Building Tomorrow’s Diesel Techs: Inside Lincoln Tech with CEO Scott Shaw

In this episode of NextGen Talks, Lindsey sits down with Scott Shaw, President & CEO of Lincoln Tech, to explore how one of the most established technical schools in the country is preparing the next generation of diesel technicians. Scott shares his unexpected journey from banking and private equity into skilled trades education, and how 25 years at Lincoln Tech has shown him the life-changing impact of hands-on training. He walks through Lincoln’s history—from its post-WWII beginnings to its growth into a national network focused on transportation, diesel, skilled trades, and healthcare—and explains why right now is the most exciting moment he’s ever seen for the trades.
Scott and Lindsey dig into how Lincoln Tech keeps its diesel programs relevant: blending 30% online with 70% hands-on shop time, using tools like Electude’s gamified curriculum, training aids, and a block-format program that students complete in about 13 months. Scott highlights their 90% job placement in-field, shares success stories like UPS fleet leader and Lincoln grad Carlton Rose, and stresses how employer partnerships, advisory councils, and on-campus career fairs keep students aligned with real-world needs. They also tackle retention—why mentorship and clear career paths matter—and look ahead to Lincoln’s expansion plans, including new campuses in Atlanta, Houston, and North Texas. Scott closes with a message to students, parents, and employers alike: the diesel and skilled trades fields offer stable, AI-resistant, high-opportunity careers where motivated people can truly go “all the way to the top.”

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Transcript

Welcome to NextGen Talks, the podcast where we dive into the future of trucking and logistics by highlighting the voices shaping it today. I'm your host, Lindsay Trent, and together we'll explore how schools, industry leaders, and young professionals are coming together to drive change. From classrooms to truck cabs, from diesel shops to logistics hubs, we'll share stories, insights, and innovations that are steering the next generation towards rewarding careers in this vital industry. This is more than just a podcast. It's a movement to inspire, connect, and celebrate the people building the future of trucking. And we couldn't do it without the support of our sponsors. Performance Food Group, Descartes, Fastport, National Transportation Institute, XPO and Advanced Training Systems. Thank you. And let's get started. Hey, welcome to NextGen Talks. I am really excited, like always, to have this guest with me today. 

And we are talking today to Scott Shaw, who is the president and CEO of Lincoln Technical Institute.  

Scott, thank you so much for being on the show today. 

Thanks, Lindsey. I'm excited to be here. This is a great topic to be talking about. 

Yeah. And so let's just dive in. I want to hear about you. How did you become the president of Lincoln Tech, and what is the career path that you took to get here? 

Well, I didn't think I'd be here, but next year will be my 25th year at Lincoln Tech. So it's been a long road, but it's been a great road, a fun road. And I actually started off in banking originally and did that for a number of years. And the group I was with, private equity group, had purchased Lincoln in 1999. 

Interesting. 

And I was on the investing side and they were looking to make a change. I wanted to get into operations and. And one of the gentlemen that I worked with said, hey, why don't you go work at Lincoln Tech? They need some help on the financial side. So I joined Lincoln tech as their CFO back in 2001, and then I had a number of other roles throughout the years. And then about 10 years ago, I was picked to become the CEO and president. And as I said, I didn't anticipate this. I thought that I'd, okay, I'll go to Lincoln Tech, but for maybe a few years, understand what the business is like and then move on to something else. 

And what I found was the trades are really an exciting place to be, and education is an exciting industry, frankly, to be in, because you get to change people's lives. And frankly, I'll say it this way, in banking, you're just kind of pushing a lot of paper around and money around versus here. You're actually touching things, fixing things. You, you're interacting with people. You see the product, you see the product develop. You see the product when they come back to you as alums or get into our hall of fame and hear their progression and what they're doing. So it's a very fulfilling opportunity. And we at Lincoln have just been very fortunate to I think have a really great platform to really help a lot of people over the years. 

