Go out on a limb with your repairs. You expand your abilities by taking on jobs your boss says you’re not qualified for. Don’t wait for somebody to tell you to do it. Figure it out.”

Mohsin Naeem was not into cars. In fact, his family did not own one. “Growing up in Pakistan, we only had bicycles,” Mohsin says. After coming to the U.S., they owned one van. But Mohsin needed a career. “We couldn’t afford the education for me to become a doctor or a lawyer,” he says. “And as I got older, I noticed more and more friends having issues with their cars and taking them in to mechanics.” Many of these mechanics were not very good. Mohsin got to thinking. “I said: ‘If I could be good at this, it might work out.’” So Mohsin went to automotive school. “I didn’t know anything,” he says. “Not even what a hood was!” But he focused and after school went straight to Star Nissan. “I’ve been here since,” he says.

Naeem’s technician philosophy contains a number of different elements, but he values intuition and experience above all. The secret to being a great technician, he says, is attention, using your head, and not slavishly following what some book, teacher or manual tells you. “School is just fifty percent. The effort comes from the person. Don’t remember anything. Try to learn. Most people just seem to memorize.”

Mohsin feels the same about manuals. “One Service Manual was made for California and Michigan,” he says. “But those are two different environments, 365 days a year. Therefore, it’s the tiny little detail that you pay attention to when you’re reading that sets you apart.”

Michael Stubbs has put in his time. Five years with Honda, five more with Hyundai, and 12 years with Land Rover, and a Master Technician certification with each. When the economy took a dive, he left Land Rover and came to Nissan. Now the three-time Master Technician found himself in a funny position. Virtual Academy classed him as a trainee. When he made the jump to Infiniti, it was under better circumstances. “Their Master Technician was retiring,” Michael says. “So I was brought in to take his place.” He worked with the outgoing Master Technician, and the transition took under a year.

When Stubbs leaves the dealership after working on cars for 12 hours, he tries to stay as far away from them as possible. He enjoys off-hours recreation of the two-wheeled variety. “When you’re riding in a car, you’re in this encapsulated space, moving down the road,” he says. “When you’re on a motorcycle, you’ve got the sun on your face, there’s fresh air… Well, sometimes when you’re passing some of the farms where I live you don’t get such fresh air, but the views are better. You get this relaxing, Zen type of experience.”

Michael wishes he could spend more time with his wife and family. Fortunately for him, bikes and family go hand-in-hand. “Everyone in my family is a big motorcycle enthusiast,” he says. “So we all gather together and ride to Williamsburg, Virginia or up into the mountains or wherever we feel would be a fun place to ride to that day.” Sounds like a pretty good scene. “It is,” Michael says. “I highly recommend it.”

“Some people just do this for the paycheck, but it’s more than that for me,” says Aaron Wright. “What you do is your legacy. I want to grow with the knowledge, grow with the technology in one product line.” That is why Aaron jumped from independent shops to a large manufacturer dealership. Sure, stability was a factor, too. He definitely wanted a career in automotive technology. But Aaron likes that all the cars he deals with have very specific similarities and differences. He is in sync with the machines he works on, and the smallest irregularities have meaning and significance.33

Then he starts peeling off bits of personal philosophy, like: “The one thing nobody can take away is your knowledge,” and you realize you are“A guy in IT came over to me here the other day, and he said: ‘Man, I didn’t hear nothing when I drove this, but I want them 20-year ears. Put them 20-year ears on it.’ Sure enough, quarter mile down the road and yeah, I said: ‘Your right rear hub bearing’s making noise,’” Wright laughs. “He said: ‘Man, I don’t know how you hear something like that!’ But you just tune into it, you know?”

For Aaron, excellence is the primary pursuit, and everything else flows from that. Just the other day, Aaron printed out his training history and was surprised to find the document was 12 pages long. He says: “A lot of guys are like: ‘They don’t pay me to do this training, they didn’t pay me for this half hour or that.’ But really, they are paying you, just not right now. Don’t worry about that half hour. Learn as much as you can, do a good a job and the rest of it comes.”