Training Tomorrow's Auto Technicians

Consider:

I drove to the campus in a 2004 Jaguar X-Type sedan. Someone had to make the car. Someone else had to service the car to guarantee that it would run properly. Somebody had to transport and deliver the automobile to a pick-up point; and all of the vehicles and tools used in that process had to work, too.

None of my editors can do any of those jobs. Some of them still are trying to figure out how to use their personal computers. I write about cars, love them. I understand them intellectually. But the last time I tried to change a tire, I stripped a bolt. I'd still be wallowing on the side of the road, had it not been for an auto technician sent my way by my road-service provider.

It didn't take me long to figure out, walking around the Gudelsky Institute and looking into the faces of all of those eager young students, they were training to do jobs I need done, but can't or won't do for myself. I need these people!

You need them, too. It is easy in affluent, white-collar, pinstriped, multi-degreed, status conscious Washington to ignore trades people, to belittle community colleges and vocational schools, Perhaps that is why so many parents of all races and creeds frown on the idea of sending their child to a school to learn how to repair cars, build houses, fix toilets, or produce those fancy corporate and political brochures and reports in which so much wisdom is imparted.

But the truth is that journeyman-level employees in the computer printing/electronic imaging field can earn as much as $26 an hour. Entry-level construction trades people can earn about $25,000 annually, about $2,000 more than my youngest daughter earned with a Master's Degree from Columbia University in her first television reporting job. These aren't dead-beat occupations. These aren't jobs for stupid or lazy people. They require literacy, math skills, computer skills, physical dexterity and talent. The dry cleaning machinery that keeps your white collar white was not designed by a dummy.

That being the case, I'm sending a $200 check to the Gudelsky Institute's expansion program.

If you wish to help, you can send a donation to the Montgomery College Foundation, Inc., 900 Hungerford Drive, 2nd Floor, Rockville, Md. 20850. Who knows? The aspiring auto technician, builder, or printer you help could wind up being your own.