Blue Collar 👔 Is Back in Black ♠️

… and has gilded UTI in gold ⚜️👨🏼‍⚕️🧑🏾‍🏭👩🏾‍⚕️🧑‍🔧

Rising up from a $77 million market cap to the $1.62 billion we see today in just under 10 years is well… it seems to me like a pretty glorious turnaround story to me! After digging into it, management looks to have acted pretty heroically in getting their turnaround to actually turn (something Warren Buffett is known to say is rare, hence: “turnarounds seldom turn”).

Ever since their founding in 1965, they have acted as a trade & vocational school, initially just for the transportation industry. They broadened their offerings over the following decades, with new programs and campuses. In 1980, they began offering continuing education and training for corporate clients. Starting in 1998, they (UTI) acquired Clinton Harley Corporation and Clinton Education Group, Inc., which operated Motorcycle Mechanics Institute and Marine Mechanics Institute (more military-centric technical training programs).

They had been on a fairly steady decline from IPO in 2003 until 2016, when initiatives to stabilize their finances (revenue trends normalizing, full valuation allowance for taxes, and successful capital raises), the addition of new programs to utilize their excess campus capacity, and a market improvement in the demand for technical skills; all breathed new life into the business.

In 2021, they acquired MIAT College of Technology, a Canton, Michigan and Houston, Texas -based school for aeronautics, energy, and manufacturing. This has given them improved exposure to providing military training programs that they also make available through their main UTI schools.

More recently, in 2023 they acquired Concorde Career Colleges, significantly increasing their revenues from Concorde’s already established training programs for medical technicians. Some of these programs include dental assistants & hygienists, sonography (ultrasound), vocational nursing, physical therapist & medical assistant, as well as medical office administration.

In a sense, you could say that their UTI division training programs are aligned with America’s next industrial revolution, improving the industrial competence of our workforce as we have (seemingly) begun to decouple from the rest of the world, entering some sort of isolationist, head-down period, in an effort to revitalize the American manufacturing complex of industries.

The one question I can’t answer is how long it will take for this worker shortage to become a surplus, as I’d assume this would impact their growth; though, they’ve added so many new specializations, they seem more diversified than they’ve ever been! Do you know anyone that’s gone to one of these schools?

Anyway, here’s an exhaustive list of UTI’s industrial technician training programs: Automotive Technology, Aviation Technician, Computer Numeric Control Machining Technology (CNC), Collision Repair & Refinish Technology, Diesel & Industrial Technology Electrical, Electronics and Industrial Technology, HVACR Technician, Industrial Maintenance Technician, Marine Technician, Motorcycle Technician, NASCAR Technology & Motorsports, Advanced Non-Destructive Testing Technician, Robotics & Automation Technician, Welding Technology, Wind Turbine Technician.