The National Park College (NPC) Marine Technology program recently received a donation of five new engines and controls from Suzuki Marine, a $39,355 value. The donation included two 115-horsepower fuel-injected motors and three 9.9 portable engines.
Assistant Professor of Marine Technology Delmar Hunter expressed his gratitude for the donation, noting the significance of the 115-horsepower engines. “We asked them for the 115s a couple of years ago. That’s a really popular motor for this area, and we’d like to have our techs ready to go with it. They got it done for us. They went out of their way and made it happen. These are fly-by-wire engines so we can do a different kind of rigging setup. With electronic rigging, with two of them, we can set up twin-engine applications. You’ll see that a lot on the coast, but we’re starting to see more twin-engine applications here too,” Hunter explained.
Hunter emphasized the importance of students working with the latest technology. “Anytime we get a new product it puts our students ahead of the curve. They get a chance to work on something that they are going to see as soon as they get out in the real world. It’s there, it’s out there now. These are being sold today and they’re on new boats and our students are going to know how to work on them from day one,” he said.
The partnership between NPC and Suzuki Marine has been mutually beneficial. “We can’t thank our partners enough. Suzuki has been great. They’ve done everything that we’ve ever asked of them and we try to do everything that they ask of us. We have a really good partnership. We host factory training here on campus every winter for Suzuki, and it works out really well,” Hunter stated.
Kevin Lind, Lead Technical Training and Publication for Suzuki Marine, highlighted the importance of supporting technical and vocational schools. “We are very supportive of all the technical, vocational schools across the country, especially here with National Park College. There is a big need for service technicians in our dealerships across the board and we want to make sure that we’re helping do what we can to make sure there are technicians coming into the field and it will stay strong going into the future,” Lind said.
Lind explained the rationale behind the specific donation. “We wanted to get some portable engines in here for them to be able to understand that line of engines, be able to work on them and do the basic maintenance. Then we also donated a couple of DF115s, a pair of those. So, the students can learn how to rig a single or a dual version of these engines which dealerships may be loading onto boats to go out onto the lakes here. It’s very important for them to understand the rigging component of it. In addition to the engines, we also donated all the rigging components that go along with the engines so that the students can learn everything about putting this engine on a boat,” Lind said.
Pictured is Lind, left, with Hunter, right.