Elevate: Jason Armitage

Timothy Webb: Thank you all for joining us today here on Elevate, broadcasting from the Razorback Camper Sales Studio. This National Park College podcast highlights a different Nighthawk with each episode. We'll talk about their journey, challenges, key moments of success, their moments of elevation, leveling up and overcoming. I'm Timothy Webb, your host, and I'd like to welcome to the program Jason Armitage. Thanks so much for joining me today, Jason. Jason Armitage: Well, thank you for having me. Timothy Webb: Jason, tell us a little bit about yourself. Jason Armitage: I'm the automotive instructor at National Park College. I've been here for about 30 years now. I'll actually be celebrating my 30th year in October. I've got a wide variety of jobs I get to do here on the campus, but, primarily, I'm the automotive service guy. Timothy Webb: Wow, 30 years here on campus, that's crazy. I can't believe that. Jason Armitage: There's definitely just a few of us old dinosaurs left here. I'm still on the younger side. I got to start here when I was 20, which is probably pretty unheard of nowadays, but I got the option of coming back to the school I actually attended and got to teach here, so pretty lucky, I guess. Timothy Webb: Wow, that's great. Jason, how come automotive repair? Jason Armitage: Well, when I was in high school, I had a plan of doing basically a doctor, lawyer, one of what I would call the professional-level jobs in the world, until one of my friends decided he was going to take automotive, and I took it with him in the high school level. Ever since then, I enjoyed what I do. I love to repair cars and have gotten pretty involved in all facets of it. I do drag racing, or I have in the past, classic cars, restoration. Nowadays, as just the old guy, I enjoy pretty much just working on the factory ones, that are factory, and keeping them repaired for people. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Jason, you're the automotive... What is it now? Automotive- Jason Armitage: It's technically called automotive service technology. It's a little different than what you would think of in the past. The old name would've been an auto mechanic. Today, we're auto technicians. The car that I was trained on is not exactly what we work on nowadays. They appear the same. They have wheels, tires, doors and, as far as the driver's seat, they function the same. When we look underneath the hood, completely different types of equipment than what I learned on 30 years ago. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Yeah, a lot more computers in there now, I guess, huh? Jason Armitage: Yes, a lot more than what you'd imagine. A typical car has 60 to 90 computers on them. They're networked together, so we pretty much have what a typical person would have sitting on their desktop, except we put wheels on it, we drive it over speed bumps, put it out in cold weather. We have all those kinds of obstacles in dealing with the computers that you wouldn't normally have with a desktop computer. Timothy Webb: 30 years ago, when you were getting this degree, you didn't realize you were actually going into IT? Jason Armitage: Oh, I did not. Computers was one of the thoughts I had. I actually started on campus here before we had the internet. I was introduced to email as an instructor here, so this really dates how old I feel. Definitely, I had a lot of learning in the last 30 years here as an instructor. Timothy Webb: Yeah, a lot of things have changed. You're the auto tech instructor. What all does that entail? Jason Armitage: Primarily, I teach people to repair cars. We have seven to eight different areas that a student will go through, and some of those areas would be engine repair, heavily on electronics. We have automatic transmissions, brakes, steering, and suspension, so there's multiple different specialties that a student can become a specialist in nowadays. Timothy Webb: Okay. In all those different categories that you guys teach, what are some of the challenges that you face? Jason Armitage: The challenges are finding people that have the love of the cars that was once prevalent in our society. People used to wash their cars on the weekends. They were part of the family. There was a lot of culture to own a car and work on the car. The cars have become so complicated. Nowadays, I hear from the moms and the dads and the aunts and the uncles the phrase that, "Well, we used to work on our cars, but now we can't even open the hood because they're so complicated." There was a time in there where I would say, "Well, you could have tried and you'd have been okay," and now I prefer you don't open the hood because you usually do more damage than you do good if you're not able to have the right equipment, the right approach to repairing these cars. They have gotten so expensive that any kind of minor repair can turn into a major repair if somebody approaches it the wrong way. