Kenworth Sales
Company President Kyle Treadway was on a tour of Salt Lake Community College’s
new Westpointe Workforce Training & Education Center when he decided his
company needed to invest in the students who will soon be training within the
Westpointe diesel technician program.
“I saw their
commitment and said, ‘I can get behind that. I can commit when I see that there
are others going in the same direction,’” Treadway said. He announced at the
Kenworth Sales facility in West Valley City that he is donating $400,000 to
Westpointe. “I could see that it was a serious facility geared toward current
technology – and that’s what we are lacking.”
SLCC President Deneece G. Huftalin and Kenworth Sales Company President Kyle Treadway
Treadway said
there is a national shortage of diesel technicians, citing U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics that show 67,000 Baby Boomers retiring from the industry on top of a
projected 12 percent growth within the next decade that is creating a need for
75,000 new diesel technicians. “We are in a crisis, and this is an investment
to try and solve that,” he added. “I could hire 45 technicians right now,
today.” Within three or four years of attaining a one-year diesel technician
certificate from SLCC, Treadway noted, the best technicians can be earning an
annual salary in excess of $100,000.
SLCC President
Deneece G. Huftalin echoed Treadway’s call for other industry leaders in Utah
to partner with programs at Westpointe that are also engaged in workforce
development. “I have to say thank you, from the bottom of our heart at Salt
Lake Community College,” Huftalin told Treadway. “A $400,000 gift. That is not
a small step – that is a gigantic leap in terms of an industry coming to the
table and saying, ‘We are investing in the future.’” The funds could be
earmarked for additional equipment or scholarships for students attending
classes at Westpointe, a $43 million, 121,000-square-foot facility that will
open this fall and provide career and technical education programs to meet the future
needs of vital industry partners.
Kenworth officials gave a tour of their facility in West Valley City
Treadway and
Huftalin said the donation is part of a larger statewide effort to address a
lack of skilled labor in Utah that includes investing in the Utah Diesel
Technician Pathways program, which began in 2016. Today SLCC, several school
districts, the State of Utah and industry partners in the Pathways program have
been educating and training students who are still in high school to prepare
for relatively high-paying jobs upon graduation or soon after. Treadway said
the donation to Westpointe will not solve Utah’s or Kenworth’s needs in “one
fell swoop,” and that it marks the continuation of a relationship with SLCC.
“It’s fantastic.
Anytime you invest in students, you invest in the future,” said Rick Bouillon,
SLCC associate vice president over Workforce & Economic Development. “We’re
excited. It’s going to help students not only from a scholarship standpoint, it
will help us round out the incredible facility at Westpointe. Ultimately, if we
help a student, it helps their family, and it helps the whole community.”
