I know why there’s a service technician shortage: It’s hard work.
Hard, often dirty work, usually in less-than-ideal working conditions and, sometimes, performed for both unappreciative bosses and customers.
As the industry searches high and low for technicians, it may, simply and sadly, come down to the fact that the generation we are trying to woo into the garages and under the trucks sees manual labor as a last resort. Trucking is not unique in its labor plight. It’s a societal issue. Business heroes of yesteryear, the self-made industrial tycoons like Henry Ford and John Deere, hold no appeal over today’s rags-to-riches dot-com billionaires.
Deere, of course, was a blacksmith who went on to found one of the world’s most successful agricultural equipment manufacturing companies. There aren’t many blacksmiths left. But I did meet one recently during a suspension training event hosted by Hendrickson International for independent repair shops.
Jose Vazquez is general manager of Ace Spring Service in San Antonio, Texas. He’s worked around trucks and equipment since the fourth grade, he’s 45 years old and, professionally, doesn’t have any heir apparents. He uses his blacksmithing skills to custom manufacture suspension springs and, he believes, he is one of the last few plying this trade outside the Amish community.
“Spring shops started with blacksmiths. There are no more blacksmiths,” he says. “It’s a dying trade. The kids today want to go and get into computers and technology.” Even the technicians Vazquez does see today aren’t of a highly desirable caliber. “Ninety-five percent of the techs out there are parts changers. They don’t know why something failed or how to explain things to customers. They just change out parts.”
Vazquez readily admits what he does is not easy work, and can share more than a few gruesome anecdotes about working on loaded refuse trucks or RVs with questionable septic systems. But for every horror story, there are ten times as many stories about the satisfaction he feels about solving troublesome customer issues, completing a particularly complicated repair, fabricating an intricate replacement part and just generally working with his hands, creating and making things right.
Looking at the other technician attendees, all seemed at or around the same age as Vazquez. But there were a handful of young men, such as the three Letendre brothers who all work for their father at Ressorts Maska near Montreal. Nicolas, Samuel and Sebastien – 24, 25 and 20 respectively – all perform service work and they all get their hands dirty. They’re learning the family business from the ground up and that’s to be respected, but each hopes to eventually work in other areas of the company, such as business and marketing. None of them plan to make careers out of being technicians. When they mention the temperature drop after a bay door opens during the cold Canadian winter, you can see the chill in their eyes and understand why.
But lest I sound too bleak, I did meet David Crocket, 31, from Toledo Spring Service in Toledo, Ohio. Crocket has been a technician for six years, he loves the work and he’s genuinely grateful to be doing it. He walked in the shop one day, said he had no formal training and hadn’t done this type of work before, but he wanted to learn. The owner took a chance and Crocket is now the lead mechanic.
Whether service technician is a starting point or a destination for an aftermarket career, it takes a rare breed and a formidable character. They are out there, just few and far between.
