Help wanted: ag service technicians needed! Dealers are tapping into creative initiatives to...

High on the list of concerns for most ag equipment dealers is finding and retaining service technicians. Some dealers, like Bill Scoville of LaMoure Equipment in LaMoure, N.D., are finding solutions in their own backyards and others are reaching further out. Either way, it's an issue that dealers

North Dakota's 125 dealerships currently have about 250 openings for service technicians, according to Scoville, who is also a director of the North Dakota Implement Dealers Association (NDIDA). "Young people are leaving the state and the boomers are getting older and entering retirement. As a result, the next several years will witness an increase in demand for diesel technicians, and we currently don't have the young people to replace them," he says.

Add the need for service technicians to be highly trained and skilled in order to work on today's complex farm machinery and the list of qualified candidates gets even smaller. "Thirty years ago you could fix a tractor without plugging into a computer," Scoville says. "Now, technical problems on new tractors and combines can't be fixed without diagnosing them with a computer system."

Financial incentives and training partnerships can give equipment dealers an edge

The North Dakota Association's commitment to help members with their workforce needs prompted the group to create an education director position last year. In that role, Matthew Larsgaard has been working with technical colleges and dealerships to offer training partnerships, scholarship programs and public relations campaigns to attract a new generation to the farm equipment industry.

The association's PLOW (Post-secondary Loan Obligation Write-down) program gives eligible students an opportunity to have up to $20,000 of their student loans repaid over 10 years by participating dealerships. During the first five years of a student's employment, the dealership will make a $1,500 annual payment on the student's loan. Provided the student continues to work for the dealership, the annual repayments increase to 2,500 for years six through 10, to a maximum of $20,000.

"If the individual no longer works for the dealership, then the payments stop and the student is responsible for future payments," Larsgaard explains. "Loan liability is never assumed by the dealership."

The association also offers $1,000 scholarships annually for students enrolled in college with the intent of working in a North Dakota dealership. These two-year programs include summer cooperatives in which the students work as paid employees at dealerships to apply their classroom skills in the work environment.

"North Dakota dealers are very willing to sponsor students," Scoville says. "We expose the students to our dealerships, our culture and what's going on in the business. As a result, there is a high probability that students will come back as employees."

In fact, 85 percent of the students return to that co-op dealer to work fulltime after graduating, according to Terry Marohl, diesel technology chair at the North Dakota State College of Science (NDSCS). He says the co-op connection can be beneficial for the dealer and the student.

"It's a perfect fit," Marohl says. "The dealer looks at this as an excellent way to find and hire incoming new technicians, and the student can figure out if this would be a nice place to work."

Marohl says it's also a time when the dealer can be creative in what perks to offer the student. "Some dealers have come up with some very generous unique offers," he says.

"They have paid for a second year of school, paid for the students' tools or guaranteed a raise after six months. A dealer knows what he can and can't do with his own bottom line."

Tech schools, dealership associations and dealers are aiming at high school students, hitting the students with PowerPoint presentations and participating in job fairs. They want to convince students and their parents that a degree from a two-year tech school can be as lucrative as a four-year degree, if not more so.

"There is a common misperception by parents that you need a four-year degree in order to succeed, and that just isn't the case." Scoville says. "Now, many students with a two-year technical degree make as much or more than many students with four-year degrees."

Marohl can back up what he says with the placement report for the 2007 spring graduates of the regular diesel program at North Dakota State College of Science. The report shows that the average monthly salary for the 2007 graduates was $2,562, and the monthly salary range was $1,387 to $4,801, depending on location. The class achieved 100 percent placement, with 44 percent of the diesel technician graduates hired in agriculture, 27 percent in construction, 24 percent in trucks and five percent in mining.

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Scoville adds that even with some four-year degrees, there may not be a large number of jobs available. However, on the technical side, there are jobs everywhere. "In fact, North Dakota currently has a six to one job/graduate ratio, which means there are six jobs available for every one person who graduates with a degree in diesel technology," he says.

Polishing agriculture's image as a high tech career choice

Getting students to consider entering a two-year diesel technical program is only half the battle, according to Tim Wentz, director of field services for the Northeast Equipment Dealers Association (NEDA). He says graduates are qualified to repair and maintain a variety of power equipment, so farm equipment dealers have to compete for the same technicians sought after by dealers of "more glamorous" non-farm equipment--motorcycles, ATVs, speedboats, snowmobiles, diesel trucks and automobiles.

