MARTINSVILLE (WSLS10) - Patrick Henry Community College's Auto Body Program is set to return this fall after a two year hiatus.
Thursday evening, representatives from several local auto body companies will meet with members of the program to talk about what students should be learning.
According to program organizers, working on the body of a car and doing the work correctly is something that takes skill and is also in demand.
"There's nobody getting into it because there hasn't been anything around here for years," Billy Toufas explained.
Toufas is a general manager at Gregory's Auto Body in Ridgeway, one of the companies Patrick Henry Community College has invited to tonight's meeting.
He says many of the people in the auto body industry are nearing retirement.
He hopes the college bringing back the auto body program will help encourage younger people to get into the auto body industry.
"They need to work with some of the older guys and understand what it takes to repair a car," Toufas emphasized. "It's a good job, it's got good opportunities."
With jobs in general at a premium in Martinsville and Henry County, Patrick Henry's Auto Body Program instructor, Robert Wagner, says preparing students properly once the program starts back up in August is critical.
"I've stopped at several different body shops over the past couple of weeks and several different ones in the area are looking for painters and preppers and detail guys," Wagner said. "There's all sorts of work out there if there were to be the person out there that had the qualifications for the job."
"We've been out of it for a couple years, so I want to talk to the people that's doing it every day so I know exactly where to put our students at," said Wagner.
He is hopeful that he will have a full class of students this fall.
For more information about the program, click here.