San Bernardino Valley College's diesel-engine instruction program is moving to San Bernardino International Airport where it will teach classes alongside semi-tractor manufacturer Mack Trucks Inc.
of Allentown, Pa.
Mack and the college's diesel classes will share 5,800 square feet of classroom and office space inside Building 730 at the airport, said Don Fetherolf, supervisor of service training with Mack Trucks.
Mack Trucks has been seeking a training facility in California's Inland Empire since it shut down its facility in Ontario in early 2000, Fetherolf said.
Meanwhile, the college's diesel program had outgrown the 700 square feet it uses at the San Bernardino campus and was looking for more space, said Dan Hook, an instructor with the program.
Hook approached Mack Trucks officials about forming a partnership after he heard the semi-tractor maker was shopping for a training site in the Inland Empire.
The college is reorganizing its diesel-instruction program from the school's automotive department to a new department that will include instruction in warehousing and railroad logistics. "We had to move off campus because there wasn't enough room for growth," Hook said.
Mack Trucks will equip the facility, at a cost of about $100,000, and the company will allow the college's diesel program -- which instructs about 55 students a semester -- to hold its classes there.
Both the Mack Trucks and San Bernardino Valley College will lease the facility. Hook declined to disclose how much the school will pay, but Mack Trucks will pay about $ 16,000 a year to lease the space, Fetherolf said.
"We need something like this on the West Coast," Fetherolf said.
"The [California] customers we have to train don't want to have to go to the Midwest or the East Coast."