Navistar Technicians from Arizona, Ontario, Canada, and Yumbo, Colombia, finished first place within their category at the 2019 Technician Rodeo. The annual competition, which is hosted at the company’s Woodridge, Ill., product support center, tests the skills and speed of service of its top technicians throughout its dealer network.
In the thirteenth iteration of the event, Brandon Wesselius of Lewis Motor Sales Inc., in Owen Sound, Ontario, walked away with the Top Service Technician award for truck, and Nathan Reed of RWC International in Phoenix earned the top award for bus. In the global competition, which brings all the regional winners throughout the Americas together to compete for top bragging rights, Victor Velasco of Navitrans S.A.S. in Yumbo, Colombia, finished in first place.
This year’s competition showcased 20 top service technicians from International and IC Bus dealers across the Americas, with six taking part in the global and bus competitions and eight in the truck competition.
The technicians competed head-to-head in a series of stations designed to simulate service areas, including 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.
The participants were selected from an overall group of the top 900 International and IC Bus technicians. From there, the group was narrowed to 20 participants through online testing, with the highest-scoring technicians in each region invited to compete.
Technicians from the following dealerships were represented in the truck competition:
- Riverview International – California
- Lewis Motor Sales – Ontario, Canada
- Lakeside International – Wisconsin
- Maudlin International Trucks – Florida
- Summit Truck Group – Arizona
- Mid-State Truck Service – Wisconsin
Technicians from the following dealerships were represented in the bus competition:
- Southwest International Trucks – Texas
- Roberts Truck Center – New Mexico
- Truck King International – New York
- IRL International Truck Centres – British Columbia, Canada
- RWC International – Arizona
Technicians from the following dealerships were represented in the global competition:
- CADISA Chihuahua – Mexico
- Sun State International – United States
- La Antillana Comercial S.A. – Dominican Republic
- Diamond International Trucks – Canada
- Sierra Norte Monterrey – Mexico
- Navitrans S.A.S. – Colombia
