[clouwho]

What a wonderful idea!
By the time my son was 3 years old I had noted in his “baby” book that he was going to be an engineer or gear head. It was in his DNA.
Sure enough, by the time middle school aptitude tests were being administered, engineering and automotive were at the top.
All of my best friends are married to engineers. I married an engineer. All of these engineers tended to be gear heads as well.
I knew my son was leaning towards the auto tech side because he really disliked the idea of office bureaucracy and sitting at a desk all day (the single biggest complaints he heard from all those engineers).
I got him a b-body at 15, started a thriving local b-body club (where I met my engineer/gear head husband) and we were literally off to the races!
At that time schools didn’t have the great Vo-tech options they have now (which I am hugely in support of). I made him get two years of college in case he decided to switch to engineering.
We were strategic. He knew he would enjoy road racing BMW, and he knew the highest pay would be in high end imports, so he pursued that initially. He built and raced his cars, made good money and found his niche.
He switched to Mercedes for financial reasons a few years ago.
A couple of other posters mentioned the dire need for techs. If anything they have understated it. My sons dealership is beyond desperate. His team has always been a 3-5 guy crew. He has been the ONLY person on his team for well over a year. He turns over 120 hour weeks almost every week. He is burning out.
To get their backlog cleared they are letting him keep the ENTIRE payment (less parts) for any work he does on a Saturday. This is unprecedented. He goes in once per month and is on track to pay off his home this year with just his Saturday checks.
The dealership continues to give him extraordinary support and comp (he is well into an excellent six figure income this year with outstanding benefits without those Saturdays)
He has had poaching offers nonstop from other MB and BMW dealerships, FedEx, the big delivery contractors that use MB Sprinter vans, as well as Carvana (who just offered him a $250k three year contract guarantee plus his flat rate wages and benefits). My son has pursued his career professionally and it thrills me to see him succeeding at something he loves doing.
Dealerships will pay for tech school, they pay high starting wages, they are supportive. Yet they cannot get people to consistently show up for work, pass drug tests, much less work ethically and diligently.
We have a majority of youth in the surrounding communities (many high risk young men) who surely have these skill sets.
We would LOVE to encourage them to pursue this area of creating a great lifetime career. But it is in not a wrench turning career. It is very much a tech and computer based career.
I think a more realistic starting point would be a golf cart tech program.
It is an excellent start to learning fundamentals. We could have electric and gas carts which would be cheap easy to find here. Parts would be less expensive and certainly more manageable as an introduction to the mechanics and engineering side of engines. Lawn mower repair, or any small engine repair, would also be an excellent starting point.
Starting with golf carts (or lawnmowers) would also allow a very quick, easy, entry into self employment as The Villages has created a huge demand for these services. Three nice young men with a functional truck, good work ethic, ability to buy cheap used equipment and repair themselves could start a thriving lawn business tomorrow. They could also start a mobile cart repair business tomorrow, or get their feet wet working for someone else.
A lot of good, hardworking people don’t make the money they should as they don’t have marketing, budgeting, financial management, or good social skills so hopefully we would include those skill sets within this program.
Those who are more technically inclined could be mentored into the work ethic and attitudes required to be a VERY successful auto tech.
We look forward to hearing from you and are available most weekends.