Tom Martin's career started with a simple opportunity. His sophomore year of high school, Tom was hired to do external painting work at a local body shop. The owner, Roy Stone, noticed his work ethic and offered him a job painting cars. Tom accepted, learned the trade, and eventually became the owner of the business on Jan. 1, 2002.
More than two decades later, the business has grown into three CARSTAR locations in the Miami Valley, located in Sidney, Piqua and Troy. Tom's story has become part of a much larger one: a long-standing partnership between CARSTAR and Upper Valley Career Center (UVCC) that continues to connect students with careers, mentorship and room to grow.
CARSTAR recently made a donation to UVCC's Education Foundation's 50th Anniversary Campaign, supporting the Foundation's efforts to remove barriers and create opportunities for students.
For CARSTAR, giving back to UVCC is personal.
“Kids and giving back to the community. That's my MO,” said Martin, a 1982 graduate of the Upper Valley JVS and UVCC 2020 Distinguished Alumni. “Somebody helped me out once and here I am. You pay it forward. That's always what I've believed and how I live.”
Martin said the donation to UVCC made sense considering approximately half of the employees across CARSTAR's Piqua, Troy and Sidney locations are UVCC alumni.
One of those alumni is Cameron Eisenhardt. Eisenhardt graduated from UVCC in 2006 from the Auto Collision Repair Technologies program before attending Universal Technical Institute (UTI) in Houston, Texas. He graduated from UTI in 2007 and began his career at CARSTAR, where he started at the bottom as a “third-string” technician.
“I washed cars, handled detailing and took on the jobs nobody else wanted,” said Eisenhardt.
He worked his way up, becoming an A-tech by age 25. Tom eventually moved him into the office to learn estimating and customer service, where Eisenhardt admits he had plenty to learn. He later ran the Sidney location for 10 years before transitioning into ownership. Today, he is the majority owner of the Sidney location and also part owner of CARSTAR's Piqua location.
Growing up, Eisenhardt spent time building hot rods with his dad and had an uncle who owned a body shop in Pennsylvania. When he came to UVCC, the experience helped him realize that his passion for collision repair could become a career.
“I went to UVCC and it reaffirmed that I wanted to do this for a living,” Eisenhardt said.
UVCC gives students a strong foundation to build on. From there, CARSTAR can train employees in its own processes and approach to the business, helping them grow from the ground up and develop into the roles and responsibilities that come with a career in the industry.
“We believe that if we bring employees in young and can find the ones that really want to learn, then we can grow them,” Eisenhardt said. “We can teach them the skills, and we can teach them the process.”
Students entering CARSTAR through Work-Based Learning often start at the ground level, gaining hands-on experience and building relationships with experienced employees. From there, that experience can grow into careers as technicians, painters, managers and potentially even owners.
At CARSTAR's Troy location, 10 of the 22 employees began their journey at UVCC. Those employees have come from a variety of programs, including Auto Collision Repair Technologies and even Computer Information Technologies.
“You just never know where your journey is going to take you,” said Sandy Ziegler, who owns the Troy location.
Her journey to CARSTAR is a bit different. She met Martin while working at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car located in the Sidney location. With no previous experience in the automotive industry outside of car rentals, she joined CARSTAR in an entry-level office position and learned the business from the ground up after Tom noticed her strong work ethic. She moved into accounting and estimating before helping expand the business to Troy, eventually moving into management and ownership.
Ziegler has worked with UVCC students since joining CARSTAR in 2011 and said the partnership has become an important part of the company's workforce.
“When a student starts here, very seldom do they go anywhere else,” Ziegler said. “It's [UVCC's partnership] great for helping us build our business as far as employees go. Once they get in here, we retain them as best we can.”
For more than a decade, UVCC Work-Based Learning Coordinator Tony Trapp has worked with the CARSTAR team to connect students with opportunities in the industry. Over the past 10 years, 20 UVCC students have been placed with CARSTAR through Work-Based Learning, including four through Advanced Placement and 16 through the Apprenticeship Program.
CARSTAR also helped shape UVCC's two-week-on, two-week-off Apprenticeship model for transportation programs. The company began participating in the rotation in 2017, giving students the opportunity to gain meaningful experience both in the classroom and on the job.
Trapp said what makes the partnership stand out is CARSTAR's investment in students beyond simply providing a place to work.
“Tom, Cameron, Sandy and their team have invested their time, knowledge and experience into mentoring young people and helping them understand what it takes to become successful technicians,” Trapp said. “Career technical education is designed to connect education directly to the workforce while giving students the opportunity to learn, earn and build a career.”
Now, through its donation to the Education Foundation, CARSTAR is continuing that investment and helping open doors for a new generation of UVCC students. For UVCC and CARSTAR, the partnership has become more than a place for students to work. It has become a pipeline that helps students turn classroom experience into careers while helping a local business build its workforce from within the community.
In many ways, it brings the story full circle. Tom Martin was given an opportunity early in his career, built something of his own and has spent years giving others that same opportunity. Today, CARSTAR is helping open those same doors for a new generation of UVCC students. It all starts with giving someone a chance.
About Upper Valley Career Center
Located in Piqua, Ohio, Upper Valley Career Center (UVCC) offers over 25 career and technical education programs to both high school students and adults. UVCC has been serving students for 50 years from multiple school districts in the Miami Valley region, providing hands-on training, industry certifications, and pathways to post-secondary education and careers. With a commitment to student success and innovation, UVCC is dedicated to providing the highest quality and most technologically advanced educational opportunities for students in a professional, caring environment while networking with the communities we serve.