I just love that. I was gonna say banking kind of sounds boring compared to being in education. And so skilled trades education, which is even better now I'm sure and we can get into this later. I'm sure you've seen an interesting shift from back in 2000 when people were pushing everybody to college. 

Yes. 

Now do you see a shift in. 

Oh, it's the most exciting time for us just because of that. So, you know. Can I give you a brief history of Lincoln? 

I would love to hear about Lincoln. 

Okay. So our founder, Warren Davies, came back from World War II and as a vet he saw that a lot of his other fellow vets weren't finding jobs. So he decided to open a training school to help with two new brand technologies of that day. And they were automatic transmissions and people were starting to put air conditioning into their homes. So he started to train people to fix those two items. And then over the years he continued to grow the business and the business got larger and he opened up more schools around the country. And then he decided to sell the business. I'm just looking, I see what your shirt says. A Ryder. And he actually sold the company to Ryder. Oh, wow. Back in that either back in the 60s, because obviously they need a lot of technicians to maintain the fleet. 

And then I guess it didn't work out for Ryder for whatever reason and. And then he bought the company back from rider and managed it for a while. And then in 1999 private equity purchased it. And then in 2005 went public. But throughout that time, Lincoln has always focused on hands on skilled trades training. And so today we offer about eight major programs. We have programs in skilled trades like welding, electricians, H. Vac techs and CNC machinists. We also offer about 20% of our students are in healthcare, which would be licensed practical nurse and medical assisting. But the foundation of the company was in transportation. So that'd be an auto technician, a diesel technician, or collision repair. And so we've always been in this space and we've been doing it for a long period of time. 

And as you reference, what's so exciting today is that people have realized that the trades are a wonderful way to start a career and actually progress and be successful in life. And we've been fighting against, you know, everyone needs to go to college. And we've always had more employers than we've had students, and we still have more employers than we have students. But we're also growing now in a meaningful way just because more people find this type of work engaging, fulfilling, and meaningful to them. 

Yeah, it's really interesting. This year was our fifth year at ffa. I know you all go every year. I wonder if you all noticed this too. But we, in the five years that we've been there, we noticed this year, even more than any other year, where students were coming up to us, really interested in trucking jobs and what they could do right out of a high school versus not going to college. 

Yes. Yeah, we're seeing that more and more from young people, from their parents. I went to. I work here. Our headquarters is here in New Jersey, and there's a very, I'll say upscale community near us where 99.9% of the kids go off to college. But the room was packed, and the topic was, how do we get into vocational education? Vocational trades, really up on the panel, and these parents were basically saying, yes, I hear the guidance counselor wants to go get more people into college. But I just don't think that's the right thing for my son or daughter to do. And they want to do. They want to do x, y, or z, which is different than what the school wants them to do. And so they're looking for avenues. 

And we're just seeing that more and more by people, which is, you know, as I said, makes it very exciting for us. 

Well, it's very exciting for you, but it's also what we need in our country is more skilled trade, more people to become diesel technicians. 

Absolutely. I mean, you know, during COVID all of our students remained employed because the government deemed them now as essential workers. You know, we needed to have all the delivery trucks working so that we could, you know, get things that were either going to be shipped directly to our house, but we need to still have the supermarkets up and running, supplies being sent to the hospitals. And, you know, people realize, wow, there are certain things that really cannot go away and are mandated to just live our daily lives. And certainly trucking and in the trades and things of that nature all fall into that. 

So it was nice to, I'd say that was like one step along the way where all of a sudden people are really appreciating what the trades can be, what they do and how dependent all of our lives are on the trades. 

Well, and we at next gen trucking, we're really focused on those trucking careers and supply chain transport. So cdl, driving, diesel technology, what you all do, tell me how do you prepare with how we are today? We're a very technology focused society and things have changed. Right back in the 2000s were still using paper, but now today it's a lot of technology. How are you preparing your students in diesel tech and technology? 

