Richland 1 diesel tech grads hopping into high-paying jobs

A $14-an-hour, full-time job awaited John Harmon after he graduated last week from Lower Richland High School. At just 18, his opportunities will only continue to grow from there.

A.C. Flora graduate Michael Joyner, also 18, is starting a job that will actually pay for him to earn his associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. Corporate management could be in his future.

Each of their classmates in Richland 1’s diesel technology program has graduated with a job in hand or a clear education-to-workforce path in front of them, thanks to the district-wide program that is one of few like it in the nation and is connected to an industry with tens of thousands of job prospects.

“Everything you have – everything you own, everything you eat, everything you wear, the house you live in – has come to you on the back of a diesel engine,” said John Muldoon, who teaches the diesel technology program at Richland 1’s Heyward Career and Technology Center. “It could be a bus, a train, a ship. There’s no part of anyone’s life that is not touched by diesel.”

Under Muldoon’s instruction, high school students learn in three years to navigate nearly every aspect of diesel-powered vehicles. Students leave the program prepared for any number of service and repair jobs that could earn them upward of $30 an hour.

Jobs like those could be increasingly more important to the South Carolina economy as the automotive industry grows here.

Unlike regular gasoline, diesel fuel has much more power. Otherwise, the basic mechanical principles of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles are much the same, Muldoon said, so his students’ skills are easily adaptable.

Companies including Penske, Caterpillar, Southeastern Freight Lines and more provide support for Richland 1’s diesel tech program knowing they’ll be rewarded with skilled employees coming out of it directly from high school.

Supplying many of the program’s needs and mentoring its students is an investment on behalf of the industry, said Scott Ostrom, a Columbia branch manager for Cummins Atlantic. Cummins is an international producer of diesel engines that is working to establish a tie between Heyward’s diesel tech program and a nationwide technician apprenticeship program.

“The industry itself, we don’t have (enough) young men and women coming into the diesel field these days,” Ostrom said. “We’re all excited now because we see this pipeline that ... has not been there for years.”

And many of Muldoon’s students already have skill certifications that other workers don’t earn until they enter the workforce.

One of Muldoon’s students who just graduated will earn $19.50 an hour working three 12-hour shifts a week for a trucking company. Another pair will go to work for Penske with their eyes on entering the NASCAR realm. Half a dozen others who have not yet graduated will spend their summers working under the tutelage of mechanics in the Richland and Lexington county school bus shops.

Electronics and hands-on work are Joyner’s strong suits and what got him interested in diesel technology to begin with, he said.

In April, Joyner won a statewide diesel tech skills competition involving testing and troubleshooting everything from engines to transmissions to electrical systems. This month, he competes in a national skills competition before going to work as a technician apprentice for Cummins.

“I just like working on things,” Joyner said. “It’s not always easy for me. I like to challenge myself.”

A lot of students don’t know so much as the difference between a wrench and a ratchet when they start the program as high school sophomores, Muldoon said. But by the end of their first year they know how to completely take apart and reassemble a diesel engine.

But they learn more than technical skills that make them knowledgeable workers. Muldoon is strict in teaching his students the professional and character skills that make them not just strong workers but strong employees.

Harmon had six job offers to choose from before he even had a high school diploma. Before beginning the diesel technology program three years ago, he knew he was interested in doing mechanical work to follow in his father’s footsteps.

Now, he’ll be working locally as a line technician for Toyota, inspecting and doing maintenance and repairs on vehicles.

“I always thought that to get a job, you have to go to college, and if you don’t go to college, you’re going to be stuck making $9 an hour,” Harmon said. “Mr. Muldoon told us, ‘You won’t ever have a choice of going to a mall and begging for a job. The choice you’ll have is deciding between these high-paying jobs.’”

This story was originally published May 31, 2016 at 6:08 PM.