If you want to see evidence of one of the biggest challenges facing the heavy equipment service industry — and all of the industries it serves — Bonne Karim suggests taking a look around any cluster of trucking-related businesses.
“If you drive down the avenue in Oklahoma City parallel to I-40,” she said, “every single place has a sign: ‘Technicians wanted.’”
Karim, a retired fleet training manager for the U.S. Postal Service and former chairwoman of the American Trucking Association’s Technology and Maintenance Council’s professional technician development committee, said the help-wanted signs are a symptom of a problem that’s been building up for decades and is now becoming a major problem across the country.
Demand for qualified heavy vehicle and mobile service mechanics is on the rise. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the industry will grow by nine percent between 2012 and 2022. But at the same time, the number of people stepping up for those jobs is dwindling.
Industry veterans say they’re facing a two-pronged issue: the bulk of technicians are older workers headed toward retirement and the young people interested in replacing them are few and far between. And with few mechanics ready to do the work, companies often are forced to delay work or opt for new kinds of equipment to keep up.
Preston Ingalls, president and CEO of the Raleigh, N.C.-based maintenance consulting firm TBR Strategies, works with a long list of major construction and oil and gas corporations. Most of those companies, he said, are having a hard time keeping technician positions filled.
“It’s very difficult to go out right now; I don’t know a single one of my clients that don’t struggle when they have an opening in their shop,” Ingalls said.
He said that shortage has a very real impact on how quickly repairs — and projects — can be completed.
“You see field personnel performing work, taking a long time for repairs to occur, and you’re seeing delays because of backlogs of work,” he said.
Karim said companies have long put their focus on sales and customer service, sometimes at the expense of the maintenance side of the business. For a while, that may have worked, but she said it won’t for much longer.
“We do such a good job that they take us for granted,” she said. “But if it gets to the point where the trucks aren’t running, it’s going to be a wakeup call.”
Karim and other industry professionals say the way to head off the problem before it becomes a full-blown crisis is to start early, when future technicians are still in their teens, or even younger.
First, they said, schools and companies alike need to do a better job of explaining and selling the idea of being a technician.
Ken Calhoun, vice-president for customer relations at Truck Centers of Arkansas, said many students think of technician jobs only as grimy, hands-on work. But in today’s industries, he said, the job also demands a solid command of technical and computer skills.
“When I started, we were looking for kids who didn’t fit the model for college — maybe he tinkered with go-karts,” Calhoun said. “But today, it has to be someone who has that mentality, plus is savvy enough to do some of the diagnostic (tech work.) So it gets more difficult for us.”
Karim said mechanic-training programs have lost visibility in many schools, where the focus has shifted to culinary training or other courses of study. And, she said, many of the top graduates in technician training programs are opting to start their careers on the automotive side, rather than diesel. She said that’s in part because of heavy recruiting efforts from big companies like Toyota.
And though demand for good technicians has increased, those workers haven’t seen a major bump in their salaries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median wage for heavy vehicle and mobile equipment service technicians was $43,820 in 2012, the most recent time the numbers were collected.
In some cases, in-demand mechanics have seen their workloads grow considerably, which has some in the industry concerned about fatigue and related safety issues.
“For some of my clients, 65 to 70 hours a week is pretty routine,” Ingalls said. “Productivity drops off and safety (incidents) increase.”
Calhoun said the industry needs to do more to provide technicians with support and to show newcomers that it can be an exciting path.
“It’s a wonderful career field, but we’ve done a horrible job of advertising,” he said.
Some industry organizations are now putting an increased focus on training programs. Truck Centers of Arkansas launched an in-house training center that allows high school students to work 20 hours per week while attending school.
That program is now in its fourth class of students.
“We just feel like it’s a ‘half to,’” Calhoun said of the increased training opportunities.
Meanwhile, others in the industry say equipment manufacturers will also have to pick up some of the burden, building products that last longer and require less maintenance.
Mason Ford, director of equipment services for Skanska USA Civil, said his company is increasingly looking for equipment that isn’t expected to wear out after a relatively short period of use.
“It’s a matter of having the manufacturers step up,” he said. “And they have to because they’re in the same boat as us. We’re not buying CAT equipment if Caterpillar can’t make it run. With a shortage of technicians, they have to make the stuff better.”
Ford said innovation in the repair industry is also changing the nature of the jobs themselves. The spread of mobile diagnostic technology, in which companies can sort out – and sometimes fix—problems remotely, means technicians don’t always have to go out to the field.
“Instead of having one or two really well-trained guys looking at our meters, one guy is sitting in the office running a lot of tests and figuring out what is running right,” he said. “And he can make sure we direct those people to the right spot and the right parts.”
Erin Golden is a journalist based in Minneapolis, Minn.