Well, we are introducing it as much as we can and where it's effective. I just don't want to put it lots of fancy bells and whistles in there if it's really not going to advance the education. But to your point, everything's becoming technologically advanced. So first of all, excuse me, we learned during COVID that we could do certain things online instead of in person. And so we changed our curriculum to be now 30% online and 70% on ground in our shops. And that builds in greater flexibility for our students because a lot of them, frankly. Frankly a lot of our students have families or jobs and that better enables them to stay in a job while still coming to school. 

We give them all laptops because everyone's job, no matter who you are, you're going to be somehow interacting with a laptop either to do your day to day job or frankly even when you're out there in the field and maybe getting advanced level training at your job. Most likely a lot of that's going to be online as well. So it's making the students aware of that. We've partnered also with a company out of the Netherlands called Electude and they're the largest in the world trainer of people for the automotive and diesel field. And their curriculum was different than what were offering and really suits younger people today. It's more, has more gamesmanship in it's more discovery. 

Just like young people, you know when they get a new electronic, they're not reading the manual like I do, they just start clicking and figuring it all out. 

That's true. 

It's a different way of approaching it. So we're changing our curriculum to be that way. They make these wonderful training aids that complement it. So the education is you learn theory, you kind of learn the practice in a little bit in the classroom, but also on your own through the online learning. Then you come into school, we have training aids that then help, you know, make something that's on paper real. So you can kind of see how a hydraulic system works or where all the wiring goes for a braking system and things of that nature on these training boards. And then we bring you into the shop where there's a real truck or chassis or some component that you're going to be working on. 

So it's kind of this three stage methodology that gets students more and more comfortable with more and more capable and improves their skills, we find, in a very effective way. 

Yeah, I love that you do that. And I think sometimes I've heard of some colleges, even now four year degrees, a lot of them are doing online classes. That just wasn't a thing back when I was in school. 

Correct, correct. And again, we want to pride ourselves on hands on training. So we do want to give as much hands on training as possible. But, but there are certain principles and safety things and other things that you need to learn which can be done in this online fashion. But our students still like to get the wrenches and all the rest and really get in there and touch things and feel things, right? 

Absolutely. That's why they've chosen this career path, is because they don't want to sit behind a desk. 

Yes, yes, that's for sure. 

Tell me where you all had Diesel Tech training. 

Sure. Yep. So we have a program in Connecticut in East Windsor, we have a program in New Jersey in South Plainfield, we have one indianapolis, we have another one out in Denver, Colorado and then we have another one in Dallas, Texas. And they're all either called Lincoln College of Technology, if there's a degree component available, or Lincoln Technical Institute. But we also own a college that we just rebranded this year back to its original name and that's Nashville Auto Diesel College. And. And we are 80 years old next year. Nashville Auto Diesel College is 106 years old. So it's a great brand. We just moved them this year into a brand new state of the art facility in Nashville. And actually were just down there last week for a meeting and it's very impressive. Yeah. 

In fact, when I worked for Ryder, our director over our whole region of service, he sent his son to Nashville Diesel College to get trained. 

So yeah, Nashville's. Well, it's our one campus where the majority of the students have relocated to go there. So a lot of them have come from, I think around 12 different states that circle Tennessee. And so they have students from all over the country these days now and they've had students from every state And I think 12 different countries go to Nashville Auto Diesel college. 

That is so cool. 

Typically. 

How long, if I wanted to become a diesel technician, how long does your program last? 

Yeah, the program is 13 months in length because we don't have a lot of breaks like maybe traditional colleges have. It's treated much more like a job because our students want to get in and get out as quickly as possible. So in those 13 months it's equivalent to have gone to, I'll say a traditional school for four semesters. But we accelerate it and we condense it and we don't have all these breaks. So I said, as I said, so students can get in and get out quickly. 

Yeah, that makes so much sense to me because they're ready to get into the workforce. So what makes you guys different than some of the other colleges? 

