Robert Coake:  

everal jobs around south Chicago; and jobs out of my home until we opened the European business in 1993. We worked hard to establish a name for ourselves in south Chicago. Within a year the business was known around the entire Chicago-land area. The business grew fast and I learned a lot about business and people. I became manager in 1996 just before I moved to Florida. The move was somewhat abrupt, forcing me to choose the easiest employment. I was hired as a Porsche technician at a European repair / race shop in Orlando Florida. The owner was more worried about racing than running a business so I took over as manager in late 1997. Over the next few years I noticed that the auto industry was rapidly changing. To stay on top off things I needed to get back into the field which I knew only a manufacture could provide. I searched the papers for a year for “the perfect job”. I finally found an ad from Universal Technical Institute looking for BMW technical Instructors. The thought of being an Instructor had never crossed my mind. But what a neat way to learn the latest technology! After four months of interviews I was hired by UTI as a BMW STEP instructor in late 1999. The STEP program is an accelerated graduate program that is offered to “top of the class” trade school graduates seeking a career with BMW. The program is six months of very intense study and hands on training. After training the students from the STEP program for two years I moved into dealer technician training; I worked with the dealer technicians until 2004. At this time, I was transferred to South Carolina to conduct special training classes for the BMW assembly plant employees. It was a great experience. I learned a lot about curriculum development and systematic training. It was a milestone in my career. In the fall of 2005 BMW North America interviewed me for the position of Senior Technical Instructor. With the acceptance of this position my family and I where moved to southern California January 2006.