CCSN auto tech training program is overwhelmed

Friday, June 25, 2004 | 10:55 a.m.

In 2003:

Source: Paul Pate, dean of Applied Sciences at the Community College of Southern Nevada; also president of General Motors College Association.

A new career field is in such high demand that, like teachers and nurses, local college officials find they cannot train them fast enough.

Auto mechanics, once the province of sweaty high school shops, now requires college training, and Community College of Southern Nevada professors are struggling to meet the region's need for them and say they need to raise $20 million to expand enough to keep up with the demand.

The once-lowly grease monkey now is a professional technician and can make $50,000 to $70,000 a year within three years of graduation, according to Paul Pate, dean of CCSN's Applied Technologies, said.

The automotive department at the college has grown by more than 600 percent over the last 10 years, topping out this past spring with 804 students enrolled and another 400 students waiting to get into classes, Pate said.

The current facilities at the Cheyenne campus are in use from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, with Saturday programs also running at area high schools such as the Southern Nevada Vocational Technical Center, known as Vo-Tech.

The limited work space restricts instructors to offering only automotive technical training, meaning students who want to learn diesel repair or collision repair must go out of state, Pate said. But with automotive training alone, the program has a 100 percent job placement rate, he said.

Almost all students enrolled full time in the two-year associate's degree or certificate program secure paid internships at local dealerships in their first semester, Larry Thomas, director of the CCSN automotive department, said.

"I can't fill the job needs," Thomas said.

The department's struggle, however, is only going to get worse if Thomas and his supervisors can't find a way to raise the $20 million needed for a new wing of automotive bays, training work space and classrooms on an adjacent piece of land northeast of the current facilities, Thomas said.

The proposed new automotive technology center will allow the department to be able to offer diesel and collision repair programs and take on more students overall, Pate, an automotive certified master technician, said. Even then, however, Pate estimates that the program will only be able to fill about 50 percent of the job market's needs according to the Nevada Department of Labor's projected job demand for 2010.

But without the new facilties, the program will be able to fill only 7 percent of that future need, Pate said.

Pate estimates that the program has $2 million to $3 million in private money for the building, along with pledges for scholarships and equipment that the program regularly receives from area dealerships and automotive brands such as General Motors, Ford, Daimler Crysler, Toyota and AC Delco.

The college is asking for the remaining $18 million from the Nevada Legislature as part of the University and Community College System of Nevada's share of state construction money. The auto tech center has been on the college's capital priority list for years, Pate said, but until recently has never made it high enough on the system's list to secure funding.

Even now, with all of the other competing needs, "$18 million won't fly," Interim Chancellor Jim Rogers said.

Rogers' proposal is to break the technology center into four stages so that that burden on the system and the state funds is bearable. If the college can come up with at least $2 million in private money this biennium, Rogers said he will support giving the college $5 million toward the first phase of construction.

That moves the college up to No. 7 on the list, well within the expected construction revenue stream of $100 million to $130 million in state money, Rogers said. The Board of Regents is slated to approve Rogers' recommended list at a meeting Monday.

Thomas said building phase-by-phase would be a possibility, but the program needs the fully completed, 94,000 square-foot automotive center to sustain itself now.

"It's all just brainstorming to see how they can help everybody," Thomas said of Rogers' proposal. "It's a tough position they are in.

"Everybody (on the list) needs what they are going for to try to meet the needs of the community."

The CCSN automotive department is trying to meet those needs by training students for solid, well-paying jobs in the automotive industry, Thomas and Pate said. The department focuses on outcome-based education, with the goal being to train students to diagnose and fix any car problem they would see in a typical shop or dealership.

The department provides automotive training for a vast range of students, Pate said, from individuals for whom "putting gas into the car is risky business" to seasoned mechanics or technicians seeking additional training.

The department runs several car-specific training programs, including certifying all General Motors dealership technicians and providing ongoing training for those dealerships. The private-public partnership is one of many programs in the automotive department that helps supplement the department's budget, Pate said.

The private-public partnerships also help students learn on the job as they take classes, Thomas said.

"We want them to work while they are going to school because that will help them retain knowledge," Thomas said.

The associate's degree, which costs students about $5,000, combines automotive technical training with general education classes in English, math, science, humanities and computer training. The academic training is critical, Pate said, because most vehicles being built today have at least 12 computers in them and students today have to learn much more than the basic mechanics of a vehicle.

"The secret to being a good technician is how to diagnose," Pate said. "I could train a chimpanzee to change a part, swap a part, but I can't train a chimpanzee to diagnose what's wrong."