America’s Best, the annual NAPT school bus inspector and technician training and skills competition, is expanding this fall in more ways than one.
Marshall Casey, a consultant to NAPT and one of the founding members of America’s Best, told STN that the event signed on its first Canadian association to send participants to Richmond, Virginia, Aug. 6-10. The Association of Student Transportation Services of British Columbia crowned its first-ever technicians and inspectors of the year in July.
Casey added that 16 total participants competed as Richard Horning of School District #73 in Kamloops won the technicians category and Mike Brasseur of School District #83 in Salmon Arm won the inspectors division. Both also pocketed $750 for first prize and are headed to the NAPT Summit with an all-expenses-paid trip to compete against their peers to the South.
“We wrote the guidelines to this many years ago that said state winners or provincial winners, thinking that at some point we’d have Canadian provinces involved. We’ve finally reached that point,” Casey explained.
Also new to America’s Best this year will be the states of California and Minnesota, as both of which are also sending representatives for the first time.
Meanwhile, this year’s participants will experience more diversification of training as America’s Best workshops and skills challenges will include wheelchair lift maintenance and mirror inspections, which Casey said is building upon already successful tire programs from Michelin Tire and bus electronics training from Thomas Built Buses. Additionally, he said once again participants who did not win their state or province skills competition are invited to register for America’s Best as challengers.
“That’s always been our goal, to create more of a training forum and to get more people involved,” Casey added.
