Truck Parts and Service | Heavy Duty Trucking, Aftermarket, Service Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/412479
22 Service Bay is sponsoring a contest and has invited nearly 1,000 high schools in Nebraska, Kan- sas and Iowa to participate by displaying posters and encouraging their students to watch the webisodes. Schools with the most participation will win a Lenovo laptop. "Students today are media- savvy, so we wanted to deliver our message in a way that is both educational and enter- taining," Mytty says. Technician pay and geography Those who become techni- cians will fi nd a career with good pay and plenty of op- portunity. A top-credentialed technician graduating from the Elizabethtown (Ky.) Community and Technical College, for example, can earn upwards of $17 per hour, says Jerry Clemons, program coordinator. With average overtime, he says, that equates to roughly $40,000 annually. But quick learners can rapidly up their earnings, he says, pointing to a 2010 graduate of his program who recently relocated to Austin, Texas, with a pay package that hit $75,000 last year. "This is as vibrant of an environment for our students as I've seen here," Clemons says, looking back on his 15 years with the school. Income for diesel engine specialists ranges widely, from about $26,820 for the lower 10 percent of earners to about $63,250 for the top 10 per- cent, with an average of about $42,000, according to a 2012 Bureau of Labor Statistics re- port. Average pay in the truck transportation industry was slightly lower, at $38,250. But pay varies consider- ably by geographic region. Al Clark, diesel tech instructor at Lane Community College, Eugene, Ore., says students in his area generally earn "lower than the trend," starting out in the "middle teens [dol- lar per hour rate]" and then breaking into the $20s "pretty quick," he says. The high qual- ity of life in the Eugene-area enables employers to offer lower pay rates to technicians unwilling to relocate, he says. "If our guys will go north, up into Portland or Seattle — or even into California — they can literally start in the low $20s [per hour]," he says. Job seekers willing to live in less than picture-postcard locales may be able to negoti- ate higher pay because fewer people want to live there, Besson says. "Where we've had a degree of success in the past is in some of the most desirable places in the United States to live," he says of recruitment. "Some of the places where the weather is not conducive, they can be more diffi cult to fi nd. Weather and geography play a major, major part in being able to [fi nd technicians]." In the end, it all comes down to money. In most heavy-duty businesses, an effi cient repair shop generates far more rev- enue than any other depart- ment. Odds are your techni- cians know that, and they expect to be compensated, and treated, as a valuable member of the team. "They need benefi ts at a reasonable rate," says Darry Stuart, president and CEO of DWS Fleet Management Services. "They want holidays T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E | N o v e m b e r 2 0 1 4 This is as vibrant of an environment for our students as I've seen here. – Jerry Clemons, program coordinator, Elizabethtown, Ky., Community and Technical College Technician pay can vary greatly by experience but geography also pays a role. A mentoring program can help build quality technicians from within. It can also help better hone management expertise in more seasoned techs.