Rome High School’s Automotive Pathway students might have thought Christmas came early last week as a crew from Courtesy Ford of Rome dropped off a sizable donation of parts and equipment for the students to use in their class.
“We always like to partner with this part of the program, so the students can work on new parts and see new updates. It lets them see new industry stuff, and we try to keep them up to date as much as we can,” Kevin Aronhalt, Chief Marketing Office for Courtesy Ford, said while students and Courtesy Ford staff unloaded a large box truck full of parts and equipment.
Aronhalt said with times changing, it’s important to help the next generation of automotive workers get the training they need.
“When we started working on cars back in the day, you kind of had a master and an apprentice situation. Times have changed a little bit. With the technical side of things changing, we like to partner and develop and help the next group of people coming up,” he said. “To be honest with you, the technology is changing so much that the cars have chips and parts with databases and data management systems. The cars have to have all those components, and we like to give them that technology beforehand.”
Students looked over some of the parts with a couple not able to hide the excitement on their faces. Courtesy Ford staff also spoke with a few students interested in possibly working for them.
“This is why we partner with Rome High School. The public school education system is producing the next generation of workers. If we’re not helping them, we’re not doing our job either,” Aronhalt said.