At the November 1983 ASE Board of Directors Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, John ('Jack') Pohanka, the initial NATEF Chair and an ASE Board Member, presented recognition plaques to representatives of the first automobile training programs to become certified by ASE.

The automobile programs at these three schools----Sheridan Technical Center (Hollywood, FL), Tri-County Career Center (Nelsonville, OH), and Northeast Wisconsin Technical Institute (Green Bay, WI) became pioneers of a new process that measures training programs against nationally recognized education and industry standards. All three programs remain certified today.

In subsequent years NATEF developed identical systems for assessing collision repair and medium/heavy truck training programs----at the secondary and postsecondary levels. Today, NATEF is proud to have 2,256 certified programs (1,779 automobile, 364 collision repair & refinish, 108 medium/heavy truck, and 5 automobile/alternate fuels).