Hyundai Opens Job Program in South L.A. : Rebuilding: Auto maker plans to train mechanics for its dealerships. President says firm is trying to smooth relations between Koreans and blacks.

Helping Los Angeles rebuild by giving its unemployed a chance to work, Hyundai Motor America, the Korean auto maker, announced a program Thursday that will train South Los Angeles high school graduates to be mechanics and employ them in local dealerships.

During a news conference at the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, Mayor Tom Bradley and other officials joined the president of Hyundai in announcing the program, which will train 15 people this year in skills ranging from time management to how to perform smog checks. Upon completion of the 18-week program, the trainees will be able to walk into jobs at one of seven Hyundai dealerships in the Los Angeles area.

“I believe we must work together to make the American dream available to all people, especially young people,” Hyundai Motor America President D.O. Chung said. “We want to do our part.”

Called the Hyundai Academy of Automotive Technology, the $150,000 program represents a collaboration between the auto company, Los Angeles Harbor College and the Los Angeles Unified School District, which selected the inaugural class of 15 students. Starting Monday, the trainees will be able to earn 19 college credits through classes offered at Harbor College in Wilmington, Hyundai headquarters in Fountain Valley and the Waters employment center, an adult skills center operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District in Watts, officials said.

Students initially will be paid $5 an hour, moving up to $5.50 after they receive state certification in one of two specialty areas, according to Michael J. Whitman, Hyundai’s director of service and consumer market development. After two to three years at a dealership, graduates could earn an annual salary of $30,000 or more, Whitman said.

Hyundai will provide students with transportation to training sites, officials said. At the end of the program, the company will supply each graduate with a set of mechanic’s tools, provide financing so that the trainees can buy a new Hyundai, and send the top one or two students to Korea to visit the company’s home office.

Trainees had to be graduates of a South Los Angeles high school, have at least two years of automotive experience and training, and be one of the top three graduating seniors in their automotive classes, officials said. They also had to be willing to make a six-month commitment. Hyundai has pledged to provide the training program indefinitely and will bring in a second group of students in January.

Chung said the program is a step toward helping rebuild a city rocked by unrest and soothing animosities between some Korean business people and African-American customers.

“We have to smooth out some disputes between two communities,” Chung said. “This is what we’re trying to do.”

Bernard Kinsey, the chief operating officer of Rebuild L.A., challenged other companies to follow Hyundai’s lead.

The trainees ranged from a plasterer’s apprentice unable to find work to a welfare mother determined to take control of her life.

Donald Downs, 23, who had been taking classes at the Maxine Waters center before entering the program, said it will “give me an opportunity to get out of my mother’s house. I want a house. I want a family. This is going to lay the foundation.”

Another trainee, David Scott, 30, said the program represents an invaluable opportunity to build bridges between people. “I think this will show good will,” he said, “for a Korean company to come in and offer jobs to the African-American community.”