Episode 057: Tackling the CAFM

Welcome to the Fleet Success Show, a podcast dedicated to talking about the fundamentals, standards, and best practices that empower today's fleets to achieve fleet success. Let's get into the show.

All right. Welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. Today's episode is going to be a little bit different. We had a live NAFSA Arizona chapter meeting talking all about tackling the CAFM. And so this episode is going to be a recording of that session. So you'll hear some questions from the audience. Joining me on this episode, you'll hear Steve Salzgiver as well as Mary Gerard, both current people over here at RTA Fleet, but both also current CAFS members. So I hope you enjoy this episode as we tackle the CAFM and what it takes to go out and get that certification. I am Josh Turley. I'm the NAFA Arizona chapter chair. Volunteered for this position just because I thought it'd be fun, um, right before COVID So this is our first like big in-person meeting. We were going to do one and then Steve got COVID, so we're glad to have you back. Yeah, um, I guess let me go ahead and introduce the, uh, the other two people sitting with me. So Steve Saltskiver is a CAFS, been in the industry 40-some-odd years. Government Fleet Hall of Famer.

Stop counting.

Stop counting. And then to my left is Mary Gerard. She's our content marketing manager at RTA, is currently pursuing her CA-FM, just recently got your CA-FS.

Yep.

So somebody who's very freshly gone through the certification process and I thought would have a lot of good valuable insight into how to get started, tips and tricks on how to study. And Steve's obviously gone through it as well and has been involved with NAFA at quite a few levels. I'm currently pursuing it. I'm not as diligent as Mary though, so I haven't gotten my first 4 done, but we're all kind of in different stages. How many people have gone out and gotten CAFS certified? CFM? Okay, you got 6 done, working on number 7. Uh, John, you've done all of them and recertified, so you've gone through that process, which is cool. I'm going to talk about that. So CAFM, Certified Automotive Fleet Manager. It's the— it's, you know, probably the premier certification in the fleet industry. It's offered by NAPA. Been around for 35-some-odd years. And what it is, it's a self-study program. So the idea is that this isn't a program you're going to go to a college campus for or anything like this. You do the studying on your own pace at your own time. They give you 3 years to complete the exam and if— or complete all the exams. If you don't complete them in 3 years, you can extend for I think 1 year twice. And then you got to pay for the whole kit and caboodle again. So they do try to give you as much time as possible to get through all 8 certifications. It's open to anyone with 1 year of fleet experience in pretty much any position. So if you're in parts, if you're an associate member, if you're a support member, you can go take these exams and enroll in the CAFM program. If you have people on your team that you think would benefit from more fleet knowledge, they can go and take individual certificates and pieces of the CAFM program. As long as they've got that 1 year of experience, then NAF is pretty generous with that. There are 8 different disciplines, and I'm going to go through all 8 of those. There's exams and study guides for each of them. So you have to go through and take an exam for each of the disciplines and pass the exam for each discipline. Then, but there's study guides to help you along the way too. So you're not just going in and taking a test and hoping that your knowledge that you were taught well by somebody before you. As Mark and Steve can attest, there's actually things on the CAFM exams, you're like, "Huh, that's not how I learned it." Or, "That's not how I would probably even do that." But the CAFM is, the study guides help you understand what they're looking for in the exam.

That's actually why I'm a CAFS.

Yeah, you got to the point where you're like, done.

Because I failed 3 or 4 of these. Yeah, I said, wait a minute, that's not the way I do stuff. But that's what I'd always encourage you, read the book. That's where Mary actually has an advantage, you know, because she just reads the material and regurgitates it.

My usual advice to people taking a test is don't overthink it. But with the CAFM, you almost have to overthink it. It's not open book, you know, like it is a proctored, it's not a proctored exam where you have to go to a testing center. But they will watch you through your video camera and make sure nobody comes in. They want you to check your space. It's, what do you call that, virtually proctored. So you do have to pass all 8 if you're going to do the CA-FM, but the CA-FS is only 4. So if you only want to go for 4 of them or you have somebody that's in a lower level, that's a good way to start. And it does require recertification. So it's only good for 5 years and then you have to go through and keep learning. It's not a get it and you're done for life. If you see somebody with a CAFM on the end of their name, that means that somebody who's actively involved in continuing to learn and educate themselves on fleet. So as far as the CAFM, I know a lot of people like this can be a very daunting program. I don't know how many people have looked at it and then like it took you a while to get started, but that's definitely been my scenario. And it's like one of those like just I got to get off the bench sometimes. And so I wanted to have this session just to kind of help us if we're stuck at a point or if we're— we just need a little bit of rededication to talk about where do we start, how hard is it to go through the process, you know, and then what are some tips and tricks as I prepare and get ready to take the exams. So the 8 different disciplines that the CAFM gets broken apart into, the first one that we hit is asset management, then business management, We have information management. It's going to be a lot of managements for fleet managers. Finance management, maintenance management, fuel management, risk management, and then professional development is the last one. Professional development management. I feel like they really missed an opportunity here. Right. That's the worst one. Steve says professional development is the worst one. Oh yeah.

