The Tire Industry Association (TIA) trained more than 8,000 tire technicians and instructors in 2014.
This figure includes all employees who were formally trained through the association’s programs in automotive, commercial, farm and earthmover tire service. The figure includes technicians certified through classroom and hands-on instruction and technicians who completed basic technician training using the traditional workbook and video format.
“For the second year in a row, we trained an average of 22 tire personnel per day, not including those trained using our online university," says Kevin Rohlwing, TIA senior vice president of training. "Although we are extremely pleased with these numbers, there are still thousands of untrained technicians on the job every day and that’s just an accident or a lawsuit waiting to happen. We hope that even more dealers will make safety a priority in 2015."
Since the inception of TIA’s training programs in 1997, approximately 93,000 instructors and technicians have been trained and/or certified. This figure does not count the thousands of employees who complete TIA training programs through their companies’ intranet where TIA members have rights agreements to provide the materials in-house. The association estimates that more than 108,000 tire industry personnel have been exposed to TIA training at one time or another. The 93,000 represents the total number of people who have formally submitted a test or exam in one of the association’s tire service training or certification programs.
For more information on TIA’s educational programs, please visit www.tireindustry.org or contact Christine Hoogenboom at [email protected] or 800-876-8273 ext. 106.
