Morgan Graber was wearing a big smile in the plastic repair shop at WyoTech in Laramie, Wyoming, Wednesday afternoon, styling, in her new Peterbilt hat.
Graber, who’s from Ohio, is in her eighth month at the for-profit career and technical school, where she is studying Motorsports Chassis Fabrication and Collision/Refinishing Technology. She is just a month away from graduation.
She was smiling so much because earlier in the day she nabbed a job with Peterbilt along with that new hat. And she didn’t even have to do a real interview to get the job, either.
Graber made her first contact with Peterbilt early on in her WyoTech program. Company representatives had come to one of the diesel mechanics classrooms for a presentation to talk up what their company has to offer.
“I sat in on that, and I was like, ‘Oh, I really like this place,’” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I hear a lot of good things about them, so I stayed after the presentation, and I talked to the guy some. So, you know, I got my name out there with him.
“And then, when they came to the career fair, they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re Morgan. You know, we’ve heard a lot about you.’ And so it was basically, like, ‘Yeah, you already have the job.’”
Graber’s “interview” thus skipped that question every applicant dreads — why should we hire you instead of the next candidate — and went straight to what she could expect on her first working day.
Competency-Based Learning Draws Employers From All Over
Part of the reason employers don’t need to ask that question of WyoTech graduates is because of the kind of competency-based learning the trade school offers and has become nationally known for.
To get through any of the nine-month, job-ready career programs, each student must complete an ongoing series of competencies, each a building block for the next skill set.
Students can choose from one of four core programs, automotive technology, collision and refinishing technology, diesel technology and applied welding technology.
After completing those competencies, students can further specialize with options in advanced diesel, chassis fabrication, high-performance power trains, street rod, trim and upholstery or applied service management. All of the training is hands-on — eight hours a day, five days a week — for nine months.
“This program kind of checks all the boxes for us,” Justin Leavins with Penske told Cowboy State Daily.
Penske was among 103 employers represented at a two-day career fair at the school.
Each company averaged three representatives giving back-to-back 30-minute job interviews — thousands of job interviews in one day. Most students who participate end the day with multiple offers.
The “boxes” Leavins mentioned don’t just include quality training programs. There’s also a structure to the program that prepares students on the kinds of expectations most employers have for their workers.
Students need to be on time every day. They need to show up to class prepared for the day’s lesson.
They also have to be clean-shaven, with their hair appropriately tied up above their necks — just like they would for most any industry job.
And students must stay busy throughout class time.
“If you’re not busy you get into trouble,” WyoTech VP of Marketing Ashley Chitwood told Cowboy State Daily. “You get points deducted. So, there’s always something to be doing, whether it’s the coursework, or diagnosing, or helping another student. There’s no downtime.”
Students who perform well on all metrics attract the right sort of attention, too. They’re the ones most likely to get coveted, private airplane trips to tour the facilities of the employers of their choice, Chitwood added.
Students Come From Every State
WyoTech’s reputation with industry has helped draw around 1,200 students from all over the country at any given time. Texas, Nebraska, California, Utah, Missouri — Chitwood said WyoTech has students from all 50 states in the union, even though most of those other states have career and technical schools of their own.
A WyoTech education means something to employers.
Ninety-five percent of WyoTech’s students are from other areas of the country, Chitwood added, and the Cowboy Code is an integral part of their experience.
“We like to publish this because we believe it aligns greatly with our professionalism code,” she said, gesturing to a large mural on the wall that includes the state-verified code. “These kids are coming from all over the country, and this is their opportunity to experience Wyoming. We want to educate them a little bit on our state, and how we’re different.”
Most of the students who attend WyoTech had opportunities to go to more local technical education programs in their home states, Penske recruiter Leavins noted.
“But they choose to come to WyoTech because of how well-known the program is, how reputable it is in the industry,” he said. “And (WyoTech) also offers kind of a more traditional college experience, too. You can live on site, and there’s a housing option. That kind of gives you a more traditional, or an interesting experience, right, to get away from home and be on your own.”