Especially when you get into the ethics, right? The ethics piece of that. It's like, I mean, not that I'm not ethical, but I mean, they go—

there's a question sometimes, Steve.

Oh, they go so deep.

It's like a college course.

Oh man.

Like psych.

All right. So asset management, where to dive into strategic sourcing. Several aspects of vehicle ownership, things like invoicing and pricing, how do you do vehicle selection procurement, active fleet management, remarketing, what do you do with vehicles when it's time to get rid of them, how do you sell them, capture the most for that. We get into business management, which is— this is like business law. You know, they have like whole semesters of college on business law, but this is law for fleet professionals. Fleet policies, procedures, how do you go out and do an RFP? Like, what's the ethical way to do an RFP? How do you run emergency operations, and when does that kick in? And what does that do to your operation when you're under emergency? Then how do you leverage strategic partnerships, doing strategic partnering in your overall business? Information management, that's all about fleet information management systems. Kind of like RTA. You know, you'll see others in the government space, Faster Asset Works. In trucking and corporate, you're going to see Dossier, Ceteris. There's just a— there's a lot of FMIS providers out there. And you'll see I already flipped the acronym to FMIS because I have an IT background and everything ends in IS. So NIFA kind of flipped it a little bit. So you will see two acronyms in the industry a lot, FIMS, FIMS, or FMIS, which is what I was actually helping them write the module.

They're redoing the FMIS module.

Okay.

And I told them to change that.

Yeah.

What did they say to that? Kathy Wellings, the last one I talked to, she said that's a good idea because she was in charge of it. Yeah, but it's really dumb that they keep that at FEMS when everybody else calls it FMIS. I don't know. I don't know the outcome.

We'll see.

But I need to see when it comes out.

If anybody's got pull at that organization, Steve, I feel like it should be you.

I don't know. We'll see, right?

We'll swap it out for something cool. How do you go out and select the system? And then how is that different than like a telematics solution? Because those are two different things. Data management, you know, how do you do system administration? And then reporting and analytics. And it's really just all about your information. Finance is— it's interesting because a lot of this actually ties in with the business management, but I guess it deserved its own. Separate discipline. Things like personal use policies. How do you govern the personal use of a company-owned vehicle? How do you handle things like vehicle leasing, purchasing, reimbursement? How do you deal with vehicle budgeting? What's the right way to budget for replacements and things of that nature? You'll see lifecycle cost analysis in here. That's one of the ones like, you know, we talk a lot about TCO, lifecycle cost analysis. They teach you how to do that entire, algorithm to figure out optimal replacement times for vehicles based on cost.

They have budgeting and they have rates and all that in there.

Procurement. Procurement, yep. Maintenance, all about running vehicle maintenance, shop operations, how to do maintenance, environmental issues that you have to run into and be concerned about when it comes to maintenance, inventory management, how to do performance monitoring, when do you outsource? When do you outsource to an outside shop? When do you do the repair yourself? Try to figure that out, and then staffing levels. So when you want to talk about VUs, this is the module that's going to dive hard into VUs and staffing levels. Fuel management. This is, again, environmental issues, you know, because it's all about fuel, and, you know, EVs is the big thing right now, and so this talks about that. Commercial programs, conventional fuels, alternative fuels like hydrogen, Oh, help me out. What are some of the other ones? Hydrogen, battery, CNG. So some of the alternate— alternate that are out there. Propane. Yeah, thank you. LNG. There you go. Risk management. These are the fundamentals of risk management. How to know what risks to look for when you're running a shop, when you're running a fleet, what kind of insurances you need, the different fleet safety policies and programs that you need to have. To have a fleet and what the difference is between a policy and a procedure. And then crash management, because none of our vehicles ever get into crashes, ever. So what do you do when you have a vehicle that's in an accident? How do you— how do you pro and try to mitigate some of that when it does happen? And then the last one is clearly our favorite in this room, professional development. It's all about the individuals in the organization. Uh, talks about leadership, uh, business communication. I might have you just tell me, like, is this like, we're talking about how to write a good email, like actual written communication or—

No, it's, it's really hard to explain. It's sort of a catch-all bucket.

Catch-all, like just anything we couldn't shove into the other, we're just going to throw them into professional development.

I think the surprising thing about professional development, it was interesting to me. But it was so deep into the psychology and the sociology. I seriously felt like I was taking like Psych 101 or like 301 or something.

