COLLECTORS FOUNDATION
Robert Roach and Jason Thomas (upper left) have teamed up to give kids more hands-on experience. One of Roach's greatest teaching tools is his 1963 Studebaker Avanti.
HANDS-ON HELP
ONE RESOURCEFUL SHOP TEACHER IS TRYING TO GIVE HIS KIDS EVERY ADVANTAGE
Stefan Lombard
One Saturday in November 2011, Robert Roach drove a few of his Carson High School shop class students out to Redondo Beach for the Hagerty Driving Experience, a unique opportunity for the kids to learn to drive cool old cars alongside their patient owners. It was a unique opportunity for Roach, too, because it led him to Bob Knechel, president of the Collectors Foundation.
Carson falls in the Los Angeles Unified School District and is one of few schools that still has a shop class. But amid ever-tightening budgetary restrictions (Roach’s annual budget in 2012 was just $200), there has been little in the way of investment in kids who genuinely want to learn to work with their hands.
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“I call it the This Old House model,” Roach says. “You had Bob Vila, who does all the talking, and you had Norm Abram, the quiet guy who knows everything and could do everything. I’m kind of the Bob Vila guy, and Jason is Norm. He can do it all, and I translate it for the kids.” The system is work- ing, and with Jason in class two days a week, Roach is able to offer more hands-on work to his students. The pair have even opened up the shop every other Saturday to allow students to come work on whatever they want; the first weekend, 22 kids showed up.
Roach is a Studebaker guy, and he’s using his own cars as teaching tools in the shop. Fellow Studebaker Club members have also stepped up to
With more than 40 students per period, Roach was simply unable to su- pervise kids in his classroom and those outside working on projects. What he needed was another set of eyes. The $16,800 Collectors Foundation grant allows him those eyes in the form of Jason Thomas, a part-time instructor with more than 40 years of experience in the automotive industry, particularly diagnostics and restoration services.
help the program. One, a licensed contractor, installed an Ingersoll Rand industrial compressor that had been sitting on a pallet for three years, hung up in district bureaucracy. Oth- ers have donated money to fund con- sumables like chemicals, carb cleaner, gaskets, tools and more. Roach also solicited donations from a local uni- form rental company; one Saturday, a truckload of old uniforms showed up, and each kid now has a jumpsuit.
Roach’s resourcefulness is paying off and is just one reason the Collectors Foundation wanted to help. “Robert is rebuilding the program from the bot- tom up,” says Knechel. “I’m convinced that, under the leadership of Robert and Jason, it will rise from neglect to success. And the collector vehicle community will ultimately be the ben- eficiary of this new talent.”
To learn more about the Collectors Foundation, visit
collectorsfoundation.org. For more on the Hagerty Driving Experience, email
tsalsbury@hagerty.com.
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