Opinion: The Benefit of 'Precise' Continuing Education
B>By Carl Kirk
I>Executive Director
I>Technology and Maintenance Council
As a nation, and an industry, we pay a lot of lip service to education. Parents, politicians and company presidents extol the virtues of our collective investment in education. We encourage youth to study hard and stay in school, teenagers to apply themselves in high school so that they can prepare for a solid college education, and everyone else to embrace life-long learning for personal fulfillment and better-paying jobs.Industries outside of trucking often make continuing education either a requirement or an ingrained part of their professional culture. Teachers, chemists, pharmacists, construction tradesmen, even beauticians engage in continuing education on a regular basis in their professional careers. In some cases, continuing education is simply a must. You wouldn’t want your personal physician to stop his or her education at the completion of residency, would you? Or how about—gasp!—your tax adviser? Not likely.
Even within our industry, a lot of attention is paid to education. Technicians, for example, are encouraged to achieve certification through the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence. This certification must be revalidated every five years, so technicians must do some continuing education during the intervening years if they wish to keep current.
What surprises—and disturbs—me is that the same fleet managers who encourage and/or authorize training for their own technicians often must struggle to convince their superiors of the merit of furthering their own continuing education. They often are denied company sponsorship of structured learning, and are forced to use personal funds and/or vacation time to go to technical events such as the Technology and Maintenance Council’s Annual Meeting and Transportation Equipment Exhibition.
Certainly, there are a number of progressive fleets whose executives clearly understand the benefit of quality continuing education for their fleet managers. But there’s no denying that there are a whole lot more that simply erect barriers that prevent travel or funding for continuing education.
Granted, we have a lot more options today when it comes to training and continuing education. Trade magazines, manufacturer literature, even so-called self-help books all can assist fleet managers in staying current. And certainly the Internet now puts a wealth of data at the fingertips of anyone who has access to it and knows how to mine that great resource.
The problem is, gleaning information from this enormous pile of data takes precious time. And who is to say that this self-directed approach extracts the right information that’s vital to the future success of your fleet?
Fleets would do far better to make a minor investment in an educational forum that focuses on the right issues dealing with onboard and offboard technologies in the trucking industry. That’s why fleets should take full advantage of the forum that TMC offers.
In just four days, equipment, IT and logistics managers can experience more than a dozen sharply focused and relevant technical sessions, each with the potential of significant savings for your fleet. If the whole 2002 engine issue caught your fleet by surprise, it shouldn’t have. It was presented in detail on several occasions at TMC meetings.
Beyond the technical sessions, there are also 14 study groups and 80 task forces that are proactively developing best practices and voluntary industry standards to improve truck technology and maintenance. In these groups, your employees can both influence future industry direction to benefit your company and become better educated on a variety of vital subjects.
And then there is the exhibition itself, which features technical demonstrations and training in the most unique, non-commercial environment our industry has. More than a trade show, this is the event where equipment and technology professionals gather to exchange ideas and do business. Culturally, TMC is about education. We don’t engage in sponsorships, golf outings or the like. At this show, it’s all about the hardware and the circuits—not the circus.
True, you can send folks to larger shows that feature famous entertainers and lots of sales associates. But they’re more likely to remember the singer or the golf outing than the things that are important to your company’s bottom line.
And what does it cost for your employees to do all this just once a year? About $1,000, factoring in a $350 registration fee, travel and meals. TMC even throws in half-dozen meals with the registration fee, so it’s really a bit less. Even in a bad economy, this is clearly a worthwhile investment, especially given the selectivity of the program and the caliber of the presenters and organizers that make it all happen.
So how about it? How about deciding—starting this year—to send your equipment and technology managers back to a school that you can trust will focus on the things that are important to your fleet? Even if it’s only once a year (although TMC offers a fall meeting as well), it’s an investment that will reap large dividends in a short time—for your company and your employees.
Next time one of your managers asks to go to an educational event like TMC, give it some serious thought. I’m sure you’ll make the right decision once you think things through.
The writer joined TMC as information manager in 1987 when it was The Maintenance Council, and has been executive director since 1993. TMC is a council of American Trucking Associations, which owns Transport Topics Publishing Group.
This article appears in the Feb. 3 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