Is that one that you passed or is that—

Yeah, I thought, okay. I legit thought I could take it over holidays. Like, oh, there's like 2 weeks off for Christmas. I'm just going to knock this out. Cause it's probably common sense. And then I got into it. It's like, oh my gosh, you're scaring me so hard. And so I was like, it was like, maybe it's just because my mindset was thinking this was going to be like a gimme class. Like I'm just going to go super fast, but it was so much memorization. It was It was like ethical theories. It was like philosophers. You had to know like who thought what, what their philosophy was. It was hard.

All right. So if I had a piece of advice, then it might be save that one for last so that you're like really motivated to finish it. Like this is the last one I have to do. And like when you're that close, like I just have to do one more and you just grind on the last one.

You know what my new theory is? Because I did fail one. I actually failed the information one. The first time I took it, which is really embarrassing to admit. Um, but my new theory is take the harder ones first because you have to wait a month before you can retest. So then you could start another module while you're waiting your one month to retest. So I'm doing FUEL now because I thought I was going to fail that one. So I figured if I do it now, then it gives me some buffer time to pass time, go back and retest.

I actually had hubris when I did it. I took all 8 at one time.

That's a bold strategy.

Yeah. 'Cause you know, it's a one sitting, $200 back then, but I only passed two of the eight, so. That's great.

And you'd already at this point probably had like 20 years in the industry.

You know, it threw me. It was actually harder than I thought. So those of you that are thinking about doing it, make sure you read the material and it's all there. It's multiple choice questions. One is totally wrong. One is right. The ones in the middle are like, I don't know, could that be right? Could that be wrong? I mean, it's like the way they've done it is kind of interesting on those tests.

I will say, and it can be done very shortly, but most people it does take the full 3 years. But we did have one, Tom Bolt up at City of South Jordan. Yeah. He cranked through it in 2 months, which was impressive. He basically just at the start of like 2021 said, yeah, I'm going to do this this year. They sat down, cranked through all 8, and then got his, you know, they had the I&E in April, and he got presented with it in April. I was like, wow, that's bold, like, that's awesome. I don't think we can all be Tom, but I'm aspiring for that. So some of the benefits, you know, like you talk about how hard it is, I think there's a level of prestige that comes with having the CA-FM. I like that it's fleet-focused, it's fleet-focused education. You can't really go out to any community college or take a course like you can with a lot of tech or, you know, if you want to learn Excel better, there's so many resources available online. This is one of the few that are available for fleet managers. You know, you've got the CPFP, which is sort of, you know, Certification for Public Fleet Professionals. There's a couple others like this, what, CDME?

There's a CEM, Certified Equipment Manager.

Yeah, but this one seems to be like, this is the hardest one to get and it has a lot of prestige that comes with it.

27% on average salary boost.

27%.

27%.

Average salary. If you have that, yep.

If you're going for fleet management.

You get an increased competence. There's just something about learning, like, the right way to do a job, or at least the right way according to NAFSA, you know, learning the importance of industry standards and following standards, finding out what those standards even are. I think the other side of increased competence, too, is that there's, you know, like, we need highly skilled labor. We are getting faced with more difficult— more difficult challenges, more technical challenges every single day in fleet, and this is one of the ways that we can learn how to keep learning. We can learn, you know, what to focus on and how to standardize, and having that competence helps us grow and run our fleets. People who know more are more productive. They're more efficient. There's lessons that you learn like, oh, wow, that's actually a very easy way to do that, solve that problem. Instead of if you're coming in and you have no experience in it, you haven't learned, you're trying to reinvent the wheel, you're trying to invent a better mousetrap when you've never invented the first one. Sometimes it's easier just to see what other people have done before you. Steve mentioned he was a part of the curriculum, you know, helping rebuild the professional development curriculum. NFA curriculum as a whole has been developed by fleet professionals, you know, over the course of its 35 years.

They've actually brought in an adult learning person now. NAPA. Yeah, they have a lot of this may change going forward.

And then I think for, for me, there's an increased longevity. You know, it's one of the benefits that NAPA touts of the CA FM, and they look at it from an increased retention. You know, like it's easier to retain people because you're investing in their education. If you can get budget from city councils or from your organization to pay for certification, it's a good retention tool. But I think for us as professionals, it's also increased longevity because it helps us stay longer in the job. It helps us, you know, raise our own lid. If you want to go Google, there's a Law of the Lid. It's from an author named John Maxwell. Basically, we are the lid on organization. And if we're investing in ourselves and we're investing in the time to go learn and get these certifications, we're raising our own personal lid, which means that as the as the company grows underneath us, as the fleet grows underneath us, we aren't the fleet manager today that we'll need to be to run a, you know, a fleet that's 3 times the size, right, if it's growing. This helps us get to become that fleet manager and helps us raise our own personal lid so that we're not the lid on the organization and we don't get replaced. It increases our longevity in the organization that way. All right, so a couple things on pricing, just so everybody knows. If you're— I think most everybody in here is a NAPA member. Hope. If not, you're here for free.

