GM service tech training program grows

With dealership service technicians in short supply, General Motors says it’s seeing some improvement toward building a talent pipeline.

Enrollment in GM’s Automotive Service Educational Program, which trains aspiring technicians through a partnership mostly with community colleges across the U.S., is at a 10-year high, said Eric Kenar, GM’s manager of technician environment and service technical training.

Enrollment in the program this year tops 600 student technicians, Kenar said. Since 2012, enrollment has totaled between 365 and 450 students per year.

One reason for the bump, Kenar said, may be the impact of a two-year-old marketing campaign, “Bring Us Your Talent,” that aims to change the image of auto repair as a career. Kenar, along with dealership service technicians themselves, say the job requires more electrical and technological knowledge than it once did.

“It’s a very, I would say, mentally intensive as well as [labor]-intensive career,” said Jonathan Cote, lead technician at Ed Rinke Chevrolet-Buick-GMC in suburban Detroit, who started at the dealership 10 years ago as a student of the program. “It’s not just all labor. It’s a lot of critical thinking that goes into it, outside of the physical taking things apart and putting them back together.”