Building Your Maintenance Team One Technician at a Time
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A perennial challenge for fleet maintenance operations is finding, recruiting and developing highly skilled technicians who will keep medium- and heavy-duty trucks operating at peak efficiency, and diagnose and repair them when they are not. American Trucking Associations’ Technology & Maintenance Council Annual Meeting and Transportation Technology Exhibition, held recently in Nashville, Tenn., celebrated key milestones in this long campaign.
Trucking is not unique in this challenge, with 84% of manufacturers and 86% of commercial builders also reporting shortages and recruiting problems in skilled positions nationwide.
Kenneth Calhoun, Altec Industries’ fleet optimization manager and a former TMC general chairman and treasurer, delivered a special report at TMC on March 10 highlighting significant achievements in the “Be Pro Be Proud Program,” which promotes student interest in trades, including truck maintenance. Calhoun, who played a key role in the program’s founding, implementation and expansion, now serves on its board.
Since it began under the auspices of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, this critical outreach program has partnered with more than eight states, most recently Texas and New Mexico. Thanks to a high-tech touring demonstration trailer decked out with both virtual reality and hands-on simulators, the program has entertained more than 430,000 visitors, including nearly 100,000 students at nearly 3,000 stops in more than 1,500 towns.
Attracting technicians to our industry is one thing — keeping them is another. Part of the challenge is keeping new technicians engaged through the first year of their workforce experience, the most likely time in which technicians tend to give up on the industry. Recent actions by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration might help this situation.
On Jan. 16, FMCSA granted ATA and TMC a five-year exemption that will cut the time new technicians need to spend preparing to enter the workforce while maintaining high standards for safety and competency.
Under the new policy, which ATA requested in 2020, technicians will be allowed to shorten to 540 hours (about 13½ workweeks) the federally required one-year of training or experience needed to conduct commercial vehicle inspections and brake-related repair and maintenance, provided they received training based on TMC’s Recommended Practices. This exemption recognizes that TMC’s RPs meet the industry standard for technical knowledge, and technicians who are trained on them are more than capable of performing essential work.
The exemption applies to motor carriers, intermodal equipment providers and individuals, allowing them to self-certify that they have completed a training program based on TMC’s RPs. This RP-based training and certification, rather than the currently required year of additional training or work experience, “would likely achieve a level of safety equivalent to or greater than the level of safety provided by the regulatory requirements,” FMCSA said.
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“We believe that by allowing technicians trained in programs based on TMC’s Recommended Practices, the industry can make it easier and more efficient for new technicians to enter the industry,” TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell said. “The industry continues to face a persistent shortage of technicians, so anything we can do to cut red tape and get students and young people onto the shop floor quickly will help address it.”
Continuous development of technicians is also important. As an organization, TMC has promulgated more than 500 RPs and other tools to assist in the development of high-performing technicians.
TMC RP 546 establishes criteria for an ideal technician apprenticeship program and the companion information report on how to set up a registered apprenticeship program. This RP is used by fleets in crafting their own programs. Other relevant RPs include:
• TMC RP 548, Technician Training for Advanced Driver Assistance System Technologies
• TMC RP 503C, Standardization of Training Aid Materials
• TMC RP 1204A, Mechanics’ Electrical Skill Evaluation
• TMC RP 1607, Technician Career Development
• TMC RP 1614, Technician Mentor Program Guidelines
Schools, fleets and other organizations can base their own training programs using materials obtained from TMC. Those doing so must inform TMC so that it can maintain a master list of those organizations, per the exemption requirements. While TMC does not offer instruction classes for the exemption, it does make available training materials for the exemption, including TMC’s Preventive Maintenance Inspection Manual series, supporting RPs and a new RP Certification app. TMC is expanding the app in 2025 to include preventive maintenance and tire/wheel modules beyond its original electrical and brakes/chassis offerings. Eventually, the app will include as many as eight modules. Additional details can be found at atabusinesssolutions.com. From a computer, hover over the “Products” heading and then click the “Technology & Maintenance” tab. Then, select “FMCSA Exemption Training Materials” on the left side of the screen.
For full details on the FMCSA exemption, visit the Federal Register website.
For more information on the Be Pro Be Proud program, contact Executive Director Andrew Parker at andrew.parker@beprobeproud.org or 501-539-0953.
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