Kansas City, Mo. -- The Kansas City-area chapter of the Automotive Service Association of Missouri/Kansas (ASA-MO/KAN) held its monthly meeting at the BTC Exhibit Hall on May 17 to focus on the industry's technician shortage.
ASA-MO/KAN invited two speakers from Kansas City-area community colleges and the Missouri Automotive Youth Educational Systems (AYES) manager.
"Today, recruiting qualified entry-level service technicians has become a challenging situation," said Rich Echols, Missouri AYES manager. "The young people have a wide variety of job opportunities. Auto retailers are finding that those who are seeking jobs either are not interested in a career in automotive technology or they do not have the basic skills they need to be successful.
"AYES engages the career center and the auto tech training programs at the high school level to help students that have an interest in becoming automotive technicians and hope to place them in internships in their junior and senior year," Echols said.
"The overall goal," he said, "is to get better-qualified technicians into the auto industry. There are some difficulties in that because some career center instructors are shy or don't know how to get involved in placing interns in the industry. So what I encourage you to do is get out there and let the automotive program instructors know you are interested in this program."
Echols said repair shop owners need to be involved in developing promising high school students by making part-time work available. Shop owners need to participate in advisory committees at their local school, take part in school career days, and host an occasional open house at their service facilities for educators, student groups and parents, he said. Mentor programs are very important, he added, outlining for attendees what a mentor needs to do and how to get involved.
Stan Abrahamson, director of Automotive Technology at Metropolitan Community College (MCC), said that on Oct. 2-3, MCC is putting on a career day that will attract about 300 high school juniors and seniors. They are put through a regimen of career experiences, he said, and are also offered some fun events such as the car show held in conjunction with the event. He asked ASA members to help in any way they could, thanking them for their help to MCC in the past.
Bill Brown, dean of the Division of Business and Technology of Johnson County Community College (JCCC) in Overland Park, Kan., went over the JCCC programs and encouraged ASA members to visit the school and get involved with the students and teachers in the mentor program.
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