Thank you for your interest in attending
Powertrain Expo 2026!
Below is a list of this year’s speakers! Click the image to expand it for a closer look!
Thank you for your interest in attending
Management Sessions
Wednesday Sessions
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Creating a WINNING Culture
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM - Being in business with the one you love
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM - Creating a WINNING Culture
Speakers: Lance Wiggins and Rodger Bland
The Game Plan: Creating a WINNING Culture
Here’s why you and your team need to be there:
Sharpen Your Fundamentals (World-Class Technical Training): The vehicles rolling into your bays are getting more complex by the day. At the Expo, you’ll get hands-on, cutting-edge training from the top technical experts in the world. From the newest automatics to the rapid evolution of EV and hybrid drivetrains, we are handing you the exact diagnostic playbook you need to fix units faster and more profitably.
Build Your Brand (Business & Management Strategy): Winning isn’t just about what happens in the service bay; it’s about what happens in the front office. Our management sessions are designed for shop owners and leaders who want to build a winning culture, maximize their margins, and retain top-tier talent.
Scout the Best Gear (The Trade Show Floor): Our exhibit hall is packed with the industry’s leading suppliers and manufacturers. This is your chance to get hands-on with the newest tools, software, and parts that will give your shop a competitive edge.
Huddle Up (Unmatched Networking): Coaching taught me that you are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. The Expo brings together the smartest minds in the transmission business. The conversations you have in the hallways, at the receptions, and on the trade show floor will spark ideas that can transform your business.
In football, the teams that win are the ones that prepare the hardest. In the transmission industry, the shops that win are the ones that invest in their people, adapt to new technology, and stay connected to their community.
As your CEO, my strategic vision is to elevate this entire industry—but I need you on the field with us to make it happen.
Don’t get left in the locker room. Bring your technicians, bring your management team, and let’s get to work
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM - Being in business with the one you love
Speakers: Kit and Amy Lindsey
Being in business with the one you love
How to survive and thrive
Join us as we share our journey as business owners individually then together as a couple. We will share our laughter and our tears as we give tips, suggestions and insight into what it took to be a solid and successful entrepreneurial couple.
Kit is a lifelong veteran of the automotive/transmission industry. Opening his shop in 1984 at the age of 22, and retiring and selling the business in 2021. For Portlanders, that’s 37 years. He is an AP/IA and spends most days at his hangar tinkering with airplanes and rebuilding antique transmissions.
Amy is a lifelong veteran of the professional ballroom dancing industry. She has owned and operated two ballroom studios individually and one ballroom studio/event center with her husband Kit. She is the co-founder of Act for Missouri, a political watchdog organization hellbent on exposing corruption in our state politics.
Thursday Sessions
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM - The Complete Customer Experience – Stop Losing Them Before, During, and After the Sale
10:00 AM - 11:30 PM - Built to Last
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM - Beyond the Build: Leadership & Systems for a Stronger Transmission Shop
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM - Shifting Gears & Changing Lanes
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM - Speed Traps, Potholes & Idiots
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM - The Complete Customer Experience – Stop Losing Them Before, During, and After the Sale
Speaker: Carl Borsani of Graphic Home, LLC
The Complete Customer Experience – Stop Losing Them Before, During, and After the Sale
Today’s automotive customers decide who they trust long before they ever call your shop. This presentation shows automotive repair shop owners and managers where customers are really being lost—from outdated websites and poor online visibility, to missed opportunities on the phone and in the waiting area. You’ll learn how modern website design, Google Ads marketing, clear communication, and a professional shop environment work together to build trust, generate better leads, and turn customers into long-term advocates. Practical, real-world examples make it clear how small improvements can lead to measurable growth and higher-quality repairs.
10:00 AM - 11:30 PM - Built to Last
Speaker: Melissa “Birdie” Patterson
Winning looks different when you have been in this business a while.
This class is a practical, down-to-earth conversation about building a shop that remains steady over time. Not just meeting this year’s goals, but creating a business that continues to function as roles shift, teams grow, and leadership evolves.
With a background spanning 30 years on shop floors, in leadership roles, and working closely with independent shop owners, Melissa “Birdie” Patterson focuses on what actually works in real shops, not theory.
You will explore how winning culture is built through consistency, clarity, and follow-through. How leadership shows up in daily decisions, communication, and expectations. And why strong shops rely on clear standards and repeatable systems instead of heroics, hustle, or constant oversight.
This class introduces practical leadership tools you can use immediately. Simple frameworks, clear questions, and repeatable habits that support alignment, reduce dependency on one person, and build trust across your team. These tools are designed to strengthen operations, stabilize culture, and support continuity over time.
Whether you are building internal leaders, involving family members, or creating future options for the business, this class focuses on building a shop that works well without constant intervention.
If you have ever thought, “I want my shop to run without me chasing every loose end,” this class was built for you.
1:00 PM - 3:30 PM - Beyond the Build: Leadership & Systems for a Stronger Transmission Shop
Speaker: Maryann Croce
Beyond the Build: Leadership & Systems for a Stronger Transmission Shop
Technical excellence is essential, but it’s not enough to build a strong, resilient transmission shop. This session shows how leadership clarity, role alignment, communication, and simple business systems directly impact cycle time, comebacks, customer trust, and profitability. Learn how to reduce bottlenecks, improve decision flow, and create consistency so your technical expertise is supported by a stronger, more stable business.
Who Should Attend
- Transmission shop owners
- General managers and shop managers
- Service advisors and customer-facing leaders
- Lead technicians or foremen involved in decisions
- Any transmission shop leader responsible for workflow, profitability, or team performance
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM - Shifting Gears & Changing Lanes
Speaker: Jay Gubrud
Program Focus: Mastering the art of change before it masters you.