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Yeah. Jason, are there any common myths that you'd like to clear up for our audience about being an auto tech repair or being a mechanic in general? Jason Armitage: Yeah, we have some very common myths. The biggest ones probably are that females don't belong in our trade. We still have that stigma out there. There is some heavy lifting, there is some dirty work, there is some traditional wrenching that we would do on cars as in the past, but they have morphed so much into a different type of repair than what they used to be. We rely heavily on scan tool equipment which, to the average listener, they may not know what that is, but that's pretty much like saying your car does not have a monitor like your desk computer. We take a scan tool, and we're allowed to see what the computer is showing between the sensors and the internal parts of the computer on the car where we look at that and diagnose what's happening based on that, so we need very intelligent people. We need dedicated people. We need people that want to do this as a career. Learning automotive is not something that is a job that's easily picked up that you do for a couple of years. It takes quite a while to really learn the nuances of the trade. We have all sorts of different types of people now entering this industry where in the past it was somebody that was pretty much good with their hands and doing the physical jobs. Nowadays, we have much more of the mental aspect of it, and you have to have the ability to diagnose complex electrical issues. Timothy Webb: Well, that's interesting the way you put that, so the scan tool is actually just hooking a monitor up to the actual desktop. Jason Armitage: That would be the easiest way for me to explain it. We have ways we can control what the computers do on the cars with the scan tools. We read sensors. To my students, I explain that a sensor is exactly what we have on our bodies. If something is hot, the computer needs to know that it's hot. If it's got a issue like a person would have where we basically feel with our sensors and live our world through our sensors, the computer uses sensors on the engine to determine what's really happening underneath the hood, and then it can make decisions on how to make it run more efficient, get better gas mileage, keep pollution down. That's what we face as a major part of our job is trying to get these cars to run clean for our environment and meet all the standards they have to meet set by our government. Timothy Webb: Jason, what are some of the biggest obstacles you've had to face and overcome to get to where you are today? Jason Armitage: I don't know that I've had a lot of obstacles. I'm a person that enjoys challenges. When obstacles come my way, I don't see it as a hindrance. I just see it as another chance to try to improve. There is a stigma with being an auto technician, that maybe we're not the high level, functioning, intelligent people of society. We still face that. Then when people see what we actually have to do to repair cars, that changes their attitude pretty quick. A lot of times, they don't understand why cars are so expensive to repair. We don't mind going maybe into a doctor's office and spending $150 to talk to the doctor for three minutes, but if you get a whole day's worth of mechanic time and you find out that it's $150, you can't understand why. That's because they still think we are mechanics when really we're more of a technician working at a much higher level than what we did 20, 30 years ago. Timothy Webb: Right. It's a hard job, and anybody that's had any kind of car problems in the past or even recently, for me, I can definitely say for sure it's hard to find a good mechanic that you can trust and feel good about. Jason Armitage: It is very difficult, and that's a question that I answer for a lot of people in our community very often. They say, "Well, who is a good technician to go to?" They also have the feeling that many times these technicians are out there purposely trying to take advantage of them. I know most of the technicians in our Hot Springs area, and I can tell you very few of them are like that. I would say, most of the time, when there is a conflict between a customer and a shop owner or a technician, a lot of times it's a misunderstanding of what is being done, what features are not going to be repaired. Maybe a poor example would be is, if you put a new engine in a car, it's not a brand new car. There are still hundreds and hundreds of parts that are still old and can cause future issues, and maybe those weren't communicated between the technician and the customer the way they should have been before the repair was done, and the expectations between the two are not exactly matching. Timothy Webb: What is it about your position that rewards you? Jason Armitage: I have two things that really reward me in my position. Number one is seeing a student that comes in that has very little knowledge, very little direction on what they want to do in their life and, years later, you may run into them as a teacher, and it may be at a local store, and you've suddenly seen they've become a success. You may not have known that when they were 20 years old. They may not have had the best attendance, they may not have paid attention in class to the highest level, but when you see them later and they've become a success especially in the automotive industry, you feel like you've done your job, and then that's a great reward. The problem with teaching is it's a delayed gratification. You don't see that student leave and immediately become a success. Many times, you don't get to follow where they go. With social media nowadays, it is great because you do see some of them on the different social media platforms where we can keep up with what they're doing, and that's awesome, but that's a big part of the reward of doing this. The second part of my reward I would say is I get to have a job where the more that I know, the more valuable I am to my students. I love to learn things. I love to study. I like to know how things work. I'm never satisfied with just, hey, I can fix this. I want to know how it's fixed, why it's fixed, what can I do to solve that the next time, and there's no better job than being a teacher if you want to learn those kinds of things. