Page 314 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Left to right: Polar Services technician class on Challenger tractors; Jimmy Hunt/Santa Rosa field technician
own employees. But what it really does is help fi- nancially support the University so we can grow. If it wasn’t for that additional revenue, we wouldn’t have all six trainers that we have today. We wouldn’t have all six classrooms in San Leandro or the three in Hillsboro, or the training labs with all the tool- ing and training aids we have today.
“It’s also critical to customer satisfaction. No other competitor out there has the kind of training sup- port that Peterson offers. And it helps offset the cost of sending our own techs to classes. In the be- ginning, we had to be extremely careful with every dollar we spent. It was critical that we found ad- ditional revenue opportunities. But when you can sell training to a customer and they actually thank you for it because they can’t get it anywhere else, that’s a win-win.”
VOICES FROM THE CLASSROOM
For Jimmy Hunt, Peterson field tech out of Santa Rosa, the Tier 4 classes have been very beneficial. Over his twenty years at Peterson, he’s been to at least fifty classes. “What I really like about these classes is that you meet guys from different stores who have a lot of different knowledge and experi- ence. It really helps having these guys in class be- cause they bring up different things they’ve dealt with. You end up talking about problems you’ve had out in the field and learn from each other. You
gain connections you can later contact. I call Steve Davies probably once a month about something.”
Mark Vanier started out as a lube tech in 1998. Since then, he’s been in the field and through just about every shop in San Leandro. In 2000, he won Peterson’s coveted Best of the Best Award as Employee of the Year. Through his career, Vani- er has been to over twenty-five training classes at Peterson. “Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned on the job at Peterson. Steve [Davies] is an excellent teacher. He’s worked for a lot of different contrac- tors and dealers, so he really knows his stuff. He’s got a lot of stories he shares in class. He also en- courages people to speak up if he’s talking about a problem on a machine and somebody has some- thing to add. I really like that.”
Mark Vanier (C) receives Employee of the Year for 2000 from John Krummen (L) and Duane Doyle Sr.
312 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG