Cerritos College: a pipeline for auto technicians at Southern California dealerships

On a Wednesday afternoon at Cerritos College, about 20 students work in groups on an auto shop floor that looks a lot like one in the back of a car dealership.

The shop floor is their classroom. Their professor is John Bender, who has taught aspiring auto technicians for almost 30 years.

He draws figures on a whiteboard as the students scribble down notes. Then at his command, they raise up Lincoln town cars and other vehicles to fix bugs in their braking systems.

Bender wants to make sure these near beginners aren't trying to get creative.  

"You're following the shop manual, right?"  he asks one group.

 "Yes," says student Christian Diaz of downtown Los Angeles, "It says here disconnect ABS module C-135."

The shop manual is particularly important in this class. It’s like a textbook in the Ford Motor Company’s Automotive Student Service Educational Training (ASSET) program.   Chrysler and General Motors have similar programs at Cerritos College. 

Unlike most college or vocational programs where a student picks a major and hopes to get a job at the end, this two-year program trains future mechanics. Local dealerships often pay for their classes with an eye toward hiring them permanently at the end. 

While the class tests anti-lock brake systems, Todd Leutheuser, Executive Director of the Southland Motor Car Dealers Association came in to give Bender got some good news - a Ford dealer in Orange County was ready to take on a few more students.

"He needs of a couple of guys right now, and I told him you have a brand new ASSET class," Leutheuser says, turning over the dealer's contact information. 

Bender says the program at Cerritos College is an auto technician pipeline in action. 

"I’ll get a phone call, I get an email, [saying] ‘hey I’m interested in sponsoring someone. Can you send over your best guys?’" Bender explains.  "So we get at least a handful of students to go over and possibly interview with the manager, and then it’s up to him.  He takes it from there."

Other times, dealerships also send their own employees to the program. Nineteen year old student Walter Martinez came to class wearing the uniform of the dealership he works for in Tustin.

"I actually started at the bottom, washing cars, and then I saw that the technicians, their paycheck every fifteen [days] was good and everything," Martinez said, of his desire to apply for the Ford ASSET program at Cerritos College. 

Since six mechanics at the dealership had already been through the program, Martinez said, his manager knew the program well and offered to sponsor his studies. They worked out a schedule so Martinez goes to school Monday through Thursday, works at the dealership Friday and Saturday and Sunday, he studies. It never stops.

"That’s the good thing about it.," Martinez said. "Because you keep learning, you never stop learning."

Ford, GM, and Chrysler have had student training programs at Cerritos College since the mid-1980s. Before that, cars weren’t as technologically advanced, and mechanics learned to work on them by tinkering at home, in high school auto shop classes, and on the job. 

Todd Leutheuser of the Southland Motor Car Dealers Association says these programs are especially important because turnover is steady in auto shops. His association represents 80 dealerships in southern Los Angeles County, and its offices are even on the college campus.  

"Students will turn into employees. They’ll stay in [the service department] until they are 35 or 40, then gravitate up to management," Leutheuser says.  

That's Fabian Esquivel's plan.  He works full-time doing routine maintenance in the service department at Cerritos Acura but takes aut0motive classes at Cerritos College at night. The college referred him to the Acura dealership. Long-term, he'd like to get a business degree, since mechanic work is hard on the joints. 

"Your body just starts breaking down, " Esquivel says. He's only 20 years old and loves working on cars, but he knows that even the best mechanics lose their physical edge. 

"People might think you’re just twisting a wrench, but you’re huddled over a vehicle for hours on end, so that does start to take a toll on your body," Esquivel says.  

His boss Mark Lestico says the dealership hires one or two technicians a year as the older ones move on or retire.  So he relies on relationships with area community colleges.  

"I don't even want to think about what it would be like without them," Lestico says.  "You’d have unqualified people working on vehicles. This business or company wouldn’t exist without talent like that coming from the schools. That’s our life blood; is being able to repair the vehicles that we sell."

He figures the technician turnover is likely playing out in service departments throughout the region, so the demand for technicians isn’t going anywhere.