McPherson School affords automotive restoration program to college students

MCPHERSON, Kan. – Paige Miltenberger all the time knew she’d develop as much as work on vehicles.

She’s been restoring outdated vehicles together with her dad and grandfather since she was a child. However as a younger lady in St. Louis, she wasn’t discovering the coaching she wanted to repair up the classics.

“My technical highschool that I went to, it was all new stuff and simply normal automotive stuff,” Miltenberger mentioned. “And it wasn’t that area of interest class of basic vehicles that I knew I needed to work on.”

Enter McPherson School, the one faculty within the nation that provides a bachelor’s diploma in automotive restoration.

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“I knew I favored engaged on vehicles. I knew I favored engaged on outdated vehicles particularly. And there is no different program like this one. So, in my head, that is the one place I may have presumably gone,” the sophomore mentioned.

And it seems Miltenberger made the suitable selection – she’s one of many program’s prime college students, who’s missed just one check query to this point this semester in TE 141 – Engine Rebuilding.

Miltenberger is only one of about 175 college students majoring in auto restoration at McPherson School, a 138-year-old liberal arts faculty situated about an hour north of Wichita. The auto program turns 50 subsequent 12 months, a milestone for a faculty contributing to an trade that desperately wants extra employees.

Based on TechForce Basis, it’s projected that 85,581 new autoworkers will probably be wanted to fulfill demand. That quantity will improve yearly, totaling greater than 350,000 by 2028.

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Engaged on basic vehicles is much more area of interest, making McPherson School considered one of a sort.

“We think about the abilities that we’re educating heritage abilities. So they aren’t issues that college students are studying in store class, if there’s even a store class of their college anymore,” mentioned Amanda Gutierrez, vp for automotive restoration and engineering. “And so, from the woodworking to the hand fabrication of steel, the entire hand stitching of seats, issues like that, these are all abilities which are disappearing.”

College students be taught all features of restoration, from engine rebuilding to portray panels, welding joints to stitching upholstery.

Andrew Dehn works with panel board and leather-based to make a door panel. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)

“Certainly one of my favorites is college students who stroll into the trim lab, by no means touched a stitching machine of their life,” mentioned Gutierrez.

Noah Durham was a kind of college students. He loves all features of fixing up outdated vehicles, however the consideration to element in upholstery and the emphasis on each sew being good appealed to him. It’s additionally a subject in excessive demand.

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“Virtually each store, after they come on the lookout for individuals or asking for individuals to do upholstery,” mentioned Durham, a senior. “Lots of people aren’t doing that anymore. And it is change into very specialised, particularly on actually high-caliber vehicles like your Ferraris, Bentleys, Jaguars.”

Durham graduates in Might, however he’s already received a full-time job lined up. He’ll be working as a trimmer at a restoration store in Pennsylvania, specializing in European classics, making greater than $70,000 a 12 months.

Kennedy Batchelder cuts threads on a lathe at McPherson School in McPherson, Kansas, on Oct. 15, 2025. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)

And he’s not distinctive – McPherson boasts a 95% job acceptance charge inside six months of commencement. And these aren’t simply jobs in restoration outlets. McPherson graduates are all around the nation working throughout a number of disciplines.

“They work in outlets, they personal their very own outlets. They work for museums, personal collections, public sale homes as historic specialists, placing collectively the analysis and doing all of that,” mentioned Gutierrez.

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And in an more and more AI-driven world, auto restoration appears to be largely proof against being changed by computer systems.

“AI just isn’t changing this,” mentioned Curt Goodwin, the varsity’s engine professor. “I discuss that once we’re assembling an engine, and also you’re turning that engine over by hand and feeling that every thing is spot on, AI cannot exchange that.”

Cole Nichols places a McLaren 720S transmission again collectively at McPherson School in McPherson, Kansas, on Oct. 15, 2025. (FOX Enterprise Community / Fox Information)

After all, AI can’t exchange hands-on labor, nevertheless it’s additionally laborious to search out solutions on-line, as a result of most of the manuals haven’t been digitized. If it’s worthwhile to know easy methods to rebuild a uncommon European engine, you’ll should be a scholar and head to McPherson’s library and browse the bodily handbook.

“We’re engaged on the engine challenge or no matter. They usually’ll ask me, ‘Effectively, what of this torque or what are these specs?’ I am like, ‘I do not know. Look it up.’ And they also get their cellphone out. I am going, ‘no, no. You look it up within the handbook, look it up in a e book,’” mentioned Goodwin. “These vehicles are considered one of a sort.”

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There are at the moment 23 vehicles being labored on inside the school in the meanwhile, in varied levels of restoration, from an ultra-rare 1956 Austin-Healey 100M Le Mans to a 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300S Cabriolet to a 1967 Mini Cooper S. After vehicles are accomplished, some are offered (with the proceeds going proper again into this system), whereas others be a part of the varsity’s secure of basic vehicles that tour the nation in exhibits and parades.

McPherson School’s 1953 Mercedes-Benz 300 S Cabriolet on the Pebble Seashore Concours d’Magnificence in Pebble Seashore, California, on Aug. 20, 2022. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg by way of Getty Pictures / Getty Pictures)

Wanting forward, the varsity of automotive research hopes to double in dimension within the subsequent decade. Gutierrez says will probably be increasing services to accommodate the anticipated progress, in addition to including new specialised packages in fields like automotive digital media and engineering.

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And whereas the cash could be good, and the job safety appears to be secure, for the scholars at McPherson, it’s about ardour.

“You gotta do it for the love. Nevertheless it’s a professional strategy to make a residing, and you are not going to starve, and that job goes to be secure for a very long time, particularly when you’re good at it,” mentioned Goodwin. “I’ve all the time been in a position to feed my household.”