Identity Inc., a Gaithersburg-based nonprofit focused on supporting Latino and underserved youth and families in Montgomery County, is launching an auto career program thanks to a $35,000 donation from two local automobile dealer associations.
The program aims to prepare Identity’s clients to secure employment in the automotive industry and at local dealerships in the region, Identity Executive Director Diego Uriburu told Bethesda Today on Tuesday.
Identity offers programs and services related to family case management, mental health, substance use and workforce development as well as youth recreational activities. The nonprofit also manages Wellness Centers at six Montgomery County high schools including Gaithersburg High School, John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring and Seneca Valley High School in Germantown.
The nonprofit’s program will work “with communities who are very passionate about the industry, who spend a lot of their leisure time working on cars and would love to work in the industry, but they don’t know how to access it,” Uriburu said.
On Wednesday afternoon at the Washington, D.C. Auto Show, Uriburu was presented with a $25,000 check from the Maryland Automobile Dealers Association and a $10,000 check from the Washington Area New Automobile Dealers Association to help fund the program. The show runs through Sunday at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
Maryland Automobile Dealers Association Foundation Chair Sam Weaver, who is also vice president and a partner at the Chevy Chase Acura dealership in Bethesda, presented the association’s check. He told Bethesda Today on Tuesday that his Bethesda dealership would be the first in the area to partner with Identity and look to hire its clients.
“In the very beginning, we’re going to act as the pilot,” Weaver said. “Over the first 30 to 60 days we’re going to create the framework on how it’s [going] to work and what Identity’s role is.”
According to Uriburu, the program will primarily serve the Latino and underserved young adults who are clients of Identity. He noted that the parents of some clients may also participate. In addition, Identity also aims to educate its clients about the different career pathways within the automotive industry, and about compensation and growth opportunities that are available. After identifying interested clients, Identity will refer them to local dealerships.
Identity will primarily focus on the “soft skills,” Uriburu said, that help clients gain employment. Once employed at the automobile dealerships, clients are expected to receive more training in the skills needed for their job, he said.
Weaver said his dealership would be hiring Identity clients for a variety of different positions, including as mechanical and body technicians and painters and in accounting roles.
Weaver said he began his career in the automotive industry nearly 47 years ago, starting as a car washer at Chevy Chase Chevrolet. Now as an owner of a local dealership, the Dickerson resident sees how the industry can offer long term career opportunities for Identity clients.
“The one thing about the automobile business is it doesn’t really matter what your education level is — as long as you can perform, you can move all the way up to the top,” he said.
Within his own dealership, Weaver said about 50% of his employees are Latino. Since the start of his career, Weaver said the demographics of industry employees have shifted, with many Latinos now employed in the field. That “is not unusual currently, but from years ago, that was very unusual,” he said. “It’s a growing community. It’s a hardworking community.”
Weaver noted that some of his own Latino employees started as vehicle lot attendants and later advanced to managerial roles and leadership positions in the dealership’s accounting department.
Despite the high interest in the automotive industry within the Latino community, Uriburu said many of Identity’s clients do not know how to navigate the career path. Identity’s new program aims to provide a guiding light, he said.
Uriburu noted that he is most looking forward to seeing how the program will increase “economic mobility” for Identity clients.
“I am really enthusiastic about building what right now is like a small trail, and turning it into an avenue for these communities to have access to phenomenal jobs … that provide them with stipends for them to get their own cars, that would provide them with a pathway to very good-paying jobs that would have an impact on how their children will be raised,” he said.
Uriburu said he sees the program as the start of “something that could be quite big.”
