Diesel Training Center Spotlights a Problem of Education : Education: The vocational program at Miramar College has trouble luring students despite the availability of good-paying jobs.

At some point, diesel power moves almost every product in America, yet diesel mechanics get too little respect.

That’s the feeling at Miramar College, where a high-powered diesel technology program is threatened with extinction unless it can draw more students, even though $40,000-a-year jobs await talented graduates in this time of economic woe.

“It’s a real uphill battle because we seem to be invisible to the public,” said Jim Cargill, one of two Miramar diesel instructors. While enrollment in a morning class this semester has reached 20, his afternoon session has only eight students. Each session could take 25.

A majority of students in both the day and in additional evening classes are in their mid-20s or older, having struggled in the job market for several years before returning to school to learn or upgrade skills. Few come directly out of high school--a prime market that Miramar would like to tap.

Part of the problem is image, Cargill and colleagues concede.

“High schools have pushed the view that anyone not going on to four-year college or a career as a lawyer is a failure,” instructor Jim Lewis said. “Someone working with their hands is considered a dirtbag, a parasite. . . . The general public thinks we’re gorillas.”

But the image of a diesel mechanic as some barely literate tinkerer is decades out of date, assuming it was ever accurate, Lewis said. That’s a point he is trying to make in visits to high schools.

Today, a microchip is as important to a diesel mechanic as a wrench, Lewis said. In fact, he prefers the term “diesel technician” because reading and writing skills, and the ability to reason through problems, are as important as mechanical competency. The field also requires an ability to get the job done with a minimum of supervision.

“You can’t have people bumbling around on sophisticated equipment valued at $1 million or more that today features electronically controlled engines and computer-run hydraulics,” said Tom Remy, a manager at Hawthorne Machinery Co., which has a constant need for trained diesel mechanics.

Remy graduated from a now-defunct program at San Diego City College 12 years ago and worked his way up from mechanic at Hawthorne to his position today. Hawthorne and its corporate supplier, Caterpillar Corp., have outfitted the Miramar program with almost $200,000 of state-of-the-art engines and other equipment for student practice in an effort to supply their future with qualified mechanics.

The atrophy of high-school vocational education is also at fault, Cargill said. That means too few graduates are exposed to diesel and other career trades or appreciate that math, English and other academic subjects increasingly are musts for success in the trades, he said.

As a result, the students who aren’t planning to go to college end up in “dead-end” jobs and lose an early chance to get into technical careers, Lewis said.

“The high schools have gotten away from this,” added Augustine Gallego, chancellor of the San Diego Community College District, who credits his own training in welding and drafting for giving him work options as a young adult.

“You can teach critical thinking and problem-solving, you can teach geometry, the whole damn shot, through machine shop, welding, all of this.

“I don’t romanticize these jobs, because they are not romantic, but we need to give them a lot of importance and equal status in the school system.”

Miramar’s diesel technology program, the only one in the San Diego district, requires two years of study to achieve both a certificate in the trade and an associate arts degree. Cargill stresses the A.A. degree, not just a certificate, because businesses want validation that the student has the discipline to meet a goal and work independently.

In Cargill’s latest class, only two of the 16 students are just out of high school. Toby Epson and Troy Renner learned of the program because their fathers have careers in related fields, not from their high school counselors.

“The high schools should emphasize that it’s a career type of job and means good money,” said Dave Harbison, who is returning to school after several years of work. “But I know it’s not enough any more just to have some kind of mechanical background. You need to know math and reading, and I have a problem with my reading and writing.”

O’Bryant Sanders received his initial training while in the Marines, and now wants the Miramar course to complete his certification.

Colleagues Greg Anderson and Guy Boccia, both with several years of job experience, said that students shouldn’t worry about image.

“Who cares if others think it’s a dirtbag job?” Boccia said. His other jobs were poor-paying, and he doesn’t care to talk about them.

“I don’t,” chimed in Anderson. “That’s for people in Hollywood. I know the potential and it’s good.”

Without an upturn in the number of students, there is a possibility the Miramar center could be shut down and the money the college district spends on it shifted elsewhere.

“I don’t think that will happen,” Gallego said. “We’re going to aggressively market this in high schools to tell about the entry-level features as well as in industry circles to emphasize the potential for professional growth.”

Miramar is not alone in having trouble selling the vocational courses.

Nationwide during the past decade, the number of new diesel mechanics had shrunk to the point where corporations like Peoria, Ill.--based Caterpillar felt the need to provide funds and equipment for college programs to improve the attractiveness of the jobs.

In 1989, Caterpillar sponsored four community colleges with a total of 158 students in diesel study. Today, the same four schools have 673 students. In California, the corporation has aided Long Beach Community College and Delta College near Stockton, as well as Miramar.

“We looked at the demographics of the 1990s and saw that there was going to be a real shortage of technicians,” said Ed Siebert, vice president and manager of the Caterpillar Foundation. “And when you talk about diesel heavy equipment repair, you’ve got to consider that most dealers and companies are local in nature and you’ve got to encourage development in local areas” through community colleges.