Hendrick, RCC partner on accelerated training for automotive techs

HAMLET — Hendrick Automotive Group is partnering with Richmond Neighborhood College to develop one of the leading educational centers in the nation for automotive specialists.

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

“We are at a vital time for the automotive market,” explained Hendrick. “In North Carolina by itself, there are more than 1,200 openings at dealerships in our condition. It is extremely critical that we carry on to draw in younger people today by supplying unparalleled instruction and satisfying, perfectly-paying out vocation possibilities.”

In North Carolina, a lot more than 600 car dealerships employ a lot more than 36,000 persons, including roughly 7,000 support specialists. In accordance to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, by 2026 the United States will increase 50,000 service technician careers.

Nationally, Hendrick Automotive Team at present has additional than 350 openings for provider/collision experts and 150 openings in North Carolina. Hendrick explained company professionals as “the spine of our dealerships.”

“With such a need to fill, it is crucial we come across partners that share quite a few of our exact same values and aims. President Dale McInnis and his team’s vision for this program is dependent on a track file for results,” Hendrick said. “It is a specific day, and I just can’t hold out to see what extraordinary opportunities this venture will produce for the neighborhood.”

The automotive technician software will be modeled right after RichmondCC’s Electric powered Lineman plan, which delivers a solid basis of skills and schooling in just a small span of time. Automotive technician college students furthermore will full the powerful, accelerated program in 16 weeks and be certified to go to get the job done right away and commence their occupations in the automotive sector.

“We have observed that an intense cohort-primarily based, limited-term teaching system that supplies college students with the capabilities, understanding and competencies that employers are desperately trying to get in a fraction of the time and portion of the price to the college students and family members,” Dr. McInnis explained.

The Hendrick Household Basis is earning a $500,000 donation to the advancement of the educational centre. The Richmond Community Higher education Basis is matching that donation, and the Basis for the Carolinas is donating $250,000. An extra $3.4 million is necessary to assistance the growth of the software.

Sen. Tom McInnis, who has been critical in securing condition funding for brief-time period workforce teaching at RichmondCC, confirmed his guidance for the new application.

“This is a crimson letter day in Richmond County, but not only Richmond County, but every single county that touches us in the two Carolinas,” the senator reported. “This is an function where we produce an instructional route utilizing brief-expression education to enable people to develop wealth and to improved by themselves and their households in the shortest period of time of time and the least volume money obligation.”

Executive Vice President for the Foundation of the Carolinas Brian Collier stated he was proud to be once yet again doing work with RichmondCC on an revolutionary venture that has a target of getting the very best.

“Everything at RichmondCC is performed with intentionality to send out a concept to existing and long term students that ‘we benefit and regard you’ and that we’re investing in you since the future of the group relies upon on your good results,” he explained.

Lavern Shultz, president of the Richmond Neighborhood Faculty Foundation Board of Directors, claimed his board was also enthusiastic to make a significant contribution to this partnership.

“This announcement is an case in point of the electric power of providing and teamwork,” Shultz said. “When we appear with each other as a group, we build transformative prospects for Richmond Neighborhood College or university learners just about everywhere.”

The normal salary for an automotive company technician is a very little around $39,000 within just a 100-mile radius of Hamlet, but on a countrywide scale, the regular salary is just about $47,000.

Hendrick Automotive Team employs much more than 2,500 experts nationwide. Salaries can exceed $100,000 for experts with superior particular training and longevity doing work in the automotive business.

“Thanks to a tremendous public-private philanthropic partnership – which is so rare and specific – between the condition of North Carolina, our college or university and its donors, two leading local foundations and the nationally acknowledged chief in automotive sales and providers, we will shortly be expanding the horizons and the hopes of students from across the region and the full point out of North Carolina,” Dr. McInnis said.