Ashley Porter
Sep 27 2006 12:00AM
How does $40,000 to $70,000 per year sound for an average salary? Sounds great, right? If you are a PJC student who is interested in a life in the automotive industry, this is the program for you. Recently PJC received accreditation from the National Automotive Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF), which ensures students a quality education so that they can get a good job doing what they love.
“The state has mandated that all automotive programs must be NATEF certified, and they had until 2007 to do that,” said Bob Pierce, automotive program department head.
“It lets the public, potential students as well as current students know that we are certified by NATEF, which is an arm of the ASE (Automotive Service Excellence), so that lets them know that we have a program that will let them get their ASE certification.”
In order to get the accreditation, PJC had to be examined by the state to be sure that the facilities were up to date.
“We spent $50,000 to $70,000 to buy new equipment,” said Sue Halfhill, the assistant provost of the Pensacola campus. “The examiner said that our facility was one of the best facilities he had seen.”
What does this certification mean to automotive students at PJC? Pierce said, “they can be assured that the training that they are getting here will lead them to get their ASE certification, which is what automotive technicians need to have in order to work.”