Banks Power Helps Open High School Auto Shop
Gale Banks has a quest: to resurrect technical education in our public schools.
By Tom Moore
Gale Banks feels strongly that resurrecting public-school technical education is vital to California’s economic future. Banks and his company’s Banks Power division continue to put their time and money where their mouths are. The most recent example is Banks Power’s involvement in a state-of-the-art Automotive Training Center at Baldwin Park High School just east of Los Angeles.
Gale Banks got involved in the project in a roundabout way. In 2008, the company was mired in new California Air Resources Board (CARB) requirements for certifying its line of aftermarket diesel-performance products. Bureaucratic issues prompted Gale Banks to meet with his district’s State Senator, Dr. Ed Hernandez. While discussing emissions regulations and certifications, Senator Hernandez mentioned that Baldwin Park High School had received a grant from the California Department of Education to build a high-tech auto shop. This got Gale Banks’ attention. For years, Gale had noticed an ongoing correlation between secondary-school vocational training’s demise and a rise in student dropout rates.
A meeting was set up with Baldwin Park Unified School District (BPUSD) Superintendent Mark Skvarna. Superintendent Skvarna asked Gale Banks what he looks for in a workforce.
Banks built a rapport with Skvarna, a fellow gearhead himself who’d served a distinguished career in the Air Force. Banks volunteered resources to help propel BPUSD’s Automotive Technology Pathway program. Banks Power’s Technical Communications Director, Peter Treydte, attended monthly planning meetings for about a year; he and Gale Banks identified the testing and diagnostic equipment most likely to help students get technical jobs in the automotive industry. The Banks team also helped select the instructor.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
The $3 million facility’s gala Grand Opening was held February 22, 2011. The ceremony simultaneously celebrated the state-of-the-art facility while paying tribute to the area’s high-performance heritage – recalling an era when auto-shop was part of the normal high-school curriculum.
BPUSD Board of Education President Christina Lucero emceed the ceremony. She introduced Superintendent Mark Skvarna, who outlined philosophical changes in public-school vocational education. In the 1980s, Skvarna explained, digital technology began impacting manufacturing and repair. Faced with buying electronic fuel-injection diagnostics for auto shop and computer-controlled machines for metal shop, many districts chose to drop these classes rather than investing in them. Subsequently, high-school dropout rates rose as vocational training declined.
Many Baldwin Park High School students don’t matriculate to traditional universities, so the school is a prime proving grounds for this vocational training center. Gale Banks is a vested believer that manual arts are more economically important to California’s economic recovery than liberal arts. In his speech at the Baldwin Park High School Automotive Training Center Grand Opening, Banks asked, “Who’s going to manufacture, diagnose, and install durable goods – including automobiles? That’s how you create wealth. Distributing wealth is called payroll.”
An avid sci-fi reader and futurist, Banks added, “Servicing the [coming] ‘green’ agenda will require knowledgeable, technical minds – people who are both manually and mentally skilled.” Turning to the Baldwin Park students, he concluded, “You are the future of California.”
In addition to Gale Banks, local automotive celebrities who spoke at the ceremony included Gaspar “Gas” Ronda, a legendary Ford factory A/FX drag racer who remained in the area after retiring from racing. Randy Ritchey, owner of Performance Associates and son of legendary tuner Les Ritchey, also worked the Baldwin Park podium, speaking as a potential employer of the Automotive Training Center students. The Grand Opening culminated in tours of the facility’s classroom, research/computer area, repair bay with five lifts, and 3,000-horsepower dyno cell.
The Center has a capacity of 90 high-school students per year. (Superintendent Skvarna pledged that auto-program students must maintain a specified all-class GPA to be in the program.) The Baldwin Park Auto Training Center offers training toward ASE Certification in engines, engine management controls, electrical systems, charging/starting systems, air conditioning, brake systems, and suspension and steering. The program’s ultimate goal is placing graduates in high-tech automotive jobs that can pay $50 or more per hour.
In addition, the Baldwin Park Automotive Technical Center will teach adults at night as part of the East San Gabriel Valley Regional Occupational Program (ROP). These fee-based classes will provide adults affordable automotive training.
The Baldwin Park program will directly feed nearby Citrus College’s Automotive Technology program for students who want to earn Certificates in specific areas and/or an Associate of Science Degree for Automotive Technology.
Gale Banks’ ongoing support of the Automotive Training Center includes making his staff available to teach such topics as alternative fuels. Hopefully this facility will serve as a model for future centers.
Baldwin Park High School Automotive Training Center Partners
• Banks Power
• Los Angeles Roadsters Club
• Penske Toyota
• Performance Associates
• Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum
Additional Acknowledgements
• Cal-Rods Car Club, San Gabriel Valley
• Osborn Architects
• Baldwin Park Adult and Community Education
• Construction Planning and Management (CPM)
• East San Gabriel Valley Regional Occupational Programs and Training Center
Catch this story on the San Gabriel Valley Tribune’s website »