CCJ

October 2014

Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal

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COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2014 73 T he excitement in Kate Dell's voice is infectious. The 27-year-old Washington State native is wrapping up her education at WyoTech's campus in Laramie, Wyo. In just a few weeks, she'll start a new job as an entry-level diesel technician at a Mack Trucks dealership in Denver. Dell's father is a farmer and logger who shrewdly sized his daughter up a couple of years ago. "I was in college studying to be a nurse, but my dad told me he didn't think that was a good idea" she says. "He told me, 'Honey, I wish you'd be a diesel mechanic because you're so much better working on inanimate objects than work- ing with people.' " In the early part of the last century, the majority of Americans were raised on farms where self-reliance and mechanical ability went hand-in-hand. This ready-made technically astute labor pool served the nation well as industrialization, economic booms and global confl ict impacted the growing nation. Today, things have changed consider- ably. The majority of Americans live in cities, and their children, in many cases, cannot drive a car with a manual transmission – much less install a pair of brake pads. College is the default educational track for most of today's A technician shortage is stalking the industry, and experts say today's tech-heavy trucks mean it's time to act BY JACK ROBERTS Ken Calhoun, left, vice president of customer relations for Truck Centers of Arkansas, instigated a new technician mentoring pro- gram designed to both help new recruits and retain existing ones.

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