Fleetio, ASE partner on technician certification scholarship

Fleetio and the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) are partnering to launch the Fleetio Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) Scholarship Program. The program will award six scholarships to auto and truck technicians and students pursuing ASE certifications, the two organizations announced at the American Trucking Associations’ Technology and Maintenance Council Annual Meeting and Transportation Technology Exposition in Nashville.

According to Belinda Rueffer, vice president of marketing at Fleetio, fleets are having significant issues with recruiting and retaining qualified talent within their shops, and many have even resorted to sponsoring ASE certifications for technicians from other industries, programs, and countries.

"Those stories inspired us to develop a program with this so that we could give back and help offset some of those costs for those certification programs," she explained in a media presentation at the event.

The scholarship is open to auto and truck technicians and students pursuing Professional-level Certification tests or an ASE-accredited training program. The nominee must be an automotive or truck technician, or a student who is currently working as an automotive or truck technician and would like to be ASE certified and/or enrolled in an ASE auto or truck training program. Nominations will be open March 31, 2025, through May 1, 2025, on Fleetio’s website. To nominate a technician or student for the scholarship, active Fleetio customers will only need to answer three questions:

Why should this nominee be selected for the ASE scholarship? (3-5 sentences)
How has the nominee shown leadership and responsibility in their role? (3-5 sentences)
Is there anything else you would like to add about the nominee?

After submissions close at the start of May, Fleetio’s selection committee will evaluate the nominations based on their commitment to advancing their careers. There will be one grand-prize scholarship of $3,000 to cover registration and testing fees for up to three ASE Professional-level Certification tests and tool upgrades, and five runner-up awards of $1,000 to assist with certification testing costs, tools, and other supplies.

Belinda Rueffer, vice president of Marketing at Fleetio, and George Arrants, VP of ASE Education Foundation at TMC

Scholarship winners will be notified on May 15, 2025, after which there will be a public announcement on June 12, 2025. The scholarships will need to be used by December 31, 2026, with recipients providing proof from ASE of registration in three ASE Professional-level Certification tests by December 31, 2026.

With the scholarship, ASE and Fleetio hope that both student technicians and experienced techs will benefit both in experience and pay.

Retention benefits

George Arrants, vice president of the ASE Education Foundation, noted that with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s recent exemption for TMC entry-level technicians, younger technicians could earn their brake or PM certifications faster, allowing them to enter the workforce more quickly.

“The timing of this scholarship will help those students hopefully earn those two certifications, which would benefit both the student and the organization,” Arrants explained.

Additionally, technician retention could be increased with the scholarship, too. In 2021, the ASE Education Foundation found that 41% of technicians leave the industry within the first two years. But Arrants argued that with the scholarship helping students and young technicians get their certifications to do more varied work, they’ll have more reason to stay in the shop.

“If a young technician can't do brakes or PMs because they have to have a year under their belt, that means they're sweeping floors, they're doing other things, and that discourages them,” he noted.

But the benefits of the scholarship can work for older techs earning their certifications as well, further increasing retention. Arrants noted that many fleets give technicians an hourly pay increase when they earn an ASE certification, which could equate to a yearly pay increase of as much as $11,000 based on how many tests they pass.

“This scholarship would be open to those types of technicians that are not just entry-level, but also advancing and wanting to reach that master level, because we believe that by offering these financial incentives, that'll help with retention,” said Rueffer. “As their earning potential increases, as their fleets are investing in them, hopefully that will translate into retention and better-qualified work.”