Dealers, repair shops need auto technicians
Sweat beaded on Roland Vasquez’s face on a recent 95-degree day at A+ Transmission Specialists off Washington Avenue as he worked in the back of the open garage. The 52-year-old technician said the shop had been looking to hire a third mechanic since the beginning of the year. But good technicians have proved hard to come by.
“Nobody wants to get dirty,” he said. “I’d have to say that’s about it right there.”
“When it comes to the Houston market, there’s just so much competition for that specific skill set because that same skill set can be used in the oil industry.” Natalee Doenig, recruiter for AutoNation
None of his three kids followed his path, instead becoming a police officer, a teacher and a social worker.
The image of the grease monkey has stuck, Vasquez said, although the trade has changed a lot since he picked it up, requiring more technical knowledge.
As more high school students are pushed toward college, auto businesses are among those facing a shortage of skilled technicians that is likely to worsen as more baby boomers retire. The industry is expected to add 60,400 jobs between 2012 and 2022, the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.
Dealerships and collision repair centers are just some of the businesses seeking more workers trained in technical trades. The skills gap extends to construction and other industries.
Companies like Houston-based Group 1 Automotive and AutoNation are scrambling to hire as they try to expand and also cope with needing more technicians to address a rising number of recalls.
“It’s really been a problem for a long time, as it has with other trades, but it really came to a head in the last couple years because our business retreated, as many did, during the recession,” said Brooks O’Hara, vice president of human resources for Group 1.
Now it’s growing again, following a rise in car sales since the recession. Houston has had record new-car sales in the last few years.
On Sunday, Group 1 courted 125 local technicians at the Astros-Rangers baseball game at Minute Maid Park, with free hot dogs, barbecue, beer and 500 tickets for technicians and their friends and families.
Event organizer Erica Harness said the company had already interviewed 50 technicians and hired several through marketing the event.
Orlando Cumpian, 29, whose sister heard about the event over the radio, said it made Group 1 an attractive place to work: “A company that can do this kind of thing, they can do a lot for you, and you can return the favor with your workmanship.”
Corporations like Group 1 have another recruiting advantage — employee benefit packages — unavailable at many independent shops. The company owns 151 dealerships and 38 collision centers in the U.S., U.K. and Brazil. Almost half its U.S. dealerships are in Texas. Revenue in parts and service has been growing at between 3.4 and 7.5 percent each quarter since 2013.
It wants to hire 350 technicians nationwide, “with a huge focus on Houston,” Brooks said.
Locally, Group 1 owns 16 dealerships and six collision-repair centers, and is looking to hire 100 new technicians, 20 to 30 service advisers and 15 to 20 collision-repair technicians.
AutoNation said the company is looking for 50 new technicians every quarter in Houston.
“Recruiting technicians is a huge challenge across the board,” said Natalee Doenig, talent acquisition program manager at AutoNation. “But when it comes to the Houston market, there’s just so much competition for that specific skill set because that same skill set can be used in the oil industry.”
Antoine Lee graduated in May from the diesel industrial program at the Universal Technical Institute in north Houston. The school, with locations across the country, trains students to repair car bodies and engines.
“I had about three or four offers that I could go with” upon graduation, he said. “I was even approached on the street when I was wearing my UTI T-shirt.”
The salaries for oil field work were attractive, he said, but Lee took a lower-paying job as a mechanic and driver for Swift Transportation as he works toward his goal of owning his own trucking company.
Lee is also an Army veteran, like 20 to 30 percent of students at UTI.
“A lot of the technology that we teach, they’ve learned some aspect of that in the military,” said Darrin Brust, president of the institute’s Houston campus.
On the 14-acre campus last week, students in uniforms of tucked-in polo shirts learned to realign the strippeddown structure of a car, take apart and rebuild an engine, and airbrush custom paint jobs.
Some had only recently graduated high school; others were seeking career changes or advancement.
Oscar Hernandez had moved from West Texas to attend UTI and works two jobs, at Best Buy and at a Chevrolet dealership, in addition to taking six hours of classes five days a week. It leaves him about four hours to sleep.
After eight years managing restaurants, Hernandez got the idea to become an auto technician when he was changing a spark plug on his car and it caught fire, then he figured out how to fix it. Now he hopes to move to a UTI program in North Carolina that does work with NASCAR.
“That’s really exciting because all the advances that happen come from racing,” he said.
But enrollment overall has been shaky in recent years. UTI’s Houston campus runs at about 60 to 70 percent capacity, Brust said. Tuition averages $30,000 to $35,000 for programs that last a year or two.
“Every day, we’re still trying to overcome the obstacle of this job being a grease monkey,” Brust said.
“And the idea that the only way to success is that four-year degree.”
With ever more complicated technology in cars, from self-parking to rear-view cameras, mechanics today reach for laptops before tools, Brust said.
The median annual pay for automotive repair and maintenance was $36,600 in 2012, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Master technicians, the highest certification, can make $125,000 or more, those in the industry said.
The Greater Houston Partnership estimated that 1,337 people completed technician programs in the greater Houston area last year, most of them from UTI.
With increasing competition among employers, more are offering tuition-reimbursement programs and recruiting aggressively at schools before graduation.
Waste Management, recognizing that working on trash trucks might not be an auto mechanic’s first choice, begins talking to students as soon as they enroll at technical institutes, said Melkaya McDuffie, senior director of talent acquisitions. The company also offers some tuition reimbursement and tool kits worth $10,000, highly valuable to technicians who must bring their own tools to jobs.
Group 1’s Sunday event was geared toward more experienced technicians, who are harder to find, Brooks said, though mechanics of all levels were being recruited. As technicians retire, their experience is not being replaced at the pace it’s demanded.
“We’ve definitely got the advantage from the skill level and experience,” said 40-year-old technician Dayne Wilson, who attended the game with his wife on Sunday and has been interviewing at Group 1-owned Advantage BMW Midtown.
Wilson learned the trade at his dad’s shop while growing up in Pasadena, and now his 18-yearold son is weighing his options, including becoming a mechanic.