Augusta Tech’s bigger automotive program revving up in 2023
By early subsequent yr, Augusta Tech’s new automotive technologies campus will renovate a previous Walton Way auto dealership into a simulated learning environment.
The school ceremonially accepted a $1 million donation for the project – originally introduced in April – from Columbia, S.C.-dependent Jim Hudson Automotive Group, whose 10 dealership places include a few in Augusta.
“Anybody can market a automobile,” corporation founder and principal Jim Hudson explained in the showroom of his Lexus dealership on Washington Street. “It normally takes a definitely superior technician to hold it offered.”
What was not disclosed in April was in which the automotive technology campus would be located. Augusta Tech not too long ago procured the previous Johnson Motor Co., a Cadillac seller that closed its location in 2021 at the edge of the city’s Laney-Walker neighborhood.
Beforehand: Augusta Countrywide awards Augusta Tech $1 million to grow automotive teaching
Also: A further $1 million reward will help Augusta Tech’s automotive application get velocity
Hudson’s $1 million, coupled with a separate $1 million donation from Augusta Countrywide Golfing Club also declared in April, will fund substantially of the building and renovation expenditures to comprehensive the new campus by the stop of the calendar year, Tech President Dr. Jermaine Whirl claimed.
A expanding work marketplace
The growth of Tech’s automotive program will come at a time when in-demand mend staff are envisioned to possess more substantial ability sets to execute do the job on progressively technologically-superior motor vehicles. Electric and hybrid cars will be among the emerging technologies researched in larger depth at Tech.
About 69,000 openings for automotive service professionals and mechanics are expected nationally just about every year, on normal, by way of the close of the decade, in accordance to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Stats.
Planning the new campus followed months of discussions with neighborhood vehicle sellers, transit companies and other marketplace stakeholders to gauge their curiosity in supporting boost the automobile-repair service talent pool in the Augusta space, Whirl explained.
The application also will introduce “OEM,” or first equipment manufacturer coaching, so college students can gain certifications to perform on particular will make and products of vehicles. Presently most OEM education is supplied only in other towns or states, and there is no guarantee that a worker who leaves Augusta to prepare will return to his Augusta task when education is finish, according to Whirl.
1,759 local careers unfilled: Cybersecurity alternatives extend amid countrywide labor lack
Additional:Job seekers, employers adapt abilities for a work market that’s improved amid pandemic
It is really not a new model
Turning car dealerships into classroom room is new, but not special. In 2019, Moore Tech in Memphis, Tenn., opened its car technologies faculty in what utilized to be a Honda dealership. Oklahoma’s Tulsa Engineering Center opened a satellite campus in 2013 in an aged dealership setting up, but the place offers non-automotive lessons.
Placing Augusta-location college students in the expert habitat of a previous motor vehicle dealership will contribute to another function of Tech’s new plan, which will teach learners on the business enterprise side of the automotive sector, for persons who want to come to be revenue managers, finance professionals or entrepreneurs of car dealerships.
Tech’s bigger vehicle campus will be in a position to accommodate a lot more automotive students from its Augusta and Waynesboro campuses. Tech automotive teacher Taylor Bryant mentioned the program at the moment teaches 50-55 learners who jockey for get the job done area in just one of the school’s 10 assistance bays in a 10,000-sq.-foot facility.
The new campus, measuring about 67,000 square ft, will have in between 35 and 40 provider bays, he explained.
“It’s 1 of the most important points to transpire to our program in its record, and I just cannot wait to see what we’ll be equipped to do with group investments like this,” Bryant stated.