Lisle UTI Grads Help Keep America On Road During Pandemic

LISLE, IL — As the new coronavirus crisis continues, graduates and students of Lisle's Universal Technical Institute (UTI) are doing their part to keep emergency vehicles, village fleets, delivery trucks and other cars on the road.

Ian Hardie, Employment Director at UTI-Lisle, told Patch that grads and students work on fire trucks and police cars, in addition to delivery trucks for grocery stores, shipping companies and other services. Hardie said because the pandemic brought a "big upswing in e-commerce," the school has seen an increase in service calls from UPS and FedEx.

The specialized training students receive at UTI-Lisle makes them well-equipped to handle farm machines too. Hardie said, "We are just one small link in the chain of what we call farm-to-table." He added that modern combine harvesters have dashboards that look "like a space shuttle," something UTI-Lisle grads are trained to troubleshoot.

"We all need food on the shelves at our grocery stores. We all like our fancy toys and gifts," Hardie said.

Colton Grauman, who graduated from UTI-Lisle in February, has been in the thick of the auto technician industry at a Ford dealership in Greenville, Ohio. Grauman told Patch he works on personal vehicles and Ford F350 trucks that are used for fire fleets in Greenville.

Grauman told Patch,"The school was well worth my time," and he uses his training to do everything from changing a car's oil to putting a new engine in a customer's car. Grauman said his dealership offered pickup and delivery of vehicles for customers to reduce contact at the start of the coronavirus crisis.

He said his workload stayed the same at first but started to dip a little when "Ohio opened back up." Now, things are back to normal, Grauman told Patch.

Like many other industries, the auto technician industry was hit hard by coronavirus in mid-March. Hardie said close to 5,000 tech jobs virtually "disappeared overnight."

Since then, there has been an uptick in the demand for technicians to do diesel maintenance. As the demand for technicians increases, Hardie is encouraging more women to enter the industry. He said it's important to dispel the stereotypical notion that the auto tech industry is just for men.

"The demand isn't going to go away," Hardie said, adding, "Trucks keep America running."