Heavy Duty Trucking, March 2020

DEALERS FACE TECHNICIAN TECHNOLOGY CHALLENGES HEAD ON We are going to partner with you to help you lower your expenses and keep your trucks on the road running late 500000 or 600000 miles He explains this can present challenges for dealers when it comes to servicing those fleets We are caught between having technicians who can work on the new trucks and ones who can work on the older trucks Technician shortage and the importance of training Like fleets dealers have issues finding qualified technicians I have had to recruit kids like I were the head football coach at the University of Alabama Horton says We have to explain to their parents that not everyone needs to go to college and that there is a good living as a technician Horton contends that technician jobs are STEM science technology engineering mathematics jobs These are no longer jobs where people are getting dirty and trucks are blowing smoke Todays trucks are rolling computers In 2014 Horton began working with Hillsborough Community College to start a new diesel technician training program Oscar Horton to address the diesel technician shortage The program kicked off in 2018 and in January 2019 the first class of 12 students graduated Sun State also created an in house apprentice program to help develop the technician talent pool for the west central Florida area The apprenticeship program includes everyone from complete novices to tech school graduates They work and study independently under the supervision of an in house master technician and progress at their own pace to complete the curriculum Bland says Transource found that both technicians who had worked in the industry for a while and those who were students fresh out of technical colleges were not prepared for the changes that were happening in the industry To address the issue we employed an OEM certified trainer who develops curriculum for each individual technician Bland says It is an ongoing process with the goal of having a master technician at the end of a certain period of time Transource also donates engines transmissions differentials electrical components and trucks as training aids to community college programs at Forsyth Tech Guilford Tech and James Sprunt We actively support these community college diesel technician and truck driving training programs Participation and support of these institutions ensures that truck dealerships have a technician pool from which to draw benefitting the industry from dealers to end users Bland says Lance Wilson general manager of General Truck Sales Service and a Truck Dealer of the Year nominee stays close to his OEM to make sure the dealerships technicians are educated The dealership also has increased the number of master technicians on staff Over half of our technicians are master techs he says Another 30 have finished the prerequisite to become master techs That means 80 of our technicians are master technicians or are on the path to become master techs with the rest on some sort of training path Wilson explains that having these training plans helps make sure that we are not overloaded in one area of specialization MARCH 2020 HDT 65 WWW TRUCKINGINFO COM