Straight from the Source: Hoffman Talks IAAL, NASTF, and Locksmithing

Posted by Ryan Barbin, AKS on Oct 19th 2026

Meet Stephen Hoffman: President of IAAL and Official Board Member of NASTF

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with and interviewing Stephen Hoffman, not once—but twice, as we encountered some technical issues the first time around. However, Mr. Hoffman was quite the professional and willing to open his schedule to meet with me a second time.

Mr. Hoffman holds quite a few titles, including CMAL (Certified Master Automotive Locksmith), CAI (Certified ALOA Instructor), Manager of Pop-A-Lock in Northern Colorado, Automotive Tech Support for American Key Supply, Official Board Member of NASTF (National Automotive Service Task Force), and President of the IAAL (International Association of Automotive Locksmiths). With all these roles, its really hard to imagine he’d have enough time in the day outside of work to do two interviews with me. But, alas… he still manages to carve out enough extra time to spend kayaking, fishing, and watching Power Rangers with his wife and two children. Stephen apparently is a superfan of the Power Rangers since his youth, but quite specifically just the original ones. He even shared a story with me about how he would play Power Rangers as a kid with school mates, and recently ran into a former childhood classmate on a job, who instantly recognized and remembered him as the “Red Ranger.”

All 25 Super Sentai Shows Made Into Power Rangers In Chronological Order

Hoffman was born in Denver, prior to moving to Loveland, Colorado where he and his family now call home. He started his career as a mechanic, but after a brief stint, he switched over to locksmithing, which he enjoys much more. Though he lives in Colorado, he assured me that hunting and camping are not something all Coloradoans enjoy, and he is not a fan of either. He’s also apparently more of a caster than a fisher, as he doesn’t often actually catch many fish. However, he told me that his wife, originally from California, does certainly enjoy hunting and camping, but he assured me he “loves her regardless.”

ALOA and The IAAL

In one of our recent AKS blog articles, “To Join or Not To Join: A Locksmith's Soliloquy”, I wrote a little bit about ALOA, the Associated Locksmiths of America. In the article, I used an old English literary twist to creatively debate the question of whether or not locksmiths should consider joining ALOA. I utilized some wit and humor, as any professional writer would, while discussing the benefits, costs, opinions from locksmiths (both positive and negative), and the different subdivisions.

“There is of course the IAAL, the IAIL, the AIL, the AOL, the LOL, and the LOMFL, just to name a few.” —“To Join or Not To Join: A Locksmith's Soliloquy”

Humor and bias aside, I wanted to make sure that I equally included all three sides of fact… the left, the right, and the centered truths. In tandem with my research, direct information from ALOA, and the countless opinions gathered from various locksmiths (both in person and from the forums across the world wide web), I wanted to speak with someone who was a little more directly involved with the organization. Therefore, I felt Mr. Hoffman was the perfect candidate to share his thoughts.

“I joined ALOA in 2015, and went to my first ALOA trade show in 2015 in Reno. I've been to most of them ever since. The IAAL was founded in late 2021, early 2022. I joined in support of Ed Woods, who was the IAAL president at the time. I was elected to the IAAL board at the Kansas City show in 2023 and then was elected President by the current board at the Cedar Rapids show this past May.” —S.H.

The Annual ALOA Trade Show will be in Orlando next month, and next year it will be returning to Las Vegas. ALOA and its separate divisions all have various benefits, from Keynotes Magazine, discounts on training classes, certifications, etc. Hoffman explained that he and others within ALOA and IAAL are actively working towards providing more benefits, recognition of certifications, updates, and more to hopefully turnaround some of the negative opinions from some locksmiths towards the organization.

“American Key Supply has kind of partnered with me on an initiative to recognize Certified Automotive and Certified Master Automotive Locksmiths. One of my complaints when I got into this role was that there wasn't really a whole lot of recognition, like they [just] sent out a press release. But, I wanted to actually personally recognize a lot of those people who have taken and passed that certification, primarily because there's only 13 states and counties and cities that do licensing. So those people who have taken and passed those classes are actively pursuing, you know, expanding their knowledge, bettering themselves. So I wanted to recognize that.” —S.H.