Sure. Well, I think that, I mean it's funny, I just was having this conversation with one of our campus presidents on my drive to the office and. And because we do have competition out there and I do believe, I don't think that this is just a bunch of words, but we have a very friendly, more family oriented atmosphere. We're very welcoming and we're very supportive of our students. Not to say that others aren't, but I just know that we are and we really do want our students to be successful and we want to be very approachable as well as once the students come to us, we are going to provide support. They might not like it if they don't show up for class. We're going to call and find out why. 

Because maybe is it something that we could help them with or are they ill or are they just being tardy? Because we do put attendance on our transcripts because employers value that number just as much as they value how well they did in school. Because we all know you could be the smartest, greatest person with a wrench, but if you don't show up every day when you need to, it doesn't really matter. 

Absolutely. And that is so important is for them to know they've got to show up every day. And if they're showing up while they're in school, then they're going to show up when they actually are getting paid to do it. 

Exactly. Exactly. 

So what are some of the hands on things that students do as they're learning? 

Sure. So the way that we're structured is different than a traditional school. So in traditional school you probably took maybe four or Five courses simultaneously and kind of had to learn them all. We do what's in considered a block format. So every five weeks you're studying one thing and mastering it and then moving on to the next. So you study breaks for a while. You might study electronics for five weeks. Actually, electronics is now 10 weeks. It's two sessions. And just because all these vehicles have so many electronic parts, you just need that much attention. And then there'd be a section on transmissions, there'd be a section on suspension, there'd be a section on preventative maintenance. All the key areas, hydraulics, that someone would need to be able to maintain and keep a truck up and running is what they're going to learn. 

And you know, they're going to have to continue to learn, frankly, after they've left us, because there's only so much that we can give them. But we give our students a really solid foundation, which is why we have basically a 90% placement rate for our graduates. And that's placed in the field of study. So they're getting a job with a trucking company. And so I'm very confident to say that we have graduates probably in every major trucking company out there today. 

That is incredible. That is incredible. So, I mean, with that 90% success rate of placement, do you have any particular stories of students who graduated? 

Yeah, well, there are a lot of them. I can't go through all of them, but I can share some of them. One is, as a company, we have a board of directors. And I'm very proud to say that I brought on about three years ago a gentleman by the name of Carlton Rose. And Carlton, when I brought him on, was in charge of every single piece of UPS's fleet around the world, whether it was a plane or a truck. And Carlton graduated from our Indianapolis campus about 40 years ago in the diesel program. Started off part time at ups, putting boxes in the back of the truck. He graduated from us, went and became a mechanic at UPS and then rose up through the ranks to become in the top echelon of the whole UPS organization. And we have dozens of people like that. 

Another gentleman by the name of Billy White, who oversees today, he's very much involved in the Tennessee Trucking Association. 

Oh, yeah. 

Yep. Another gentleman, Homer Hogg, he was in charge of all training and development at travel centers of America, obviously, where trucks kind of stop and get fixed and repaired. And there's just a long list of different students who have either just risen up and become superior techs at their firm, have opened up and Started their own repair organization or got involved in some organization around trucking where their skills have been brought to bear. So it's a great field, lots of opportunity and good wages and there's just this huge demand out there. Everyone's looking for a good diesel tech, that's for sure. 

And I just love. I mean, what you were saying is so on point in that you can start off a diesel technician and stay that your entire career and maybe that's what you want to do or you can rise in the ranks. 

Yes. Yeah, there's lots of opportunity, like in anything, if you're, I'll say, more motivated or driven and you want to, you know, move in some sort of different direction. Direction. The opportunities are there, which is nice. That doesn't always exist, but certainly in the whole diesel area, especially given the challenges of finding enough people. If you get in now, I think that you're in a really good place for the rest of your career. 

Absolutely, absolutely. And that's what we try to tell students, is that these careers are paths you can start and the sky's the limit for you. I mean, that's just like what you said, your UPS board member. I mean, really, he has found out that the sky was the, you know, sky's the limit for starting off as entry level. And now where he is today. 

Yeah, he's enjoying retirement and playing golf and he also, he likes to fix up old cars. So he has a. A number of old cars that he works on. But. Yeah, I love that. 

Yeah, I love that. 

