June 7, 2019—Icahn Automotive Group announced the addition of techincal schools in Arizona and New Jersey to its Race to 2026 initiative.
The initiative encourages more men and women to pursue viable careers in the skilled trades by partnering with technical training schools and offering scholarships, tuition reimbursement, creating apprenticeship and internship programs, job placement and continuing education opportunities, according to a press release.
Icahn owns brand like Pep Boys, AAMCO and Precision Tune Auto Care.
Icahn and school officials gathered at the Universal Technical Institute in Avondale, Ariz., to unveil classrooms updated with designs that incorporate images of the well-known service brands. Jeramy Yeagley, an automotive technology student who is anticipated to graduate from UTI in February 2020, received a $2,500 scholarship from Icahn.
“We’re passionate about offering more students the resources to forge a strong start in the automotive industry and showing them how rewarding a career in the skilled trades can be,” said Icahn Automotive President of Service Brian Kaner in the release. “Partnerships with education organizations are essential to reach enough young people at a critical point in their decision-making process and continue to shift the perception of the automotive service technician.”
In a separate event, Icahn came to Lincoln Technical Institute locations in Mahwah and Union, N.J. for the launch of five remodeled classrooms. Lincoln Tech automotive technology students Jeremy Pedersen (Union campus), Sebestian Tassey (Union), Frank Van Althuis (Mahwah campus) and Joseph Chin (Mahwah) were each presented with a $2,500 scholarship from Icahn, according to the release.
Icahn says it has nearly 60 Pep Boys and AAMCO locations in Arizona, and immediate openings for automotive service technicians of all levels. The company has nearly 100 Pep Boys and AAMCO locations in the Metro New York area.
The need is reflective of the skills gap that exists in the automotive industry nationally. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the automotive industry will need nearly 46,000 more technicians by 2026 to meet anticipated demand. In any given year, there are as many as 75,000 job openings, due in large part to the retirement of the last generation of technicians who benefitted from broadly available vocational education programs.
The Avondale campus is one of 12 UTI locations across the nation, and offers a 51-week automotive technology training program, along with advanced and manufacturer-specific training. The national Race to 2026 program was launched this past February at UTI’s NASCAR Technical Institute campus in Mooresville, N.C., where students can enroll in the automotive technology program as well as specialize in the NASCAR technology program.
Image: Icahn Automotive
