Meet Kevin Hayes, New RV instructor from Daimler Freightliner
February 1, 2008 by Corporate & Community Education
Kevin Hayes is the new RV Technician instructor at the Cherokee Campus. We’re proud to have Kevin on our staff. We already have people wanting to talk to his students about employments. Here’s his story in his own words:
My educational background started at Purdue University with a BS in Mechanical Technology. [I said “started” because I’ve been learning ever since.] I also did a little fill-in teaching at the Indiana Vocational Technical College (IVYTECH). The course series was a day and evening class on Industrial Maintenance about Fluid Power (Air and Hydraulics).
My apprenticeship or hands-on background started with working on the assembly line at my first post degree employer Kershaw Mfg. I hired in as a Hydraulics Design Engineer, but their standard policy for new Engineers was to have them spend several months in the real world before being allowed to work in the front office. Kershaw is a large family-owned company that manufactures a diverse line of railway maintenance vehicles. These vehicles do the various jobs originally handled by “Gandy Dancers,” similar to the immigrant workers depicted laying rail in old westerns movies.
My profession started as Design Engineer, and from there I went on to larger and higher volume companies that included the Marmon Group (Extremely High Capacity and Railway Maintenance Vehicles), Clark Equipment (Lift Trucks), Blue Bird Corp (Buses and Motorhomes), and now Freightliner Custom Chassis (Step-Van, Schoolbus, Motorhome, Shuttle Bus Chassis.) Each position was as an Engineer, but I began moving away from new product design while at Clark Equipment as my projects went on to current product redesign. After moving to Blue Bird, I transferred into the Service side of the business, first as a Service Engineer for the Wanderlodge RV, then to SE for all products, and finally to Manager of Technical Service responsible for the Call Center, Service Engineering, Publications, and Commercial Training.
Being available 24/7, as I was running Technical Service, is exciting but tends to wear one down. So, I jumped at the opportunity to come to Gaffney and get back to my roots by starting a new Service Engineering group which now includes Product Compliance and the ModSquad. As a resident of Gaffney and an Employee of Freightliner (Daimler), I’m excited to be in on the early years of the Cherokee Campus. I’d really like to jump a few chapters ahead and be able to look back at how great we’ll become, but I know the journey is just as important.
In closing, I’d like to remind those who read this that I still have photos of when this campus was just a really big hole in the woods and leave them with this thought:
Opportunity is aspiration plus perspiration with a little good timing thrown in…
You know what I mean if you’re one of those individuals that fought so hard to conceive and build this campus, an area Employer, or a current/future Student just trying to fulfill a dream
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[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptKevin Hayes is the new RV instructor at the Cherokee Campus. We’re proud to have Kevin on our staff. We already have people wanting to talk to his students about employments. Here’s his story in his own words: My educational background … [...]