That's cool.

The— so there is different pricing for NAFA members versus non-members. So you don't have to have a NAFA membership to get your CAAFM. But if you aren't a NAFA member, you do get like a $101 discount if you sign up for both at the same time. You can sign up for the CAAFM enrollment, which I think, John, you mentioned that you just went straight at it. They give you study guides. You can read through the study guides. You can take practice exams, and then you just take the exams. If you're more of a visual person or you like some interactivity, they have the enhanced enrollment, which has webinars included in it. And so you can sign up and watch— and I want to say it was probably Kate Vignault did a lot of them— but you can watch a fleet professional go through the materials from the CAFM, each module.

A lot of those were recorded boot camps.

Yeah. And so NAF offers boot camps, but then you can watch these on demand instead of having to go to one of their pre-scheduled ones, which they haven't done in quite a while.

They didn't do it last year.

I don't know if you've seen anything. I haven't seen any either. So and maybe it's because they have them all prerecorded.

Or maybe because of Kate.

It could be because Kate's no longer part of the organization. But just so you get an idea on what pricing looks like, if you're already a NAF member, $700, and that gives you 3 years to finish the exams. If you're not a NAFA member, then that's going to be $1,300. So almost double, not quite. If you want the webinars included in it, then it's $1,200 for members and $1,800 for non-members. And then you have the $101 discounts if you decide to become a member at the same time. So if you have anybody that's in your organization that's not a member of NAFA, you'll need to look at the, the NAFSA non-member pricing, although you might be able to reach out and sometimes they'll give you NAFSA member pricing if you or multiple people at your company or fleet are NAFSA members.

They will give you a group discount.

Yep. Yeah, I know, because we've done that here. So, uh, all right, so preparing for each exam, and Mariette, you're going to have some really relevant, timely experience on this one. Um, We talk about the first thing when you get into doing the exams, the first thing is look at the study guide, or at least I thought it was. What would be the first thing that you would do?

Yep, I do the study guide. And it's very much, so they give you the study guide and they give you the reference guide. I do not read the reference guide.

It's thick.

It's really thick. It's a lot of material. So I basically do a seek and find between the study guide and it tells you which page to go to.

Yeah.

So you just go to that page and I just copy and paste. Into the study guide.

And you'll find, like, I think you copy and paste. I find I retain better if I write it down or if I type it. And so I actually started doing both, which is really redundant, but I really wanted to make sure, like, I just had a little bit better retention. And so I would write it down and then I would type it into, like, I've got a OneNote file with all the disciplines and all the questions. And so I copied all the questions over and then I would just write the answers. And then you use that, like, if I remember right, you had like flashcards.

Yep, then I do note cards. That's when I do my handwriting.

Yeah.

Is from the note card.

And I think there's something scientific about that where you read material and then write the material, like it helps retain, it just helps it sink in a lot better. The reference guide is, you know, so the study guide's the questions and it's a lot of questions. I think each exam has 50 questions on it, but the 50 could come from any mix and the 50 you get will be different than the 50 somebody else gets. It's, they're randomized questions. But the reference guide has all of the answers in it. And so if you use the study guide, use that to refer to the reference guide, it'll give you the answers. It'll tell you how to do a VEU calculation. It'll tell you how to do a life cycle cost analysis. And then there's some practice questions at the end of the study guide to help you run through those, you know, the ones where you actually have to know the formulas and know the arithmetic.

I would say majority of the time, try to do the study guide. Probably like 30% of those end up being on the exam.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You have the bootcamp webinars, which again is, you know, they're 3 to 4 hours long. Did you watch any of the webinars when you did yours?

Yes, they helped so much.

Did they?

Yeah. So I used to—

Is it helpful to go through the study guide first and then the bootcamp?

Yes, I ended up watching the bootcamps twice. So I do study guide, flashcards, Then, or no, study guide, flashcards, and simultaneously I'll watch the videos. I just watch the videos like on the treadmill or whatever, like something kind of mindless. Then I go back before I take the test, like a couple days before, and I'll just watch it again just so it's fresh.

The thing that's impressive about Mary is she's not really been a fleet manager.

No, not at all.

And so she's learning this basically from scratch, the first time she's hearing some of these concepts.

So if you think you're not capable or qualified, Mary probably thought that too, right? Because this can be overwhelming, right?

She's like, no, I never had that thought.

You never had that thought? Well, I had that thought.

