Honda PACT cut from curriculum

The Honda PACT program has been cut from the Mt. Hood automotive technology curriculum, due to disagreements with Honda. But instructor Steve Michener said it shouldn’t be an issue for students.

As described in the Mt. Hood catalogue, The Honda Professional Automotive Career Training (PACT) provides students with a opportunity to earn income while being trained as service technicians for American Honda Motors’ Acura and Honda dealerships.

The Honda PACT is part of what Michener calls a “blended program.”  He currently has 24 students that he disperses between three different PACTS that he teaches: Chrysler, Import, and now formerly, Honda. “I might send ten students to Chrysler or ten to Import… I teach them together,” he said.

The shared nature of the program was a   main concern, as of late, to Honda headquarters in California. “The new leadership wasn’t real big on having the program blended. They wanted it standalone,” said Michener.

Michener said that most colleges have standalone classes for different manufacturers. That might mean, for example, their students work on nothing but Honda cars and parts.

The new Honda leadership not only wanted standalone classes, but also hoped that Mt. Hood would be able to cover the entire state of Oregon, plus Idaho and Montana, with their services.

When Honda came to the school to share  their requests, Michener said the company wasn’t willing to give the program what it needed to fulfill those requests. “You provide the dealers and we will provide the students’ instructors,” he told the visitors. “They couldn’t provide the dealers.”

Michener said that Honda was being “unfeasible” with their expectations. “The guy (the new corportate leader) is new and has these great aspirations, and I hope he can make them happen, but from my experience, it’s not going to happen,” he said.

“We couldn’t meet their demands, so they said that they were going to pull the official PACT program.”

Michener said the program had been at Mt. Hood since 2001. “We always had Honda as a part of our Import back (to) 1996,” he said. At the time, there were Honda dealerships interested in having a PACT program at Mt.Hood. “It was fine for a lot of years, until we had a downturn in the industry” in 2008-11, he said.

Due to a lower dealer base after  this downturn, there were fewer students in the program, and Honda took notice. “When Honda came back and re-evaluated us they said, “ ‘We aren’t happy with the blended program, so let’s move on,” ” he said.

When asked if loss of the PACT program was a detriment at MHCC, Michener answered,  “Not much.”

While the Honda program is technically being cut, Honda models and tools will still be used and taught in the Import program, he said. Basically, Honda PACT is being merged with the Import PACT.

“The difference is that we won’t have access to as many components and vehicles as we once had. Before it was all free, but now Honda is going to ask us to contribute for some of those donations,” said Michener.

He said that MHCC students won’t know any difference. “We (the faculty) notice a difference, because we don’t have as many training components, and we have to pay a little more for them. But, that’s the cost of doing business.”

Michener says the instructors  are still training students at the same level.

“I still have my relationships with my dealers, which is to make sure my students have a job when they’re done and I still provide them new technicians for the Honda product line,” he said..

“We will be fine, in fact, as strong as we always were.”