ECISD to get skilled

The sharp smell of diesel exhaust permeates the Hailey Diesel Mechanics Building while the sounds of a revving engine echo off the walls of the wide-open space.

A group of students crowd around the engine, checking their work, probing through the truck’s engine to see that everything has been done right. They’re completely focused on the trucks innards and don’t seem to see anything else in the giant room.

"It’s a great program because it gives you real world experience so that when you get out there, it won’t be the first time you’re seeing this stuff," Odessa College student Cade Heger said. Heger is in his second year studying diesel technology — and he loves it.

Heger said he has been interested in diesel engines for years, but he didn’t know if he would actually like working with them until he got to college.

"I’d like to have taken a diesel class (in high school) rather than waiting to go to college and find out then whether I liked it," Heger said.

Heger didn’t have that option, but next fall Ector County Independent School District juniors and seniors will be able to take diesel technology classes when the school district’s diesel academy — offered in partnership with OC — starts up.

Students will spend about two hours a day, five days a week working in the shop and learning the ins and outs of the trade. Those who take both years of the course will only need required field experience to get a level one certificate in a field that is badly in need of new hires, said Buddy McCutcheon, OC’s department chair of Auto Industrial Engines and Transportation Maintenance Technology.

"I get phone calls all the time for seasoned technicians, and I don’t have any and I don’t know any. I have to tell them to just grow their own. When this opportunity came around with ECISD, I jumped on it," McCutcheon said.

McCutcheon said he started learning the diesel business form his father when he was 6 years old.

"By the time I was 18 I had been working for six or seven years, and I knew that I wanted to go to college and get a diesel degree. Or be a teacher," he said.

Now students aren’t allowed to get that kind of experience because of insurance liability and safety restrictions, so students get out of school without clear ideas about what they would like to do or if they would be suited to the work, he said.

"This way they can get in there, find out if they’re good at working with their hands, if they like getting dirty, because you do get dirty in this business," he said.

Moving the diesel classes to OC allows students the chance to get more than 600 hours of hands-on experience while also giving them time in a college setting that will make the idea of attending college seem like something they can achieve, Odessa High School Career and Technology counselor Marcia Tombosky said.

"Students are excited to have the chance to go to high school and college at the same time. A lot of students never even had the idea that they’d be able to go to college," Tombosky said.

That’s important, ECISD career and technical education coordinator Ian Roark said.

"Students can enroll in the course, get to know what college is like and that they can do this. The traditional view of college is that everything culminates in a four-year degree and beyond but there’s a huge need for people with two-year technical degrees out there," Roark said.

Until last year, ECISD offered diesel classes at the Career and Technology Center. When the diesel instructor retired, there were only 20 students enrolled in the class, versus more than 40 signed up for the automotive engine class. Moving the class to Odessa College, where interested students could get dual credit, just made sense, Roark said.

Diesel technology has come a long way from basic mechanics. Now students have to be skilled in math, good with computers and good with their hands. But if they’ve got the will to learn, McCutcheon said he would be glad to teach them.

"It’s a highly technical program now, not the grease monkey image or the mechanic image anymore … we want the best and the brightest — people who really want to be here and really want to learn," McCutcheon said.