I will tell you, it is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I thought I've always been very good at school. I'm really good at memorizing. So I thought, oh, this won't be that bad. But it's really hard. The material is really dense. I'd say the videos help a lot, but the test questions are very tricky. Like Steve said, I debate, and you sit there and I'm like, I just don't know. And then about usually quarter through, I'm like, I've already failed. Like, there's no way I passed. And then you like hold your breath and you hit submit to see if it turns green. You're like, I don't know if I can do this again.

One thing I would tell you though is if you're really debating a long time with questions, just to go with your gut the first one. Don't, don't overthink that because I probably missed a lot of them because I said, ah, maybe I thought that wrong.

Changed it.

Yeah. So all multiple tests, you just kind of go with your first intuition.

The good news is if you do, so you have to have a 70% to pass, but if you don't pass, you do get one retest. As Mary said, you got to wait 30 days, but you do get one more opportunity to retest. If you have to do it again, then you just have to pay for another testing session. Do you pay for everyone?

Yeah.

Oh, maybe there was a package at one point, 'cause I know, John, you'd had this and I think I had seen it too where you get one. All right. So it's $50 per sitting as well, by the way, which I think is why you probably tried to take as many as you could in one shot. There, I do not believe there's a limit on retests. They will keep taking your money. Robert, you got a question? No, so when you miss, when you don't get the, like, Whatever the results are, you don't know what you got right and what you got wrong, even if you pass. Yeah.

It didn't give you like a percentage. Like I failed the information one. And so I knew like the telematics is where I struggled. So I knew to focus on that part, but it didn't give you the answers.

It tells you the category you got wrong, but not the specific question. So, and those categories are kind of those first slide that I had, you know, like in the asset management, it's licensing, purchasing, selection, that kind of thing. Yeah, so if you do the enhanced one, you get the webinars. They can be helpful, you know, especially as you're doing it. Like, you could— it's on Vimeo. There's a Vimeo app that actually lets you download the videos. And so if you wanted to, you could listen to them on the phone in the car. Don't watch the video in the car while you're driving, but you can definitely listen over Bluetooth or something like that while you're driving in.

So, you know, at the risk of sounding like Steve, Is it, you know, is the type of thing can you, uh, can you try to test out and all that stuff if you feel very confident about that?

Yeah, you can. Yeah, you could sign up for this.

So you—

so how does that— can you talk more about— so it's like there's tests, pre-scheduled dates for tests, and you sign up?

Yeah, so it used to be that way.

How does that work?

So it used to be proctored where you'd actually have to sign up, go to a testing center like here locally. Uh, there was a testing center over in Sun City with Rio Salado, and you can go to that one. Um, I know they've got them all over the valley, but Now you do it online from your office or your home, wherever you're doing it. They do require, though, that you're alone in the room, that your desk is clear of any materials. They want to see the room, make sure you don't have anything written on the walls or anything like that. So it's— it— that's really nice, is now you don't have to wait until a scheduled testing date. A lot of people would wait until I&E or wait until a boot camp came to town. The chapters used to do a ton of that. But now you can just take it online whenever you're ready for it. But it's, if anybody walks in, so Tom Volt had this happen, he's like, I would've gotten all 8 for 8 on my first try, but on the number 6 one, somebody walked into my office and it voided the test. So yeah, so he had to wait 30 days, pay for the next exam and do it again. It was like, okay, so you need to lock your door. Don't let your kids come running in or, you know, like a staff mechanic, hey, I got this problem or something like that.

Nope.

You're out of the office for, you know, however long it takes you, 60, 90 minutes.

And that's—

yeah, so thank you for asking that. But each of the 8 modules does require an exam, so you go through and you do 8 exams. So to answer your question again, exams are online in the comfort of your home, but they are proctored by an AI. So it is an AI, you don't have like a live person watching you. I don't know what's creepier, if it's AI, but they're scanning the room and they're looking and doing any kind of person recognition. So your Ring cameras have a lot of the same tech behind them, and they can do person detection and see if anybody walks in. On the, on the test, do they, uh, is there any calculations you have to do? They allow a scratch pad?

Yeah, they give you like a calculator. There's like a little app. I've taken notes, like written down my calculations, and it's been okay.

Like a blank notepad?

I've had one next to me and done it.

So just show that it's blank. Yep. Worst case is they void your exam and you got to take it again. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, it's, it's not open note.

You got to know your stuff.

