Hendrick, RCC partner on accelerated training for automotive techs

HAMLET — Hendrick Automotive Group is partnering with Richmond Community Faculty to build just one of the best instructional centers in the region for automotive specialists.

Hendrick Automotive Team Chairman & CEO Rick Hendrick joined RichmondCC president, Dr. Dale McInnis, on Monday in announcing strategies for the “Hendrick Center for Automotive Training,” a 15,000-sq.-foot, point out-of-the-artwork facility to be found on the Hamlet Campus.

“We are at a critical time for the automotive field,” said Hendrick. “In North Carolina alone, there are more than 1,200 openings at dealerships in our state. It is exceptionally crucial that we continue to entice younger persons by supplying unparalleled coaching and gratifying, nicely-spending career possibilities.”

In North Carolina, a lot more than 600 auto dealerships employ a lot more than 36,000 folks, like close to 7,000 service technicians. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, by 2026 the United States will include 50,000 company technician employment.

Nationally, Hendrick Automotive Group at this time has extra than 350 openings for support/collision professionals and 150 openings in North Carolina. Hendrick explained assistance technicians as “the spine of our dealerships.”

“With such a need to fill, it is critical we uncover partners that share quite a few of our similar values and aims. President Dale McInnis and his team’s eyesight for this method is based mostly on a keep track of history for good results,” Hendrick stated. “It is a particular working day, and I simply cannot hold out to see what incredible alternatives this challenge will build for the neighborhood.”

The automotive technician plan will be modeled soon after RichmondCC’s Electric powered Lineman method, which provides a solid foundation of capabilities and schooling inside of a limited span of time. Automotive technician college students also will full the rigorous, accelerated application in 16 weeks and be skilled to go to operate promptly and begin their careers in the automotive industry.

“We have located that an intense cohort-based mostly, limited-time period training system that presents learners with the techniques, expertise and competencies that businesses are desperately looking for in a fraction of the time and portion of the cost to the pupils and households,” Dr. McInnis explained.

The Hendrick Family members Foundation is producing a $500,000 donation to the advancement of the academic centre. The Richmond Local community Higher education Basis is matching that donation, and the Basis for the Carolinas is donating $250,000. An supplemental $3.4 million is required to guidance the development of the program.

Sen. Tom McInnis, who has been crucial in securing point out funding for limited-phrase workforce teaching at RichmondCC, certain his support for the new system.

“This is a pink letter working day in Richmond County, but not only Richmond County, but every county that touches us in the two Carolinas,” the senator reported. “This is an function wherever we produce an instructional path making use of brief-time period coaching to make it possible for people to establish wealth and to improved them selves and their people in the shortest period of time and the least sum money obligation.”

Government Vice President for the Basis of the Carolinas Brian Collier stated he was happy to be as soon as again doing the job with RichmondCC on an impressive challenge that has a aim of being the very best.

“Everything at RichmondCC is accomplished with intentionality to ship a concept to existing and long run college students that ‘we benefit and regard you’ and that we’re investing in you for the reason that the foreseeable future of the neighborhood relies upon on your good results,” he said.

Lavern Shultz, president of the Richmond Neighborhood College Basis Board of Directors, said his board was also energized to make a substantial contribution to this partnership.

“This announcement is an case in point of the energy of offering and teamwork,” Shultz explained. “When we come with each other as a crew, we develop transformative alternatives for Richmond Group School students everywhere.”

The regular income for an automotive service technician is a small in excess of $39,000 within a 100-mile radius of Hamlet, but on a national scale, the common wage is virtually $47,000.

Hendrick Automotive Group employs more than 2,500 experts nationwide. Salaries can exceed $100,000 for experts with innovative specific coaching and longevity performing in the automotive sector.

“Thanks to a great community-personal philanthropic partnership – that’s so scarce and special – in between the point out of North Carolina, our college or university and its donors, two major nearby foundations and the nationally acknowledged leader in automotive gross sales and providers, we will quickly be increasing the horizons and the hopes of pupils from across the region and the full condition of North Carolina,” Dr. McInnis reported.