The TETAC Story—by Rex Floyd
The outmoded stereotype of a golf course mechanic as a guy of perhaps limited abilities, covered in grease and turning a wrench on a golf cart, is something the Turf Equipment Technicians Association of the Carolinas (TETAC) would very much like to change.

"There's a lot more to being a turf equipment technician than that," says Dale Rogers, president of the three-and-half-year old organization. Today's golf course mechanic-or turf equipment technician-generally has far more responsibilities than he had in past and is maintaining equipment that is far more technologically advanced than it once was, says Rogers.
"I'd like to see a little more credit going to the profession. Computerized diagnosis takes a higher level of thinking than your shade tree mechanic has to have," he says. "The service technician is responsible for parts inventory and for shop organization. Techs at some larger golf courses have their own budgets and sometimes help manage the crew, particularly when the superintendent is not around. There is a little more to it than just changing spark plugs."
Although service technicians have talked occasionally about forming an association for years, Rogers traces TETAC's roots to a seminar that took place at the CGCSA conference in Myrtle Beach 2000. The seminar, entitled "The 100 Most Frequently Asked Questions By Service Technicians," was added to conference's seminar line-up when a previously scheduled seminar had to be scratched.

"It all kind of happened by accident at the 2000 show," says Rogers. "We were talking about equipment and then the topic kind turned toward maybe getting an association started."
A more formal meeting to explore the idea was scheduled for the 2001 superintendents conference. Rex Floyd, who served as president of the CGCSA in 2001 and who hosted the service tech seminars in 2000 and 2001 recalls not knowing what to expect at the organizational meeting, which took place immediately after a regular educational seminar.

"I figured that after the seminar, we might have five people stay for the meeting," says Floyd, who began his golf course maintenance career as a mechanic and then spent more than 20 years as an assistant superintendent or superintendent. By the time the organizational meeting began, however, roughly 60 mechanics had crowded into the room.

"After 15 or 20 minutes the room was just buzzing. These guys were just networking and asking questions.... After about an hour of discussion, I said, 'Let's see a show of hands of people who want to see a service technician association started.' The whole room raised their hands," says Floyd, who has continued to serve as an adviser to the organization.

According to TETAC's mission statement the purpose of the organization is to enhance the professional image of turf equipment technicians, to raise the safety awareness of technicians and to improve the technical knowledge of TETAC members though education and communication with the turf equipment industry.

Rogers, who recently went to work as a field service technician for Jacobsen Textron after seven years as a golf course tech, says that TETAC also provides a framework for service techs to network about work-related issues. To that end, he says the association is developing a database that includes the contact information of member technicians and the type of equipment that is used at their golf courses. Technicians who have maintenance or repair problems with a particular piece of equipment can use the database to call on fellow technicians who may be able to offer practical advice.

"It's just an organization for techs to get together to hash out issues and to attend seminars and to really try to better the profession through education and self image," says Rogers, a native of Carthage, N.C.

TETAC attracted between 60 and SO members in its first year. Since then the organization has grown to include roughly 200 members, which Rogers believes makes it the largest state or regional turf technician association in America. Membership in TETAC is open to anyone involved in the turf equipment industry but Rogers estimates that 75 percent of members are golf course service techs. The remaining 25 percent consists of vendors, vendor field techs, and superintendents. While the majority of members reside in North Carolina or South Carolina, there are also members from Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.

Despite the impressive growth of the association in its first three and half years, Rogers says he expects TETAC membership to increase even more in coming years. "We didn't have in mind at its inception how big this could actually get and how quickly. And so far we've only tapped about 10 percent of the total number of technicians in North and South Carolina," he says.

In November TETAC hosted its first stand-alone seminar series at Horry-Georgetown Technical College in Conway, S.C. The two-day TETAC Conference featured a round-robin series of seminars- that induced sessions on hydraulic pumps, centrifugal pumps, computerized record keeping, diesel engine trouble shooting, welding, shop organization and other topics.

The TETAC Conference was coordinated with the 2004 CGCSA Conference and Trade Show. For the first time, however, TETAC was able to offer an expanded series of "hands-on" seminars at a site other the Myrtle Convention Center, where the CGCSA show is held.

Horry-Georgetown Tech has a golf equipment technicians program, complete with labs and
classrooms, which proved an ideal site for the TETAC Conference, Rogers says. The seminar series attracted roughly 135 technicians, some of whom later joined the association. Such educational opportunities are the key for professional development of service techs and for the continued growth of TETAC, Rogers says.

"Technology changes so much, especially in golf course equipment," he says. "It is getting a lot more complicated with computers and things like that. It really helps the technician to stay on top of improvements and changes that vendors are making."

Rogers credits much of the TETAC success and pins its future prospects to strong support by the CGCSA. And an important goal of the technician association is to enhance the working relationship between equipment technicians and golf course superintendents, he says.

Chuck Borman, executive director of the CGCSA, says it is in superintendents' own interest to support their equipment technicians' association. "If you give the choice to most superintendents as to who the most important person on their crew is, they will tell you that it's their equipment maintenance technician. Having a good, qualified technician is directly proportional to how successful they are. Anything we can do to help make sure that they get the training they need and that they're recognized for how important they are just helps the superintendents and their own profession, " Borman says.

For membership information about the Turf Equipment Technicians Association of the Carolinas, log onto www.tetac.org or call Bill Davis at 864-906-5251.