Yep. The cost of the exam. So I mentioned that there's a fee when every time you do an exam, it costs $50 for every exam you take. If you're an AFMA member. If you're not an AFMA member, it's $100 per exam. So just kind of go and— you paid your registration fee, and then you're gonna also have to pay for— that basically gets you the materials, and then if you take the exams, then you also have to pay the fee for the exam. So each question consists of 50 multiple choice questions. The test must be completed in an hour time frame. So So I was telling you earlier, like, how long do you need to lock your door? At least 60 minutes. Just plan on not being available and let your staff know and let them all like, hey, I'm taking this really important exam. I can't come out of the office. You know, if somebody in your organization is taking it, like, give them the time to be able to step away. Give them a space where they can go take it that nobody's going to come in and interrupt them. If any of our staff are looking for a great room to do it, those phone booths that we have, the pods, Those are great little testing rooms because they're quiet, they're cool, and nobody's going to come walking behind you. So, and you do need to achieve 70%. So you don't have to get every question right. You just have to get 70% of the questions right. So let's say DC average, like right there, C-, D+ type level work, but it's hard. So, you know, if you're one of those who used to get 90% on all your tests in college, Don't expect that same level here. So, Mark, how does that work?

Is it 70%?

You know, 8 of the 8 modules, 70% on the overall test, or within that?

So each test is one module, right? And you have to get 70% on that test, right?

But within that module test, there's different topics that you showed on the screen earlier, right? So do I have to get 70%, at least 70% in each category, or in theory I could get 100% in several and get zero in another and still pass?

So yeah. So if you're taking the asset maintenance or the asset management test, and in that test there's vehicle licensing, selection, pricing, there's overall asset management, and you just absolutely flub the top section, you just have to get 70% of all the questions of the 50. So what's that come out to, 35? Yeah.

Yeah.

Get 35 questions right, you got it.

Got it.

Doesn't matter which 35, just get the easy 35. And the nice thing, I really like this because I've taken other certifications and you have to wait weeks to find out like if you passed or not. This one is immediate feedback. So if you really sucked, you're going to know right away, which for me—

It used to be weeks.

Yeah.

They used to have to grade them by hand.

Yep. And now they don't. So there are two types of questions. You've got fact recall. Which is just, you know, they'll give you what's the definition of asset management? What is strategic sourcing? What is, right, and you have to know a definition of that. The other type is application of knowledge. How would I, like, what's the appropriate staffing level for a fleet with this many vehicles and given this BU chart? And you have to go through and know how to do a staffing level calculation. You're not going to find any all of the above or none of the above answers. So there's no trick questions. There's a right answer for every single question, which also adds to the difficulty because there's going to be some where you're like, I think this could be either one of these. And it's like, just know in your head it's going to be one of them.

Guaranteed.

Guaranteed. So I'll get a question about the CAFM versus the CAFS. I mentioned before the CAFM There's 8 modules and it's the same 8 for both programs, but the CAFS you only have to pass 4 exams. So if you— and it's any 4, emphasis on the word any. You choose which 4 you want to tackle, which 4 do you want to become proficient in, and that's your CAFS. So Mary's CAFS is actually different than Steve's. I don't know how they're different. Which ones did you get?

Pass fuel, information, maintenance, and And I think business, no, asset management.

Asset management. And then you did professional development, it sounds like.

Yep. And then I'm on fuel now.

And you're on fuel now. So if you find somebody that maybe they don't need to know everything, but you want them just to start somewhere, CAFS is a great way to start. The enrollment fee is the same. You'll notice there was no pricing for the CAFS. I have heard rumors, I think these are confirmed rumors, I just don't know implementation dates. But it sounds like they're moving away from the CAFS because there's a lack of demand for it. So it does sound like that program might be going away. They might allow you to grandfather in if you're already pursuing it, but if you're not already registered, the ship might have sailed on the CAFS program. I felt like I should mention that, but I don't have any like, yes, this has officially been sanctioned from NAFSA. I just know they, they let us know when we were looking at it.

It's actually changed a couple of times. When I first started taking it He used to be a certified automotive fleet supervisor.

Yeah, and now specialist.

And so you would send in— so if you're a fleet manager, you might send your supervisor in to get that, and then whatever they really work on— supervisor, maybe they're in charge of your fuel ordering, or maybe they're in charge of your maintenance shop— then you'd actually assign them, you know, take these courses because they're applicable to your job.

So again, better lower-level positions. Don't need the full scope. You can do both. So you enrolled in the CAFM program, and then what happened when you got your first 4? Did you submit and ask for it, or they just gave it to you?

No, as soon as you get 4, it just gives it to you.

Yep.

All right. So you might get surprised if they get away— if they do away with it, then sorry, no more midway, like, hey, great job, slap on the back. I like having it because it does give you a little bit more motivation. It lets you feel like you achieve something. Besides just completing 4 exams. It's kind of a good milestone.

Well, they do have— you can get a certificate for one.

