Northwest Technical Institute in Springdale receives ASE accreditation for diesel tech program

The diesel technician program at Springdale-based technical school Northwest Technical Institute (NWTI) has earned the accreditation of the Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) Education Foundation. NWTI announced Friday (Jan. 18) it had received the accreditation.

The school has worked to receive the accreditation for the past year, said Carl Desens, department head of the Medium/Heavy Truck Service Technology program. The program rebranded from the Diesel and Truck Technology program nearly two years ago.

ASE awarded the program the master level, which is the highest level of three levels of accreditation, and it’s the only diesel technician program in Arkansas at that level, said Desens, adding that another program in the state is working to obtain that level again. The program at NWTI had already been doing more than 90% needed to complete the accreditation, but one of the differences was the program did not require students to change a clutch previously. Now, it does.

The accreditation shows the program is meeting trucking industry standards for technicians and allows students to show companies outside the area that they completed a program meeting industry standards for training technicians, he said.

The diesel technician program at NWTI has three instructors: Desens, Kent Chambers and John Martin. There are 4,614 ASE certified instructors and 2,307 accredited programs nationwide, according to the ASE Education Foundation website.

NWTI, a secondary/post-secondary technical school of the Arkansas Department of Career Education, offers programs in adult education, 10 diploma programs, secondary career center programs and day and evenings community education classes.