LARAMIE — WyoTech is not only growing its campus and student base, its reputation has taken off as well.
Automotive tech grads from the Laramie-based school are coveted like star athletes, to the point that they’re recruited by companies for jobs all over the country.
That has WyoTech grads making big plans for their futures and heading out to whatever new corners of the world they choose.
That’s because the job opportunities these graduates get are so plentiful, they can practically push a pin into a map, picking where they want to go, regardless of where it is.
Ethan Arganbright, from Texas, for example, has offers in Texas and Oklahoma, as well as with FedEx. The latter, being an international company, means he could actually choose anywhere in the world he wants to go.
“I’m still deciding on exactly which job I want to take, but they’ve all been amazing,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “But I have had a few job offers back home, so I am heading back home.”
Chance Wellborn, from Tennessee, on the other hand, has made up his mind that he will be headed for Sewell Cadillac in the heart of Dallas, Texas, in the next two weeks — very far from his home.
He’ll spend six months in high-level training at the dealership, which he’s been told is among the largest Cadillac dealerships in the nation.
After he completes the class, he’ll get an automatic $16 per hour pay bump, bringing him to an overall $35 an hour.
“The way automotive works there, it’s not really a salary,” he said. “If I’m taking apart an engine, for example, it might pay 32 hours. If I get it done in 40 hours, I get 32 hours. But if I can get it done in 18 hours, I still get paid 32 hours.”
It’s an incentive toward efficient work, but also an opportunity to boost his pay.
Wellborn decided to take the job because of the chance to explore the world at large, with Dallas being a great base of operations for that.
“I kind of live by the philosophy that when I’m 30, 40, however many years old, I don’t want to look back 10 years and think, ‘I should have done that,’” he said. “And it is kind of scary to move that far away from home, but I feel it’s a situation that if I didn’t do it, I would regret it later on.”
Eventually, he added, there’s always the option to go back home with his skills and open his own business.
“I don’t think you’re a master coming out of (WyoTech),” he said. “But I do think it teaches you a lot of the principles and, like, the ideas behind a lot of stuff. It makes it easier to learn stuff.”
Tim Shearer talks about the work he's doing at WyoTech to restore an old 1946 Ford truck with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme. He heads to Michigan in two weeks with a job already in hand. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Ethan Arganbright works on a panel he's adding to a truck he's restoring for his personal project at WyoTech. He graduates in two weeks with multiple job offers in Texas, and is still deciding which one to take. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Chance Wellborn's personal project at WyoTech involved a Camaro he's souping up. Originally from Tennessee, he graduates in two weeks with a job at Sewell Cadillac in Dallas. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Chance Wellborn's personal project at WyoTech involved a Camaro he's souping up. Originally from Tennessee, he graduates in two weeks with a job at Sewell Cadillac in Dallas. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Go Anywhere, Be Anything
Dr. Seuss has an entire book devoted to telling people they can go anywhere in the world and do anything that they want to do
WyoTech has made that real for Derrick Peters, who wanted to find a job in Wyoming.
In two weeks, he’ll graduate with a job offer from Jackson Group Peterbilt in Cheyenne.
“The career fair was a huge help with that,” Peters said. “That’s such an opportunity for students to broaden their horizons. There’s more opportunities than just your specific field, and they’re so vast. All over the country. You can go anywhere.”
For Danny Warner, his dream is to become a mechanic for Ferrari.
He's been told that would ordinarily require several years of experience fixing less complex cars at someplace like a Toyota dealership.
But he believes WyoTech has brought him a viable alternative path to that dream, one that will get him there more quickly than he could normally expect.
“I was told by this one, like top mechanic for Ferrari, who was here not too long ago, and he told me to just become like a porter, which is detailing cars and taking them to get gas,” Warner said. “And then to show interest in wanting to work on the cars, and that they’d eventually take me as a mechanic.”
With the Ferrari mechanic’s coaching, Warner has already lined up the recommended job at a Ferrari dealership in Denver. That location is ideal from another standpoint. Warner doesn’t want to travel too far away from his home in Colorado yet.
Part of that is because he has projects at home, like fixing up his grandfather’s Ford, which his grandmother recently gave him.
“I’ve been bringing some stuff up here from that truck, to fix it up and then bring it back down to Colorado,” he said. “I’m still having some issues with the carburetor.”
Warner plans to bring the carburetor back to WyoTech and work on it some more for his last two weeks of school.
He’s excited to get his grandfather’s truck running again, and about what the future holds — regardless of how things run for him at the Colorado Ferrari.
“If that doesn’t work for whatever reason at that dealership, I can go to so many other Ferrari dealerships, now that I’m in the door, around the country,” he said. “There’s some places I’d love to go, like Salt Lake City. I have a lot of friends there, and there’s a Ferrari dealership down there.”
Derrick Peters stands with the custom bumper he's working on at WyoTech. He came to the school in hopes of finding a job in Wyoming. He graduates in two weeks with a job at Jackson Group Peterbilt in Cheyenne. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
This piece will become part of the grill for the Cowabunga truck, Tim Shearer worked on for his special project at WyoTech. He's headed to Michigan with a job already in hand when he graduates in two weeks. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Take Me To Michigan
Tim Shearer headed to WyoTech with a Michigan-centered life plan already set in stone.
His wife’s family is from Michigan, and so, he already knew he was locked into moving there to help out his in-laws.
He was prepared to spend a lot of time job hunting to make that happen. But he needn’t have worried.
He graduates in two weeks with a dream job lined up with Stellar Rod and Custom owned by Mike Brimm, who was formerly with GM Motors as an experimental automotive paint technician.
“WyoTech has just been phenomenal,” Shearer said. “It allows so many opportunities. There’s so much you can learn from this school if you’re willing to put the effort in to do so. If you come here with an open mindset to learn, you can learn a lot. I would say there’s easily 1,000 years’ worth of knowledge from all the instructors here.”
Eventually, Shearer hopes to grow and expand his own business, Sick Hot Rods, and feels he’s already gotten a great start on that, too, thanks to the fact WyoTech allows students to bring in special projects for some classes.
Shearer’s special project is a 1946 Ford truck he calls “Cowabunga.” It’s going to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-themed truck, with a grill designed to look like a character from one of the 1990s Ninja Turtles movie, as well as an engine modeled after Shredder.
“I’m going to use his helmet for the air filter and put like shoulder spikes on the valve covers in his colors,” Shearer said. “And I might cut out a section of the roof and have it say, like, ’Sewer’ up there on top, because the turtles live in the sewer.”
The project is something he won’t finish at WyoTech, but it’s something he’s confident he can finish one day, thanks to WyoTech.
It’s just another way the career and technical school has helped people turn the world into their very own oyster, by giving them the skills and tools to dream big and plant those dreams anywhere in the world they choose.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
