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Dealership donates cars to PACT program at NCC

By George Pelletier - Milford Bureau Chief | Mar 6, 2021

High school students are encouraged to enroll in a PACT program, to learn the intricacies of automotive repair at colleges, such as Nashua Community College.

NASHUA – The Honda PACT (Professional Automotive Career Training) program at Nashua Community College recently received the donation of two cars from Peters Honda of Nashua.

NCC has teamed with Nashua High School to provide them with support for their program and provide a pathway for high school students to attend the college.

NCC Associate Professor and Honda PACT and automotive technology program coordinator Jason Felton said the program is geared towards students who might have talent for tinkering with cars or perhaps just the interest in learning how.

“The Honda program here at the college partners with local high schools to provide support for their students,” he said.

“Students get full access to Honda training materials and they’re allowed to use that in the program while learning.”

The goal is offer guidance to students who might be interested in going to college, in this case Nashua Community College, to learn about a career in automotive repair.

“The whole program is called, ‘Guided Pathways,'” Felton said. “This gives them a head start and it’s something that we have had available, but we just started taking advantage of.”

Nashua High School North is the second school that NCC has partnered with. They also work with Dover High School. Nashua South students can go to Nashua North for their C.T.E. (Career in Technical Education) programs.

“The C.T.E. programs can incorporate automotive, building trades, electrical and culinary, to name a few,” Felton said.

Honda doesn’t give the cars to the college, they’re loaned.

“If they reach the end of their usable life for us, I can contact them and they’ll try to get us more,” Felton said. “Right now, we have about 15 cars at the college that Honda has loaned to us. In the shop right now, we have six or seven. And then outside, we have more to switch out.”

The student guidelines for the Honda PACT at NCC include that students must have a high school diploma or a GED, be motivated to step into a promising field, and have the ability to obtain a valid driver’s license.

Felton said with the program with Nashua High North, they have loaned that school two cars. The cars that are loaned are running and fully drivable that have come out of other situations.

“I have a couple of cars here that were security cars for Honda,” he said. “Once they reach the end of their life there, they send them to programs like ours’.”

There are 20- 30 PACT programs throughout the country in various states.

The college program lasts two years and is a degree program.

“The students who enroll here take Honda classes in addition to general education courses like English, math, sciences and things like that,” Felton said. “And at the end of two years, they have an associate degree in Honda automotive technology.”

Felton said that another aspect of the PACT program is to help students identify that technical jobs can offer great jobs and competitive salaries.

“Pre-COVID, I went into the schools and promoted the program, but also promoted careers,” he stated. “Part of the Honda program is that it comes with an internship. So partway through the program, during the second semester, is that the students have to go and get a job at a dealer. It’s a paid internship but they have to do a certain number of hours, which is 640 hours must be completed over their two years here.”

With the program itself at NCC, the freshmen class is 10 but Felton would like to see more students enrolled.

“I’d like to see more,” he said. “Our cap is 15 but I’d like to overfill the program.”

Felton said that this isn’t a COVID issue, but rather an inherent issue with these types of programs in general.

“Not a lot of people want to go into the trades anymore,” he said. “The money in the field is actually pretty good. And the schooling itself is two years, not four. And it’s cheaper.”

Changing students, and parents’ attitudes on trade jobs is important.

“For many years, people have promoted four-year schools,” Felton said. “So, the misconception is that the only way a person can earn good money is to go to a four-year school which is not correct. I’ve got students out there making great money working on cars.”

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