Earning the title of Automotive Service Excellence World Class Technician is no small accomplishment. To be recognized as World Class, these individuals have obtained ASE certification in 22 specialty areas: A1-A8 (automotive), T1-T8 (medium/heavy truck), B2-B5 (collision repair), and L1-L2 (advanced).

Not only is achieving certification in these areas impressive, but becoming World Class is no small feat. As of 2025, only 2,000 technicians have achieved World Class status.

In this Q&A, Motor Age sat down with Anthony Nunez — an ASE World Class technician and fleet technician with UPS in South River, New Jersey  — to learn more about his journey in the automotive industry and how gaining World Class status has helped advance his career.

Motor Age: Please introduce yourself and tell us about your experience in the automotive industry.

Nunez: I started in the automotive industry when I was about 15 or 16, in high school. I got a job at a Hyundai Kia dealership and worked there for about two years.

From there, I moved into the Genesis department, where I was pretty much doing any work on the Genesis models — especially warranty work and engines.

I learned a lot there, but the warranty work started to get to me, and it wasn’t paying off as much as I’d hoped.

Around the same time, I was going to college for mechanical engineering and needed more money to pay for school, so I went to Pep Boys. I was offered flat-rate pay in the $30 range for some of the work I did there, and I did pretty well for about a year — right up until COVID hit.

During my time at Pep Boys, I had a good mentor who also worked at UPS in the fleet. When the opportunity came up, I made the jump, and I’ve been with UPS for the last six years. I earned my ASE World Class status in 2024.

Motor Age: What’s the most memorable repair you’ve ever completed?

Nunez: I’d have to say a repair I did about four years ago on a medium-duty truck. It had a Cummins engine and, if I recall correctly, an Allison transmission. The issue was that the speedometer didn’t work.

On this particular vehicle, the speedometer got its signal over a data bus from the engine ECU, and the engine ECU got that signal over the J1939 bus from the Allison TCU. When I talked to the Allison computer with a scan tool, I could see that it was reading the speed data just fine. But the engine ECM wasn’t seeing that same information.

So there was a communication problem between the Allison TCU and the engine controller on the data bus — specifically for that speed signal. Everything else was communicating: gear position, engine mode, and so on. It came down to a choice between a roughly $2,000 TCM or a $6,000 ECM, and I wasn’t comfortable guessing.

At the time, I knew a little bit about CAN bus but not in depth. I decided to dive in and learn more. I built a small transceiver so I could physically decode the bytes on the data bus and was able to identify the message for the speed sensor.

 I could see that the message was, in fact, making it to the ECM, which told me the ECM was the issue. That allowed us to replace the right component without guessing and wasting money.

Motor Age: Tell us one thing about you that we can’t guess from your certifications.

Nunez: I’d say my enthusiasm for reverse engineering. I really like figuring out exactly how things work on a deeper level.

For example, with that CAN bus issue, I dug into how the zeros and ones are laid out on the bus, how the arbitration IDs work, and how the source addresses are structured.

Right now, I’m working on reverse engineering an ECU and one of its processors to understand exactly what a manufacturer is doing to set fault codes.

That kind of work gives me a lot of perspective when I’m diagnosing vehicles, because I understand what’s happening on the back end — how the program is written and why the control modules behave the way they do.

Motor Age: What automotive technology trend are you most excited about or most concerned about?

Nunez: I’m excited about how much integration we’re seeing in vehicles — all these systems talking to each other and working together. At the same time, that’s also what concerns me.

What I’ve seen is that manufacturers are making a lot of things proprietary. One of the big reasons I got into reverse engineering is because the information I need isn’t always available.

 A lot of it is locked behind paywalls, and in some cases, an independent shop can’t access the information at all.

I’m excited about the technology and the integration, but I’m concerned about access — making sure technicians and shops have the information they need to diagnose and repair these vehicles properly.

Motor Age: How has ASE certification helped advance your career?

Nunez: I’ve gone to a lot of trainings, and sometimes they’re led by factory engineers. When they hear about my credentials, it often sparks a conversation. Those talks have helped me build some really valuable contacts, just from having my certifications.

At my company now, my credentials are a big part of why I’m in the position I’m in. All I do is travel around and handle diagnostics. My company saw my certifications and recognized what I could bring to that role.

They even entered me into a nationwide competition — Super Tech — because of my credentials. So ASE certification has absolutely helped open doors and move my career forward.