You can do— yeah, each one gives you a certificate if you just want to do one. So, but we have heard that the CFS is most likely going away. So just kind of keep an eye out for that. As soon as I know something, I'll also let the chapter know and you'll probably get information from NAFHA HQ at some point. So And then the last step is recertification. So these are not for life, they are only good for 5 years. There's a renewal fee of $150. And what they're looking for is they want people to keep learning and keep doing continued education. So you do continued education throughout your 5 years, and it is required to keep that CAFM designation on the end of your name. The CA-FM requires 80 points over those 5 years. The specialist only requires 50. But points are earned through, you know, different things. You get 4 points for being a NAFMA member. You get, I think, 6 points for going to NAFIAE. If you attend a chapter meeting like this, like, that's an extra point. They have a whole guide online, a whole tracker that lists out all the different point details. If you go to your, your FMIS, most of us have user conferences, right? So if you go to the FASTR user conference or RTA Connect, you get, I think, 6 points or 4 points for coming to those events. Um, you— I actually do think you might get more for teaching at an event, so I'll have to look into that. But, uh, they do have at least the whole list of guides, like what the point values are, and they've got a whole paper tracker so you can write down like a journal. What did I go to? What did I do? And then you submit that. They have an online LMS now where you actually submit all the things that you've been to, and they give you points based off of that. But yeah, chapter meetings, I&E, partner conferences. If you're a member of NAFHA, it's 4 points. If you're a member of any other association— so I don't know if you're anybody part of APWA, okay, that's another 3 points. If you're a part of, uh, you know, NTEA or something like that, that's another 3 points. So NAFSA gets 4 and everybody else gets 3, but every association you're part of, you get another set of points. That one. So just out of curiosity, the points there, like NAFSA, you get 6 points, that's 6 points per year, or from that year 1 to year 5? I think it's per year. So you go to RTA Connect for 5 years, that's— you get the hit every single time. Yeah, so each, each category. So like you can't go to like nothing but conferences You know, like it will cap out and I don't know, it tells you like which one, because each page is a different page and it has different points on it and it'll tell you like max of. So your 80 points has to be made up of a mixture of different events and different educations and different things. So, but the submission, you track your points, there's a tracking PDF, you have the online LMS to track as well as submit. And 3 months before you're expired, It'll come up and allow you to submit for recertification along with all of your documentation. And then if you don't, let's say you miss your 3 months, they do have a 6-month grace period. So if you use that grace period, you know, just know that you're kind of rolling the dice a little bit because if that 6 months lapses, then you're kind of at the mercy of NAFSA. You know, they're gonna— worst case is you have to go retake all the tests again, and that's not fun. Sometimes I wouldn't be surprised— well, I don't know. I would probably push my luck and be like, hey, I missed the deadline. Can you let me, you know, resubmit? And maybe they'd let you, but I would not want to put myself at the mercy of somebody who's trying to maintain the integrity of the CAFM program. So, and then there's the lifetime CAFM. So once you get to be 60 years old or older, or once you formally retire from the fleet profession, You can submit an application for a lifetime CAFM membership. It requires a formal submission and another $100 fee.

So it's all about—

are you seeing that? Are you seeing the pattern here? I'm in NAFACHAIR and I'm like, yeah, I'm seeing the pattern here.

It's all about the fees.

So, uh, and then lastly, FAQs. They have FAQs on the NAFAA website. If you go to nafa.certifications/faqs, you'll see it there. You're also welcome to email, you know, Steve, Mary, and I. Happy to answer any questions that you guys have at the end of this. And then if you want to email us any follow-up questions, we're happy to answer questions. Same thing if you want to email anybody in the chapter, I'm happy to send emails out to the chapter members as well, get their take or get their advice on something. They do have the online LMS, so once you're registered, there's tons of resources available there as well. And then I'll open it up. General, any other general questions that you guys have on tackling the CAFM or getting started at all? All right, Larry first.

On recertification, the test you take, less questions?

I don't know that there is no test.

There's no testing.

No test, just recertify with the points.

It's really just staying involved in the fleet industry.

One example of a section that you have is application of what you learned. So they're kind of throwing you a little bit of a bone so you can score a number of points by going back and say, this is the application of this module this module, this module. Other ones, if you're published in a magazine, if you're a feature article, um, you get points for that type of thing. Obviously, like he said, associations, presentations, attending other fleet-related summits, Rocky Mountain Fleet Association, you get points for all that type of stuff. It does cap out, but it's not— it's, it's much easier than the test. Just, just keep track of your stuff over the course of 5 years.

Really just being involved.

And they do want proof of a lot of things, so hang on to that. So for example, technically to get proof, uh, count this meeting, he has to send out a roster that you were here.

Yeah.

So that's things that you have to have. And if you do a presentation, you have to have proof of that presentation. You submit everything through. If you did an article, you send the article in. So they are pretty good about holding it to a pretty high threshold.