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Yeah, for sure, especially when you have a passion for the subject that you're teaching. Jason Armitage: It helps a lot. That's one thing I always try to convey to my students is this job is great, but it may not be great for you. If this is something that you really love, I'm going to do my best to keep you in it. If I find it isn't, you've learned a year, two years' worth of a trade that you can use your entire lifetime, almost everybody is going to own a car, everybody's going to have to make decisions on whether that car needs repair, emergency situations, you're going to help other people in your household or, potentially, community with your knowledge, so even if you don't know that this is an industry that you're going to be in for a lifetime, coming and taking this class is an excellent choice just for life skills. Timothy Webb: Right. That's an excellent point I think because even if, like you're saying, they don't become a technician, that's still skills they're going to need. Everybody needs to change their brake pads sometimes and their oil and all that stuff and work on your car. Your car is going to need maintenance done to it. Jason Armitage: Absolutely. Nowadays, we have many devices on the cars that help with that. We have warning lights, but your traditional customer doesn't understand when the little picture of an engine comes on on their dashboard. What does that mean, and what do I do? Is it something I can drive? Who do I take it to? What's the cost of this? Any kind of general knowledge in automotive repair is something that to me is not wasted time learning to do. Timothy Webb: Right. Being plugged into the auto industry, is there any new curriculum coming through in regard to electric vehicles? Jason Armitage: Well, the base of all automotive curriculum is going to be electronics. We have to learn the basics of how electricity works, how we use it in an automobile. With the electric vehicles coming that are on the horizon, and really that horizon is just very close nowadays, I would say that everything we are going to do going forward is going to have some type of electrical system control it. Computers, electronics are going to control everything. They almost currently do. There's very few things on a car nowadays that I can say that isn't somehow controlled by electricity or computers, so our curriculum is heavily involved in teaching that basic information. We used to rely on teaching how engines worked. Now, we are looking at how electricity works. That's how the motors and cars are going to operate going forward when we get to electric vehicles. That's even a term that most people don't understand. An engine is going to take a chemical and turn it into its power source. Example would be gasoline. Electricity uses a motor. Most customers would not understand there is a difference in a motor, which runs off of electricity, and an engine that runs off of some type of chemical like gas, diesel, propane, something like that. Timothy Webb: Okay. Jason, what lessons has your position taught you over the years? Jason Armitage: You never really know what kind of difference you're making until you see it come in as full fruits maybe years later. Sometimes, the smallest lessons I've taught to students, they've come back and told me, "I can't believe how much you've changed my life with this one lesson." To me, it was something that was just the thing to do that day. To them, it was a life-changing event. That's really the reward of teaching. People that teach in my opinion don't do it for the monetary reasons. Honestly, I think most of us here at the college that are instructors could probably make more money somewhere else, but to me, my life is not about money. My life is about being helpful to others, especially the younger students. I like to see somebody that has no direction learn a direction. If I can have a small part in that, that gives you a pretty good reward at the end of the day. Timothy Webb: Right. That's what teaching is all about, isn't it? Jason Armitage: It is. Timothy Webb: What achievements are you most proud of? Jason Armitage: I'm a little unusual. I'm not a prideful person. I try to never focus on me, so my answer is going to be very unusual. I don't know you'll ever get this answer again, but I'm probably most proud of the fact that I've never taken a selfie. Why that's important to me? I never want to be the focus of attention. I feel that others a lot of times don't get enough attention. I've had a lot of success in my life. Most of it has been due to other people helping me, and I don't ever want to shine the light on me when I can shine it on others. I find that it is a small thing to never have taken a selfie, but I don't ever want to put out the idea that I'm the most important person in the room because everybody's the most important person in the room, and it's a little ridiculous. I know when to say that. There's nothing wrong with selfies, and I don't judge people that have taken them, but it's just a life goal that I have, to get to the finish line of life and never have pushed the button while the camera's been looking at me. Timothy Webb: I got you. Yeah. That's funny stuff, Jason. Jason, where did you grow up and what was it like there? Jason Armitage: I'm actually from the Chicagoland area. I was about seven when I moved here. People tell me I still have the accent. I can't tell