Technicians from Florida, West Virginia and Arizona secured first place in the three categories of the 2018 Technician Rodeo—a competition hosted at Navistar’s Woodridge IL facility that tests the skills and speed of service professionals from throughout the company’s dealer networks.
Michael Irvin of Sun State International in Florida took home the “Top Service Technician” Award for Truck, and Ben Bird of Worldwide Equipment in West Virginia earned the same recognition for Bus in the 12th iteration of the event, which features Navistar’s top American and Canadian commercial truck and bus techs.
Navistar also added a Global Technician Competition to the event this year, bringing all the regional winners throughout the world together to compete for top bragging rights. In the third iteration of the global event, Nathan Reed of RWC Group in Arizona placed first.
“Michael, Ben and Nathan are all highly skilled technicians that reflect the best traditions of our company’s commitment to technical excellence and providing the best customer uptime in the industry,” said John Pfennig, director of global development for Navistar.
“We’re very proud of this year’s winners, and frankly all of its competitors, who are among the very best truck technicians there are.”
This year’s competition showcased 20 top service technicians from International and IC Bus dealers across the world, the largest amount yet for the event.
The technicians competed head-to-head in a series of stations designed to simulate service areas for truck components and engines. The technicians were scored on how quickly and effectively they navigated their way through the stations, diagnosing and fixing simulated problems.
All of the participants are Diamond certified through Navistar’s official certification program for its service techs. In addition, all the technicians from the US and Canada are all either Automotive Service Excellence or Canadian Provincial certified.
“Our rodeo competitions are just one way that Navistar personalizes the value of service technicians and continues to invest in the development of highly trained and skilled individuals capable of servicing our trucks and buses around the globe,” Pfennig said. “As a truck and bus manufacturer committed to leading the industry in uptime, we’re honored to recognize these professionals who perform the important work of repairing our customer’s vehicles.”
This year’s Truck and Bus Rodeo participants were selected from an overall group of the top 900 technicians at International and IC Bus dealers. From there, the group was narrowed to 16 participants through online testing, with the highest-scoring technicians in each region of the US and Canada invited to compete at Woodridge.
Technicians from the following dealerships were represented in the Rodeo:
- Sun State International – Davenport FL
- Mid-State Truck Service, Inc. – Plover WI
- Summit Truck Group – Lowell AR, Albuquerque NM
- Truck King International – the Bronx NY
- Rush Truck Center – Springfield OH
- Diamond International Trucks – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Altruck International Truck Centers – Cambridge, Ontario, Canada
- Gibbs International Truck Centers – Fresno CA
- Worldwide Equipment – Cross Lanes WV
- IRL International Truck Centers – Penticton, British Columbia, Canada
- DATTCO Inc. – New Britain CT
- RWC Group – Phoenix AZ, Tucson AZ
- Cadisa S.A. de C.V. – Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico
- Lewis Motor Sales Inc. – Barrie, Ontario, Canada
- Navitrans S.A.S. – Bogota, Colombia
- International de Guatemala – Guatemala City, Guatemala
- Camionera Catosa S.A. de C.V. – Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico
“Participants in this competition have completed all the required and optional trainings and are at the top of their game,” Pfennig said. “They represent our 9,500 plus service technicians from International and IC Bus dealerships, the highest number of any medium/heavy commercial-truck and bus manufacturer.”