LAGUNA HILLS, Calif. — A Latino American Dream Team is headed to Central America where they will train, test and award dual certifications from the International Detailing Association to more than a dozen El Salvadorian detailers.
The event will take place at Mr Black Car Wash Y Detailing at Av Bernal, San Salvador, on April 8-9, the association announced in a press release.
It will be the IDA’s first international detail training session in the country of El Salvador and is intended to create a talent pool and to give a boost to the automotive appearance industry in that country.
In addition to certifying detailers in IDA specifications, the team will also SONAX-certify the detailers in paint correction — an advanced form of restoring old, faded, aging paint to its original shine.
Two successful Latino automotive detailers from California — SONAX and IDA Master certified detailer Rigo Santana of Xtreme Xcellence Professional Detailing in Laguna Hills; and Jorge Rivera of Kings of the Carwash Auto Detail Supplies in Los Angeles County — both have lived out their American Dream building successful automotive detailing businesses in the United States.
They will join SONAX Guatemala Master Trainer Manuel Martinez in ensuring American standards of excellence.
IDA dual certification requires two levels of testing.
The first requires passing a written test to receive the basic (CD) certification and the second is a much harder, Skills Validated (SV) certification in which the students are presented with on-the-spot car paint and interior “problems” they must fix, using the IDA-approved process.
Santana is a member of the SONAX detailing team and a former member of the Air Force One Detailing Team at Seattle’s Museum of Flight.
He has trained numerous detailers in Puerto Rico and detailed priceless, award-winning cars for the Concours d’Elegance at Monterey Car Week, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and is a member of the Museum Preservation Team at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum “Vault.”
Rivera recently earned his U.S. residency and his dual IDA certifications (CD/SV) as a detailer but built his Kings of the Carwash private-label, professional-grade detailing products, equipment and supplies store with two locations in Pacoima and Bellflower, both in Los Angeles County.
He is returning to his native El Salvador after 20 years to share his expertise in the detailing industry and to encourage similar skills and opportunities for his former countrymen.