myself because I can't usually hear what I sound like. I've done my best to try to acclimate, I guess, to the culture here. I love Arkansas. I'll never go back to a different type of area than Hot Springs. I plan on being here my entire life. The differences I see personally, the people here are very kind, considerate, welcoming. The weather is great. You can't beat the Arkansas environment. I love all we have to offer here with the lakes and the trails. I love to do outdoor activities, so this is just the place I need to be. I've landed in the home I need to be at. Timothy Webb: That's great. That's great. That's a good feeling to have there. Can you tell us about an influential person in your life and how they impacted you? Jason Armitage: I've got several people that have influenced me greatly in my life. The one that's probably the typical answer you're going to hear from me would be my father. My father taught me that one lesson that has really transformed my life in that he may have never been the smartest person in the room, but if given a chance, the next day he was. He would always try to find the solution to a problem that was addressed to him. Therefore, that's how I've lived my life based on that. That was always a good piece of advice he gave me. He says, "You don't have to know the answer today, but just make sure you know it tomorrow." The other person I would say who's very influential has passed away also. He was my first automotive instructor at the high school level I went in, and I had zero chance of being an automotive technician. That was not the life path that had been laid down by my family. They had views that I was going to be a doctor, and I didn't want to do that. I didn't know I didn't want to do that till I actually went to an automotive class in high school. I had to rearrange my college prep schedule to be able to take the automotive courses. I loved it. I enjoyed it primarily because of the guy that taught the class. He was just a really great guy, and I thought his path in life is a path I could enjoy also. What was an interesting story, when I was offered the job here at the college, I was currently working in the automotive industry. I couldn't leave without a two-week notice, and I called that guy up. He was retired at the time, and I said, "Any chance you could fill in for two weeks for me at the college so I can take that job?" and he prepped the class for me. I walked in my first day at 20 years old teaching. Luckily, he hadn't told them how old I was because, when you're 20 years old walking into a class of high school kids that are 18, that probably wouldn't have worked very well. For years, I think they thought I was older than I was. Timothy Webb: Wow, that's an awesome story. You really came right out of high school almost and just landed in your dream job. Jason Armitage: Well, to say that I landed in my dream job is an interesting landing point. I had no chance of becoming an automotive instructor when I left high school. I was going to be a shop owner. I had that planned out. As soon as I came into the automotive industry, went through the classes, I thought, "I'm going to go out and buy a shop," because that's every technician's dream until I found out all the work and expense and time, and then the biggest concern I had in owning a shop was, a lot of times, the smartest person in the shop doesn't fix the cars, they have to run the business. I was actually offered an opportunity to buy a shop that I was working at, very good circumstances, and at the same time I was offered the job of teaching. I had no idea that I wanted to be a teacher. I really liked the instructor I had here at National Park College, which was, technically, Quapaw Technical Institute years ago, but still it's the same school, and thought, "I really liked my automotive instructor in high school. I like my automotive instructor in college. Maybe I'll give it a try." That try has lasted 30 years. Timothy Webb: Yeah, still trying. Jason Armitage: Still trying, absolutely. Timothy Webb: Jason, any favorite childhood memories you'd like to share? Jason Armitage: I have a childhood memory that is car related, so it's one that always comes to mind. My dad, back in the early 1970s, bought an old Pontiac GTO. He wanted a fancy car, a hot rod, something that would be a collectible. It was an inexpensive car at the time because it wasn't that old, and he had read in a magazine where it could potentially become valuable. I was sitting in the car at three years old. I've got two older brothers. One of them is an automotive teacher who's just recently retired, and my brothers weren't interested in the car. At three years old, I said, "Dad, I like your car," so he told me, when I was 16 years old, that it would be mine. Well, it was stored all the way from the time I was three till I was 16. When I was 16, I looked at him and I said, "What about that car, dad? Am I going to get it?" We actually hauled it from the Chicagoland area down to Arkansas, and I still own the car today. Timothy Webb: Wow. Wow. I actually have seen that car. That's the car then? Jason Armitage: That's the car. Timothy Webb: The GTO. Wow. That's amazing. Jason Armitage: Yeah. I took it apart about 20 years ago, everything you could possibly take apart, and restored it. My partner here at the college, Devron Dever, actually helped me do a lot of the work on it. He was a student at the time. He started helping me on it, and he came back to teach here at the school. That's the kind of faith I have in my students, that I allowed them to rebuild an