Page 312 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

REGIONAL TRAINING CENTERS
Peterson University’s original mission statement reads, in part: Our training will be recognized as the best in Caterpillar, and we will become the re- gional training center for each of our major product lines. That began happening even before Peterson University officially opened its doors. “Caterpillar authorized us to be a regional training center for power generation even before Eric [Martin] had secured the building,” says Steve Davies, Peterson’s earthmoving trainer in San Leandro. “Right away they brought over Randy Mayeda [Peterson EPG field tech] to be the new power generation trainer. By then, I’d already been training over at the Trac-
tor facility on Marina for eight years. And in 2011, I became the regional training instructor for the Tier 4 emissions engines.”
As department head, Mace Gjerman was part of the team that petitioned for Tier 4 training sta- tus. “We proactively approached Caterpillar about taking on the Tier 4 training as a regional training center in 2010. The fact that we’re in California, ground zero for emissions control in the nation, made us a good choice because there would be more Tier 4 product here than anywhere else.”
As Peterson’s official Tier 4 instructor, Steve Da- vies spent two years doing nothing but emissions training. “Tier 4 has driven our industry and our training for the past five years. I went back to Peo- ria in November 2010 for Tier 4 training at the Caterpillar Learning Center. Then from 2011 to 2013, that’s all we did here, Tier 4 and the pre- requisite Electronic Diagnostics, because of the very sophisticated, complex software and the huge amount of additional hardware involved. I’ve got- ten a lot of positive feedback on the class because without it, you’d have a hard time out there.”
In January 2017, Peterson became the first re- gional training center in the world for Cat Pav- ing Products. “We’re a significant player in the paving world for Caterpillar,” says Gjerman. “All the training Cat did previously was either at their paving group center in Minneapolis or the Tinaja Hills Proving Grounds in Arizona. But they rec- ognized that they weren’t even close to meeting the demand for dealer and customer technicians so they reached out to us.” In early 2017, Peterson University held four, week-long paving classes for dealer and customer technicians from all across the country, including our own.
In mid-2018, Peterson University became the first Navistar Regional Training Center in the world. Gjerman had secured authorization, back in Oc- tober 2017, to train Peterson technicians on the Navistar products in-house, to keep them current.
Top to bottom: EPG class led by Randy Mayeda in the Matt George Lab in San Leandro in September 2012; Steve Davies teaching Tier 4 class in 2011
310 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG