How the Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association is helping Ohio dealers find technicians

There are some interesting things happening in Ohio. For the second straight year, the Cleveland Automobile Dealers Association is helping dealers across northern Ohio find new technicians through a program they are calling “Grow Your Own” Apprentice Service Technician Grants.

With the goal to bring more techs to the service department, the GCADA offers its member dealers two months’ pay when they hire a tech. The tech must be a graduate or second-year student at a qualified school to offset employment costs of apprentice technicians from qualifying schools.

The timing is great, too, as the baby boomer generation inches closer to retirement, the need for technicians will only increase. And the program is already seeing success: the majority of the apprentice techs who entered the program in 2014 are still with their dealerships today.

This allows your service departments the opportunity to test the students to see if they have what it takes, and it gives them the chance to see if they really do want to be a tech.

Louis A. Vitantonio, president of the GCADA, says, “This program is an investment that should go a long way toward helping our member dealers staff their service departments for years to come.”

Source: GCADA