Toby Chess

Toby Chess earned a business administration degree from the University of Southern California in 1969 and in 1972 opened a Volkswagen salvage yard and body shop in Culver City, Calif., with his father. He later managed training for a nine-location body shop group and worked three years as an insurance fraud investigator. In 2005 he began teaching for I-CAR and started a mobile welding training and testing program that had reached technicians in 11 states by 2025. He co-chaired the CIC Write It Right Committee, chaired or co-chaired, with March Taylor, its Technical Committee for more than a decade, and served on the Society of Collision Repair Specialists board from 2004 to 2011. He wrote columns for Autobody News, BodyShop Business, ABRN and FenderBender, and he received the ABRN Industry Leadership Award and the SCRS Lifetime Achievement Award.