engine in my old classic car. Of course, Devron is pretty special, so I didn't mind letting him work on it. Timothy Webb: Yeah, that's great. That is great. If you could give your younger self any piece of advice, what would it be? Jason Armitage: Probably nothing, because every decision I've made has landed me where I'm at today and I'm pretty satisfied where I'm at. Any one change, I kind of look at the Back to the Future movies, any one change alters everything. I've got a great wife, great kids, very happy with my career choice. I don't know there's anything that one change would've made that I would end up in a different position from where I'm at now. I can't say that I've taken any wrong roads. If I have, I've corrected them and gotten back on the path I needed to be. Timothy Webb: Yeah. You don't want to end up in a world where a biff owns the casino, right? Jason Armitage: Exactly. That's my concern. Timothy Webb: You kind of touched on this, but maybe you can expand upon it. What is it about NPC that brought you here? Jason Armitage: I actually arrived here in a strange way. I had signed up to go to Nashville Auto Diesel College, which is a premier training facility in the Nashville area. I was slated to go, had paid money like a signed recruit. My dad said, hey, why don't we go down here and just check out the local, technically, a vo-tech at the time. We came down here, and we were pretty impressed with what was right here in our community, and I decided that instead of spending the large amount of money to go Nashville and move away from home, that I would just give it a try here. Once you come into the environment here at the college, you find out that the people really care. You get to know the instructors. It's a lot different environment than I would have had in a big school. I believe that school would've been great as far as teaching me all the information I needed. I just don't know that I would've got the community feel that I got here in Hot Springs. Timothy Webb: That's something I hear so often is how here at National Park you really have a sense of community, and the word family comes up a lot. Jason Armitage: That's a great way to describe it. We are a family. We know each other. We know each other's highs. We know each other's lows. We get to know the students. The students call me by my first name in my class because it's who we are. We're friends to a certain level. I'm still the instructor. I don't demand respect from my students. They just give it to me because we get along on that level where we trust each other. They know that I'm an automotive guy. I'm not just a person that took the job because I needed a job. They know I'm there because I love this industry. If I can't answer their questions, I don't deserve the respect, so I have to put my work on my end, and I do ask them to put in their work on their end. Timothy Webb: Right. Other than National Park and auto tech and cars and hot rods, what are some of your hobbies? Jason Armitage: Well, this always comes up because I do have an unusual hobby. I'm a little different than most again. My hobby is running, and that's not terribly different, but I can't accept doing things a small way. I have to go as far as I possibly can take them. My wife signed me up for a gym when I was 38 years old, and I got into a little bit better shape and, with that, I met some people that were doing some triathlons. Instead of just doing a triathlon, I had to push it to what's considered the highest aspect of that, and I reached what they call an Ironman Triathlon. That's a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and then you run a marathon. After doing a couple of those, I decided that that wasn't challenge enough, and I moved into what we call ultra running. Ultra running is very simply any distance over a marathon. Again, I'm not happy with the traditional distances, and I extended that out to the hundred-mile range. Currently, I've run, I believe, 18 100-mile races. They're all over the country, all different terrain. My longest run to date was a 140.6-mile ultra marathon. The reason that distance was it's the same distance as the Ironman Triathlon distances combined, so instead of the 2.4 swim, 112-mile bike ride and the marathon, it was one run of 140.6 miles. I had the luxury of doing that in a swamp. There were... Timothy Webb: The luxury of doing it in a swamp, huh? Jason Armitage: Yeah, it was in a swamp, and there's alligators and snakes and water and every bug you can imagine. I got to do it with a really good friend of mine here from the Hot Springs area, so we had a great time you'd say. Timothy Webb: What footwear do you choose for running that long in a swamp? Do you use mud boots or do you use typical running shoes? What do you wear? Jason Armitage: Well, I'm kind of known as the shoe guy here in Hot Springs area. I have probably more shoes than anybody should have. There's hundreds of different models out there of shoes. I love to study them. I wear every type of shoe you can imagine. I do wear premium running shoes for even running in a swamp. That's one of the obstacles as you do have to change your shoes quite often. The swamp was in South Carolina, a lot of sand there, so it gets in the shoes and really difficult to get out. I do change shoes often in those. I've recently signed up for and I'm currently in training for a 200-mile race. I don't know what that's going to go like, but got to give it a shot, see if I can do it. Timothy Webb: Wow. Wow. Do you fuel up the days leading up to the race with a bunch of carbs, or how