Getting a career with Ford

Every two years, about 25 students are accepted to MHCC’s Ford ASSET program to learn and build up experience on comprehensive auto repairs.

In order to be accepted into the Ford ASSET (Student Service Education Training) program, students first must interview and secure a job at a Ford dealership.

The program works in two-part loop: Students spend three months in the classroom, then spend three months applying what they have learned at the dealership.

Students are paid during their work at their sponsoring dealership, which also supplies a uniform and, typically, a job once he or she graduates.

This is the 22nd student cohort at MHCC since the program was brought to the campus in 1987.

The program currently has 21 newer-model vehicles on hand that students can work with.

“We have millions of dollars of donated equipment from Ford. Our program is actually one of the best in the nation,” said Jerry Lyons, Ford ASSET Program coordinator.

Lyons plants bugs/system errors in the vehicles and students must troubleshoot to find them. “It’s a blast,” he said.

Jenn Percell, 27, has been working on cars since she was about 12.

“I just always like the fact of getting to tear stuff apart and making it better,” she said, describing the attraction. “It was just putting together the little pieces and figuring out how everything really works.”

Percell has been working at the Chuck Colvin Auto Center in McMinnville for two years, where her main service manager offered her this opportunity.

She said the wait for the two-year Mt. Hood cohort cycle to begin again served to “give me enough hands-on dealership experience to come in and actually be able to compete with everybody else in the class.”

Darrin McMann, 28, is sponsored by Gresham Ford. He was halfway to becoming a registered nurse when he switched to automotive work and moved from Southern California to Oregon for this program. He said Lyons’ expertise is a significant plus.

“It’s kind of nice knowing how in-depth he (Lyons) goes with some of the programs. So, when you get out there to do it on your own, you actually have a good foundation,” McMann said.

Lyons said during students’ time in the program, they build a deep reservoir of Ford product knowledge, “so they have the credentials to work anywhere in the world with Ford.”