So, yeah, go ahead. 

Sorry, Lindsey, tell me how you work with your employer partners. 

Yeah, well, you know, everything that we do at Lincoln is designed to help students get a job and launch their career because that's why they're coming to us. So working with industry is very important for us. So first of all, for our curriculum, every six months, we invite a group of employers to come in and critique what they like about our students, what they don't like about our students. What. Where's the industry going? What should we be thinking about? What additional skills could we be giving students? Or, you know, what, you know, we don't be teaching people how to fix carburetors if there aren't carburetors anymore. So we want to make sure that the students time is not wasted and focused on what's needed. So that's one way we do it. 

The second way that we do is that we are engaged and we have career fairs because obviously we can give you the skills and then we want you to be connected with industry. So we have a very robust program whereby we'll have certain days where there might be just one or two employers that come on if they want a lot of attention, or there might be a large company like FedEx or UPS, or there are other days when we have 100 employers come onto a campus. And basically this gives the chance of students who are either about to graduate, but also entry level students. They can then talk to these employers and ask them what is it that you're looking for? 

So that when I do complete my education here, I know what I should be prepared to do or what I should be taking to be successful with your organization. And so we encourage that as much as possible. 

Have any employers. I mean, one of the things that we hear is retention. How are you guys tackling retention? 

Well, it's a big problem and I can't say that we've worked with employers per se to tackle it in the diesel field, I know that in our skilled trades we have a partnership that is going a little bit off the side with Johnson Controls whereby we actually do have a retention program. But the principles behind it are the same, frankly, for any company. What so many employers miss is the fact that students today, even more so than ever before, want to see a clear path of how they get ahead. They want to get good feedback of how they're doing, but they also want to get some support to be successful. And too many companies just kind of, I'll say, throw them into the mix and expect them just to absorb things on their own. And some will. 

But if you really want to be successful as a company, you need to put a little more effort in providing, I'll say, more mentorship to these individuals so that they will provide the full benefit that you want. So better run companies, in my mind are ones that recognize that and kind of partner up entry level technicians with more advanced level technicians so that they know that transfer of knowledge is taking place, that person is understanding how the culture is at that organization. And when you do that, then people stay because they feel valued, they feel like they're part of it. They can see where they're going. We all know most people leave a job because of their boss and not because of the job per se. They're just not satisfied. 

So if you have an engaging community of people helping your entry level people, that will really help your retention greatly. 

Yeah, that is true. We've all had a job where it was our boss or some co workers because that makes all the Difference in the world. 

Yep. It helps you get through those difficult times and you get to celebrate those great times altogether. You know, we all want to feel a connection and if someone doesn't have that connection, it's so easy just to, you know, ghost them, as they say these days. 

Yeah, that's the one thing about Rider is the people at Rider are amazing. And the team that I was on, I still talk to a lot of those people. They're just great, wonderful people. And the only reason I left is to start Next gen trucking. And I always said, well, I'm helping Ryder Moore with Next gen Trucking than I was doing my sales job here in Louisville. It makes all the difference in the world to have great people. That is for sure. And it's so interesting about retention because that is a thing that people always struggle with. And I think you're right. Making sure you have that follow through apprenticeship mentorship program where it's not done. This is just the beginning of your journey. 

Yes, absolutely. And that's what is just lost too many times, unfortunately. 

Absolutely. So how can students or employers get in touch with Lincoln Tech for enrollment or partnership opportunities? And do parents typically come and, you know, learn about Lincoln Tech? 

Yeah. So. Well, let me give you a little background. So the average age of a student at Lincoln Tech is 25. Okay. But we have half of our students are 21 or younger. So you can see we have a range of ages there. So we do have about 20% of our students are coming right out of high school. And we have admissions folks that go around the country to high schools and. And recruit students to come to us. We also have local admissions folks around each campus that then help educate local. Local high school students are just going to drive to the school back and forth on a daily basis. And then we also have admissions folks at the campus that are there to educate people. We like to bring students in. We like them to see what the campus is about. 