Many Tools, All In One Toolbox

Hoffman discussed a little further in detail, the reason for the different subsets within ALOA. He described ALOA as the umbrella or overseeing entity, but since locksmiths have different specialties, including automotive, commercial/residential, investigative, institutional, safes and vaults, etc., having just all encompassed together wouldn’t make sense.

Stephen works primarily in automotive, with some commercial and residential. He told me that he took some classes in investigative locksmithing, as he wanted to—and still does want to transition more into that field at some point in his career, though for now automotive and IAAL are his primary focus.

The IAAL is the automotive division, while the AIL is institutional, for people dealing with prisons, colleges, and the like. The IAIL is investigative, which are the forensic type of locksmiths you might see on CSI, determining if a lock had been picked or opened with a key. And SAFTA is for safes and vaults.

Paving The Way Forward

Stephen addressed some of the negative opinions people often associate around ALOA and NASTF with complete awareness and understanding, as well as a mindset focused on growth and positive change.

“There's a perception that I know I'm personally fighting and working to change, is that ALOA is just the old timers in the industry who are stubborn, stuck in their ways. A lot of people haven't seen a whole lot of benefit to joining or being a member, which is fair enough. I mean, if you're not attending trade shows and if you're not in a licensing state and you don't need continuing education credits, I can see why people wouldn't want to join. It's small things that I hope people can recognize that ALOA is working on. Something as simple as their website being updated a couple months ago to look like it's no longer on Windows 98. It's still not perfect, but it's an improvement.” —S.H.

Hoffman is looking to try and partner with distributors like American Key Supply, and possibly manufacturers to help give ALOA and IAAL members increased benefits, discounts, etc., and in turn send business their way. Currently, its around $240 per year for a standard ALOA membership and $55 for IAAL. So, Stephen wants to help create more benefits for the costs.

As a board member of NASTF (National Automotive Service Task Force), Hoffman also spoke to me a little bit about the controversy regarding the VSP ID’s being required for all scan tools. In fact, he had just gotten out of a meeting with NASTF prior to our interview. He had also read our previous AKS blog on the topic, “NASTF Credentials: Convenience or Control?”, and was willing to share his views with me directly.

“I am of the opinion that we have had our chance to try and regulate ourselves as an industry and it's taken too long and now somebody else is going to do it for us. And for better or worse, the tool makers are partially to blame for this as well with selling on Walmart and Amazon. Just the fact that, you know, Joe Schmo can go to Amazon, buy a key programmer, and then he can buy a key and then he can program it is a problem because it's not just Joe who's buying it for his personal truck. It's people who are buying those programmers and stealing cars.” —S.H.

Hoffman said NASTF is absolutely necessary. Without them doing background checks and vetting locksmiths through their memberships to determine who is a legitimate business, there would need to be some other intermediary that would have to do it, so it could be worse. He shared that NASTF has some great benefits as well, besides regulating who can have access to key programmers, including their diagnostic network which is a helpful forum for locksmiths, mechanics, and body shops to navigate different solutions for issues.

“It is, again, my opinion that having to pass a background check in order to program a car key is not a bad thing. I understand that a large majority of these people have been doing this many years longer than I have. I mean, the first key programmer or the first keys that needed to be programmed came out in the mid nineties and I was all of seven years old at the time. So a lot of these guys bought, you know, Tech2 and all of these other machines that the dealers had in the early nineties, or late 90s, early 2000s in order to try and keep up.” —S.H.

Hoffman continued by suggesting that eventually there would probably need to be some sort of a national locksmithing license, but feels like that could potentially be even worse than a VSP ID with NASTF, because “once the federal government gets involved, everything just goes so perfectly.” (sarcasm)

Lastly, when asked if there was anything more he would like to leave our blog readers with, Mr. Hoffman shared his desire for people to have real discussions, and not just believe everything you read in an online forum. He encourages people to reach out if they have questions, comments, or concerns.

“Keep an open mind and do some research. I'll be at ALOA next month and we'll be at APEX and SEMA in November for the NASTF general meeting.”—S.H.

You can email Stephen Hoffman at corporatehoff@gmail.com or you can email the IAAL Board at IAALfeedback@gmail.com if you have any additional input or opinions.