Change doesn’t ease in with a signal — it often hits the gas and demands you keep up. Whether an organization is evolving, pivoting, or accelerating into uncharted territory, leaders must shift mindset, direction, and momentum with intention. This high-energy session equips participants with the clarity, courage, and practical tools to navigate change with confidence — and lead others to do the same.
Participants will:
- Set bold, productive expectations amid uncertainty
- Explore the 4 core reactions to change — and how to turn resistance into results
- Build empowering, adaptable mindsets for yourself and in others
- Pinpoint the 15 most common action blockers — and learn how to bust through them
- Overcome the 4 big fears that paralyze progress
- Break free from limiting roles, routines, and beliefs
- Gain simple and proven strategies to release the old and embrace the new
It’s time to stop dreading change — and start driving it.
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM - Speed Traps, Potholes & Idiots
Speaker: Jay Gubrud
Program Focus: Eliminating everyday roadblocks to accelerate success. The road to success isn’t always smooth — it’s cluttered with detours, delays, and distractions that can derail even the most talented professionals. This bold, fast-paced session pulls from the best of Jay’s high-impact programs to help participants spot and steer around the daily roadblocks that stall growth. Whether it’s mindset, conflict, fear, or “difficult people,” this program equips your team to shift gears and power forward — with clarity, resilience, and drive.
Participants will:
- Build empowering new assumptions that fuel innovation
- Conquer the 4 fears that sabotage momentum
- Master techniques for productive conflict and courageous conversations
- Handle tough personalities without losing your cool — or your course
- Create meaningful connections that open doors
- Deliver and receive feedback that inspires action
Friday Sessions
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM - Mission Accomplished - Special Forces Leadership Tactics Can Boost Your Shop's Performance
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM - Winning Culture: From the Curb and Back Again
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM - Mission Accomplished - Special Forces Leadership Tactics Can Boost Your Shop's Performance
Speaker: Jon Tschetter
Jon Tschetter is a decorated leader who has served as an Airborne Ranger, Green Beret, ODA (A-Team) Commander, and Special Forces Company Commander. He conducted more than 85 combat operations behind enemy lines during his career and spent 2 years with Black Water as a Detail Leader and Program Manager protecting U.S. Diplomats in Iraq.
Jon will explain how to apply “Special Forces” leadership tactics in your shop. You’ll be amazed at the similarities between running a shop and leading a military operation. He’ll also lace in some astonishing stories of actual missions demonstrating the importance of teamwork centered on mission success.
Jon says, “The team leadership process is the same, but the risks and rewards are dramatically different, and in your shops, hopefully nobody is shooting at you.”
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM - Winning Culture: From the Curb and Back Again
Speaker: Thom Tschetter
Winning Culture isn’t just posters on the wall; it’s understanding that the shop only wins when the customer wins. – Coach Thom Tschetter
A winning culture begins the moment a customer pulls up to the curb and continues all the way through the front office, the shop floor, and back again. In this 90-minute session, we’ll explore one of the most overlooked and even avoided aspects to building and sustaining a winning culture inside today’s transmission shops.
Believe it or not, at the heart of every strong culture is a team that understands profitability – not as a dirty word, but as the oxygen that keeps the shop alive. This presentation breaks down, in plain language, where paychecks actually come from, where profit is created (and lost), and how all roles in the shop: service advisor, technician, rebuilder, and manager directly affect the bottom line and, most importantly, customer satisfaction.
We’ll examine:
- The psychology of winning – winning teams that know the rules of the game and how to keep score perform better.
- Why technicians and rebuilders must understand how their efficiency, accuracy, and decisions – not just billed labor hours – impact gross profit.
- The true cost of a mistake, comeback, or rework – how many additional jobs or dollars must be sold and produced to recover the cost.
- The critical difference between being busy and being profitable.
- How financial transparency – understanding the numbers – builds trust, accountability, and pride in workmanship – cornerstones of a winning culture.
This session connects the dots between company culture, role clarity, and cash flow, showing how shops that teach their teams to think like business owners – not just employees – create stronger morale, higher quality work, and long-term success.
To help attendees put these ideas into action immediately, participants will receive a complimentary, downloadable PowerPoint slide deck called “Where Does My Paycheck Come From?” They can use the presentation at their own shops for a simple, no-nonsense team meeting. It walks employees through the basics of profitability, and how everyone plays a role in winning.
Winning culture isn’t about squeezing more production out of your people. It’s about helping them understand why what they do matters, how it affects everyone else in the shop, and how shared responsibility leads to shared wins for the shop and its customers.
Because when everyone understands how the game is scored… they can start playing to win. – Coach Thom Tschetter
Saturday Sessions
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM - How to Build an Intelligent Culture that is Fun to be a Part of
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM - How to Build an Intelligent Culture that is Fun to be a Part of
Speaker: Jim Cathcart
Every shop and business has a Culture. Very few of them are intentional and intelligent. Most of them just happen. Learn how to grow a Winning Culture based on PEACE: Professionalism, Engagement, Awareness, Caring, and Excellence. Design Policies that produce the outcomes you need. Use Practices that keep everyone informed and fully aware. Follow Workflows that produce consistent Excellence. Build Relationships that prove that you care. The goal of a culture is to produce the kind of products and people that make you want to be there and stay.
Sunday Session
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM - The Walk Thru: It’s Game time!
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM - The Walk Thru: It’s Game time!
Speakers: Lance Wiggins and Rodger Bland
The Walk Thru: It’s Game time!