We like them to see what the classrooms are about, give them a tour, make sure it is the right fit for them. And they also make sure that we're the right fit for them as an organization. But long story short, you can go to lincolntech. Edu, you can find out where we have campuses around the country. And we are more than willing. If you click on there, you can get direct connection to the school or you can reach out to any of the schools on your own. You can find their phone numbers on that website and make an appointment and come in and talk to an admissions person to see if we're the right fit for you. 

Typically, how willing are students to move from, you know, the state they're there in to take a job somewhere? 

Well, I would say that they're less likely today to do it than maybe in the past. Okay. Most of our students are commuter students. Maybe only 10% of our students have relocated from their local. Their home to. To come to us. And probably at least half of them want to go back to their home and work. I would say it is more challenging to get students to relocate to, I'll say, more remote areas where there is a huge need and demand. I can tell you, though, if you're willing to do that, you'll probably economically do very well for yourself. But anyway, there are a mix of opportunities out there, and we similarly have a mix of students, as I said, some who relocate to come, but the vast majority are commuting students. 

And so if I'm an employer, how do I get in touch with you guys to partner? And I can tell you we've connected quite a few employers to you all, so they can always reach out to us. But what if they want to reach out directly to you all? 

Yeah. So again, if they go to the website, they can find the phone numbers for each of our campuses. Each of our campuses has a career, a director of career services. The employers would be asking for whoever that person is and getting connected with them. And then what they'll do is find out, you know, what are your needs, what type of student are you looking for? And then they'll work with the employers. They understand who the students are, and certain students might fit that profile better than others. And so they'll give them a list of students, encourage them to come onto campus. They'll work with. We work with our students, help them with their resumes, we help them with interviewing so that they sound as good as they are. 

A lot of students are nervous, and interviewing isn't something that many of us are used to doing. So we do want to give them the support to have them look their best in front of these employers. 

Absolutely. And the employers I work with that are working with you are very pleased with working with you all and how easy of a process it's been. 

Been. 

So tell me, what do you guys see yourself in the future? Do you see yourself growing, expanding? 

Oh, absolutely. We. For a while, weren't growing, and we opened our first new campus in southern Atlanta last March, but we just opened our second new campus in Houston. And that campus today doesn't have Diesel. But we have still about 12,000 square feet of free space where we're contemplating whether or not we'll add Diesel there. We also just announced another new school in Dallas. So we had a school in Grand Prairie, now we're going to have a school in North Texas. But to answer your question, there's just so much need out there for diesel technicians and tradespeople that our goal is to open up two new campuses a year for the next four to five years. So we see continued growth and hopefully we'll be bringing a school close to, you know, wherever someone is. 

But we have lots of opportunity ahead of us. 

Yeah, absolutely. Mike Rose says that for every five skilled trades people who are retiring, there's only two there to backfill their place. So we need more growth and expansion for skilled trades. 

Yeah. And again, these are jobs that AI for the most part is not going to take away because AI takes away your brain, it doesn't take away your hands. And, and so working with your hands is a great way to, I'll say, secure a long term job in my mind. 

Absolutely. Well, is there anything else that you would like to share about Lincoln Tech? And we will definitely in the show notes, put contact information and how they can reach you all in social media. But is there anything else that you can share about Lincoln Tech? 

Yeah, all I really want to do is just encourage more people to go into the trades, whether it's at Lincoln Tech or somewhere else. Our country really needs more people. It's a great career, a great opportunity. It's all about what you make of it. And you can, as you've heard from some of the examples, you can go right to the top if you're driven to do so. So I encourage anyone to be contemplating a career in the diesel technology area. 

Well, thank you. Today, talking to President and CEO of Lincoln Tech, Scott Shaw on NextGen Talks. And we are excited for the future and the next generation of diesel technicians. And thank you for all you do to invest in them to help get them on the right path to success. 

Thanks, Lindsey, and thanks for everything that you do. It is great to get the word out. We need more of that. So I appreciate this very much.