Best minority mechanics sought

By Greg Bluestein
Associated Press

ATLANTA — Latricea Mosley stands in an expansive auto technician's bay, confidently describing how to replace catalytic converters and tweak high-tech seat sensors. A steady stream of acronyms dot the 22-year-old's explanations, indicative of the pages-long list of abbreviations she had to memorize for her latest test.

Baseball legend Hank Aaron, a BMW dealer, urged the automaker to start the MetroSTEP program to train minority mechanics such as Keenan Jones, who works at Aaron's dealership in Union City, Ga. Associated Press

The program is one of several nationwide efforts — some aided by big-name athletes such as baseball Hall of Famer Hank Aaron and former Washington Redskins lineman George Starke — to steer minorities toward careers in the automotive industry.

For years, car manufacturers have offered unpaid training programs to recruit and retain some of the most talented mechanics in the field. The MetroSTEP program specifically targets minorities, offering paid internships to those who otherwise couldn't afford to take seven months off for intensive training.

"I was just changing the oil, but I was pretty sure I could do something better," said Keenan Jones, Mosley's classmate and fellow intern at Hank Aaron BMW in Atlanta.

When the students graduate from the program Tuesday, they're guaranteed jobs at a dealership that can earn them almost $40,000 a year.

With a growing number of cars on American roads, the automotive industry is looking for ways to bolster the number of auto mechanics. The U.S. Labor Department says the number of graduates from automotive programs doesn't come close to meeting the growing demand, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates dealers will face an annual shortage of 35,000 technicians through 2010.

BMW alone expects to hire 1,500 technicians in the South over the next three years.

Aaron said he was concerned about the lack of minorities in the business before he encouraged BMW to start the MetroSTEP program in 2002.

Many of the jobs require extensive training. These days, technicians often double as computer programmers, and some cars pack new high-tech devices with each new model.

"The job takes strong diagnostic skills, strong computer skills. You're really looking for an analytical student who can probe and dig and understand the functionality of the different aspects of a car," said Larry Cummings, president of Automotive Youth Educational Systems. "The machines involved in reading the measurements of an engine are as complex as the engine itself."

Cummings' group, founded almost a decade ago, sponsors internships for high school students to work as mechanics, and awards 13 scholarships each year. The group, funded by 13 car makers, has certified about 400 high school programs in 45 states that teach basic skills and serve as a pipeline to programs geared for specific car brands.

Car dealerships also step in. Dealers in Virginia have donated more than $4 million worth of new cars to Virginia high schools for mechanics classes.

Former Redskins lineman Starke started the Excel Institute in Washington, D.C., to train students for careers in the automotive industry because his city lacked a trade school that developed good technicians.

"Even if we had a good tech school, they're not going to go into the ghetto and take a bunch of guys that got locked up," Starke said. "We aggressively recruit people that other folks would say cannot become technicians."

The institute, with a $1.6 million budget funded by donations and grants, provides students a tuition-free two-year program. Since its start in 1999, Starke said his program has helped about half of its 400 students find jobs in the field.