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"When you tell a potential candidate they have the choice of working for an agriculture equipment dealership or a Harley-Davidson shop, there is a whole lot more glamour that goes along with the hog mechanic as opposed to the combine mechanic," Wentz says.

One attraction that Wentz thinks the ag industry has over the auto and motorcycle repair industry is its model of pay. He says that some service technicians choose to leave the auto industry because of its flat rate model which sets the number of hours for a technician to perform certain repairs.

"In general, in the ag industry the techs are paid on an hourly basis. There is not, in most cases, a set time limit on any given repair, and that difference is one of the ways dealers are able to pull people in from the auto industry."

The Northeast Equipment Dealers Association offers an apprenticeship program to give those service techs entering the ag and outdoor power equipment industry an opportunity to "earn while they learn." The program offers up to 6,000 hours of on-the-job training with a dealership mentor, along with the required hours of correspondence course work. Trainees gain hands-on experience and earn a living wage while taking courses from home.

Initially offered to NEDA's nine member states, Wentz says plans are to offer the program to all associations this year. "My hope is that we can continue to make it a national minimum standard for all dealerships to use."

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Brand-specific training programs, like those offered at NDSCS for John Deere and Caterpillar, guarantee placement with affiliated dealerships. However, students enrolled in a regular diesel technician program have more choices about where to work.

To promote those choices, North Dakota dealers attend the school's annual job fair, host booths and meet with the 120 students enrolled in the two-year NDSCS regular diesel training program. This year's fair attracted 38 dealers looking to fill more than 130 service technician vacancies, although each class graduates only 50 to 60 students.

Marohl says a lot of high school students haven't thought about a career of servicing farm machinery or they have an out-of-date image perception about it. Dealers can make a difference in changing that image and letting students know that it is a good paying job in a clean, safe work environment, he adds.

"The technician of today is different than years ago. Working on today's farm equipment takes a highly motivated, technically competent person with very good computer skills."

Dealers' efforts can produce home-gown technicians

Some dealers have taken advantage of the tools provided by their regional associations and tech colleges, using the resources to reach out to high school students in their own communities so they can "grow their own" technicians. Dean Deike, co-owner of Deike Implement in Waverly, Iowa, has personally taken that approach a step further by serving as a past member of the advisory board for the nearby Hawkeye Community College (HCC) tech program (his son and co-owner Jason is a current member) and has served as chairman of the Board of Directors of the Iowa-Nebraska Equipment Dealers Association (INEDA).

"We're active and make our name and industry known," Deike says of his business, "and education has always been a mindful item for us."

His dealership has assisted many tech students with hands-on education and offered scholarships, along with competitive salaries for new graduates hired. Through the years, Deike has hired 15 to 20 co-op students like Jonathan Wenger, who attends classes in the mornings and works at the dealership in the afternoons. He will graduate from HCC in May 2008 and plans to stay on fulltime after he graduates.

"Experience is better than sitting in a classroom," Wenger says, "and these guys aren't shy about giving me projects."

To stay on top of the technician shortage, Deike says dealerships need to forecast their needs better and get into the high schools to tall to the students about farm technology. Deike Implement has been heavily involved with the local FFA Chapter, presenting programs, hosting tours, and assisting with other events. This year, Cody Burkholder, a high school senior, was hired through the local FFA job co-op program to work part-time at the dealership. Burkholder plans to pursue a professional rodeo career and hopes to own his rodeo company someday, and he says the skills he's learning at Deike should come in handy.

Deike advises dealers to make a strong effort to identify interested high school students who could be potential employees. "We need to call the local schools and present ourselves and pursue those young students to take a look at our industry," he says.

Part 2 coming in May/June: In Canada, where salaries are higher and competition for ag service techs is at an all-time high, regional associations and dealers are recruiting locally and abroad.

Projections data from the National Employment Matrix

                                                           Projected
                                            Employment,   employment,
Occupational title                             2006          2016

Heavy vehicle and mobile equipment            188,000       206,000
  service technicians and mechanics
Farm equipment mechanics                       31,000        31,000
Mobile heavy equipment mechanics, except      131,000       147,000
  engines
Rail car repairers                             27,000        28,000

                                             Change, 2006-16

Occupational title                          Number    Percent

Heavy vehicle and mobile equipment          18,000      10
  service technicians and mechanics
Farm equipment mechanics                       400       1
Mobile heavy equipment mechanics, except    16,000      12
  engines
Rail car repairers                           1,300       5

NOTE: Data in this table are rounded. Extracted from:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/print/ocos 197.htm