Yeah. So, and that's why, like, when you go to different training events, we do this with our our basic training, because you get a certificate at the end, so you can scan it in and keep track of that. Right. And so anything that you go to, you kind of want to ask that same thing is, is there a certificate for attending this? Or is there, like you said, a roster? You know, like we have the RSVP that you were here, but there's a follow-up piece. And, you know, thanks for reminding me of that, by the way. Yeah, yeah, Beth, Beth, and then, oh, Beth, and then Mark.

We have Robert yet?

Not yet. He's patiently waiting. He's now standing, he's so patient.

So can you start accumulating your points while you're doing the testing, or do you have to be certified before you can start accumulating your points?

Yeah, my understanding is after you're certified. Yeah.

For the getting registered part, it said like if once you have 1 year of fleet experience, can you still get the like register and get the studying material? You just can't get the certification until the 1 year?

That's a good question. Oh, did I go out? Nope, all right, I'm back. That's a good question, I don't know, but I will find out. For us, you can get started right away.

Okay.

And then I just go in, we get you registered.

Okay.

So.

About membership, so it was $700 to be a member and you saved $101 if you signed up at the same time. So how long do you need to be a member Right? Like if I sign up for a member today, wait a month and then sign up, then I get the $700 deal or?

Yeah, but you'd be better off just buying the membership and NAFA together and the CAFM together. 'Cause it's the combined, like the, it's cost, I think $500 or $600 for membership at NAFA. And then it's another $700 for the exam. If you do it together, then it's only like $1,300 or something like that.

So.

It's combined, it's $101 less than if you did them separately.

Okay. So, and related to that, I've always— I've never understood the exact way membership works in the sense that obviously I know I can go out and buy my own personal membership, but I've been in my, in my career, I've been sort of, I don't know what it's called, but I guess an honorary or a vendor member or some sort of other member. And then when I'm not in that role or at that company or position anymore, now I'm no longer a member. So yes, how does that work? How do I become a member and I get to always be a member forever.

You could pay for your own personal membership, but a lot of times organizations will sponsor your membership, and so they'll pay for it like we do here. Or, you know, but I could imagine like if I'm at City of Peoria and I'm a member, but then I go to Buckeye— John, does Peoria pay for yours, or you pay?

They move it with you. Yeah, they move the membership.

You get to keep your record, right? But you may not be a member anymore.

I can't log on or do anything anymore, right?

Right, you may have to re-register.

The other thing is I'll just comment that they're pretty good about honoring, you know, going back to the ongoing, you know, the recertification. But my experience is they're very good, like they'll honor going to NTEA, GFX, and they're very open about other fleet.

Yeah, the NAVA ones are worthwhile, so.

How often is the material updated?

How often is the material updated? Do you have a question?

I think every 5 years, but I'd have to check that. They go through and they have a rewrite. They have a curriculum committee that's constant. I think they tackle one. And they're rewriting one.

And just call it a day.

Thank you.

I think you're probably gonna see it more frequently right now as they go through this with this adult learner, because a lot of it was written by fleet managers. Now they're trying to put a little bit more professionalism in it.

And I know they're trying to expand the cert, like I helped them write their Caribbean fleet curriculum.

They are going more global. Right. Right, so you've got like a global fleet conference, they're trying to get more into Brazil. So NFA as a whole, like they're putting a lot more resources towards education, continued education. They brought on— I can't remember her name now, but the adult learning specialist. They have a lot more staffing now getting pushed towards this side of the house.

So I forgot her name.

They're definitely growing. So we've got Tina and that, but then there's somebody else who's over learning. So that's all right. Robert, your question.

Kind of tangent to that, with them going to be updating the curriculum so frequently. Do you know when the next time they may update it? Like, let's say you're studying now and next year it's updated, then you gotta kind of relearn new things or something that's kind of changed in it. Is there any kind of scheduled time when they're always updating the curriculum?

I think actually, if you—

it used to be if you started a curriculum, you stayed on that curriculum.

Right. Oh, okay.

So they won't throw a screwball at you, but—

And then my only other advice would be, as soon as you're done studying, take the exam.

Okay.

Yeah, because then that way too, like, you know, not necessarily that you forget what you just learned, but you don't necessarily have to be thinking about it. Now you can focus on the next exam. So I definitely wouldn't try doing all of them at once. Just do one at a time, get through it. Then that way, like, you're only thinking about that one and then that category, how they're talking about it.

I would definitely recommend that because I've done the opposite.

With that, we're gonna go ahead and close and Just, you know, thank you guys.

Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Fleet Success Show. If you liked our show, we'd appreciate your 5-star review. Be sure to subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts and come hang out with us anywhere on social media @fleet_success. See you next time.