Back From The Brink
Not so very long ago, however, WyoTech’s reputation was not so pristine. While it once had more than 2,000 students at the Laramie facility, as well as other training centers in other states, mismanagement by much larger career and technical education training companies had taken a lot of the wind from WyoTech’s sails.
The program, which stated back in 1966, was on the brink of being shut down.
The school’s comeback is thanks to a former student, Jim Mathis, who had worked his way up to being an administrator at the school before it was ultimately sold off. Mathis hadn’t liked the new company that was taking over, so he quit the job. In this new phase of his career, he was sought after for the turnaround of struggling career and technical schools.
When the news hit in 2017 that WyoTech — his baby — might shut down, Mathis started making calls to raise money to buy the school back, which he did in 2018.
“I hated high school,” Mathis told Cowboy State Daily. “WyoTech changed my l life because of how they did it. I needed the structure. I needed good teachers with high standards and principles telling me, ’No Jim, you’re not going to do that. You have to be here at 7 o’clock in the morning, or you’re gonna flunk out.’”
The $12 Million Turnaround
Mathis figured he could turn WyoTech around if he could raise $12 million. But he wasn’t finding many takers willing to help him with the challenge.
Until, that is, the Wyoming Legislature offered Mathis a $5 million loan if he would agree to take over control of the school and turn it around.
At the time, Mathis had already decided he had just one more turnaround in him. And WyoTech was going to be that one.
Mathis was able to raise another $7 million on top of the loan Wyoming had offered. But it was still going to be quite the challenge. There were just 12 students and 12 employees left at WyoTech when Mathis walked back through the front doors of the school.
“When I left, you know, 15 years earlier, we had almost 2,200 students and the Pennsylvania campus was really starting to take off,” Mathis said. “When I got back there, it was like a baby and a battleship. I mean, there was nobody around. I thought, ‘This is crazy. I’ve never had anything that small.’”
Mathis spent millions on marketing to change the school’s story from near catastrophe to new success. Within two years, Mathis had returned the school to profitability, and paid about half of the state’s loan off. He expects to pay the rest off this year.
“Two years ago, well a year and a half ago, we built a 90,000-square-foot addition,” Mathis said. “That was a $15 million deal. We also built a million-dollar classroom, additional classroom space. So, we aren’t afraid to beg, borrow or steal money to keep this thing going, and it’s paid off. It took us two and a half years to become popular, and that was with COVID.”
Wednesday afternoon, looking out at a career fair filled with hundreds of employer reps talking with hundreds of students about how they could all have brighter futures in America, Mathis couldn’t contain his enthusiasm.
He was talking with students about their future plans, shaking hands with alumni who were back for a visit, and thinking about the latest new program that WyoTech is soon to roll out in welding.
Welding is yet another of those careers offering a good starting salary in the $50,000 to $60,000 range — the kind of career Mathis knows can change someone’s fate for the better.
A Pocket Full Of Hope
Dalton Jones from Washington State is one of the 1,200 students at WyoTech who have come for exactly that — a new fate.
“I had no plan honestly to go to college,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “I started working 80 hours a week straight out of high school. I was working at a Chevy dealership, just trying to, I was an apprentice there and then realized that was a dead end. They weren’t going to move me up anywhere. I was just going to be stuck with minimum dollar jobs.”
A couple of smaller engine diesel techs at the dealership had been through WyoTech and started talking up the program with Jones, encouraging him to consider it.
Then Jones’ head boss told him that, if he went for some post-secondary training at a good career and technical school, the dealership would try to hire him back as a high-dollar tech.
That sealed the deal for Jones. He put all of his savings into enrolling at WyoTech.
“I showed up here on almost a whim, honestly, with about 2 cents in my pocket,” Jones said. “I started walking everywhere. But when I came to my dorms, my roommates greeted me with open arms. They said to have some fun, and it’s been a blast.”
Jones still doesn’t have much coin in his pocket. But what he does have is a pocket full of new hope for a better future.
“I came from a background in building wheeling rigs and stuff like that, so I knew a little about automotive for sure,” he said. “But I’ve learned a lot since I came here. You just get a lot of knowledge out here.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
