Across the country, cities and towns of all sizes are being asked to do more with less. Training and professional development are often the first things to be cut when budgets shrink.
Community colleges throughout California through the Advanced Transportation and Logistics Sector are working with the Municipal Equipment Maintenance Association (MEMA) to provide training for municipal fleet employees, as well as helping MEMA members obtain funding to support training.
MEMA’s mission is to improve the quality of service in the public sector by providing a forum for the free exchange of experience, technical knowledge, ideas and opinions that enhance the delivery of public services and promote the personal and professional growth for its members. The organization’s members include fleet and operations managers at the city and county level.
Katie Mishler, ATL Deputy Sector Navigator for the Los Angeles Region and Vice President of MEMA SoCal, said the partnership between MEMA and ATL is a win-win for colleges, students, and transit organizations.
“In Southern California, our member fleets have been very supportive of efforts at our local community colleges to train the incoming workforce,” Mishler said. “Many have taken some of our college students as interns, and even hired them after they complete their certificates.”
Pam Gutman, ATL Deputy Sector Navigator in the Bay Region and a member of the MEMA NorCal Board, said the MEMA/ATL partnership might also provide opportunities for transit apprenticeships that will help bridge the gap between community college and the workforce.
“Although my main focus has been training the incumbent workers in the MEMA fleets, we are also bringing in student interns/apprentices from City College of San Francisco to San Francisco Muni and hoping to extend that program to the other fleets and local colleges.”
Training incumbent technicians is a priority for the partnership, too. Because of state mandates to move to more sustainable energy sources, municipal fleets and transits have often been early adopters of alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and are often in need of advanced alternative fuel training.
Through funding from the California Energy Commission, ATL recently provided light duty EV and alternative fuel training to more than 160 member technicians across the state. Gutman said NorCal MEMA is also structuring and planning heavy duty EV trainings for buses and trucks using Employment Training Panel (ETP) funding.
For more information about MEMA, visit memafleet.org/