does that work? Jason Armitage: The old myth in running was you had to eat a lot of carbs the day before. They've found that that doesn't really work because your body can only store so much energy. What we do now is we literally have to eat on the run. A 200-mile race is not just a running contest, but it's also an eating contest. How many calories can I put in for a hundred-mile race? I have to put somewhere around 5,000 calories in me during the event, so that's going to take considerable effort. When you start thinking of 5,000 calories, that's about typically what I would eat in a day normally. Trying to do that while running is very difficult because you get upset stomachs, and that's part of the training we do is learning how to eat and run and push through things that most people would want to give up on. Timothy Webb: Are you wearing a backpack with all your extra gear and supplies? Jason Armitage: Some races I do. Some races I have some really good friends that show up, and they're called my crew. They'll hand me the stuff I need every five miles where I don't have to carry quite as much. If I'm going for a very fast time on the course, I'll carry just typical water bottle. If I'm racing a greater distance like this 200-mile race, it's 20 miles between aid stations where I can refuel, so I will be carrying a backpack, two liters on me. You have to carry things to keep you safe when you're out there. I've had hypothermia twice in these runs in very unusual temperatures. My first case of hypothermia actually occurred at a 95-degree race. Timothy Webb: How? Jason Armitage: Your body's thermostat gets unregulated at these long events, and when you stop or slow down, your body that has been trying to cool itself, does such an excellent job at it, it continues, and you drop too low a temperature. I've passed out at races before. I've had pretty much every issue you can imagine occur while running. You just find ways to solve the problems, and that's kind of what my career is. I'm a problem solver, and it just translates really well into running. Timothy Webb: That's some incredible stuff, Jason, really. Jason, what is it about running that drew you to it to begin with? Jason Armitage: Running is rewarding because you can find out what your limits are and there is a lot of information you need to learn to become a runner. When I started, I believed all you needed was a pair of shoes. Then I learned the science behind it. I love to help people in our community. I started with the Spa Running Festival here in town, which is actually one of the biggest athletic events in the State of Arkansas. We bring in over 2,000 people, and that transitioned into me becoming a trainer for the race. That transitioned into me becoming the cross-country coach here at National Park College. Last year, I was given the opportunity to become the men and women's head cross-country coach. I've had a son in cross-country at the Lake Hamilton School go all through the entire program. I've got to learn from some of the great mentors at Lakeside, Lake Hamilton, Hot Springs, Jessieville. A lot of the coaches in the local area have been very helpful in adding in to my knowledge base through all the years because they knew that I was a community runner. When the option became available here to become the cross-country coach under a short notice, I had a day's warning that, "Hey, we need a coach at the next meet. Our coach has left the position," I thought, "Well, we can't leave the students that are here that have come to run without a coach," and I showed up and have moved into that full-time position now. Timothy Webb: Well, how lucky you now have two awesome positions that are based on your passions. Jason Armitage: It is great. It's something that I tell everyone that's looking for a career. Find something you're good at, and then you will find a way to make it successful. Making a career choice based just on money sometimes, to me, ends up with people that are unhappy years down the line. They realize that they should have done what their passion was. I had no intention of being an automotive teacher. The stars aligned, and I became a teacher. I had no idea I would ever be a official running coach. Now, I'm an official running coach. It's so rewarding to get up every day and do what you love versus instead of what you have to do. Timothy Webb: Right. Well, you've put your time in and so it's well-deserved, I think. Jason Armitage: I hope so. I hope that I'm a good coach. I really love the sport so much that I want to see others enjoy it to the level I do. Now, one thing about running that many people don't understand, nobody likes to run. It's not fun. It's the reward at the end that makes you feel great. There's no immediate, "I scored a touchdown. Yay." On the women's side, you have to run three miles to get to a finish line to see if you beat the clock or maybe another competitor to get that reward. The rest of the day though, you feel great if you met your accomplishment. If you didn't, you go back and you try again. That's the draw of really anything in my life. If I don't succeed the first time, I go back and I try again. Whether it's a hundred-mile race I've failed in and I got to go back and try again or it's a student that I didn't coach the right way and I've got to coach them better to get them to their level of accomplishment, I try again. That's just the mindset that some people that gravitate to my sports have. You got to be willing to reset and try again. Timothy Webb: Right. That's definitely true. I'm glad you let us know that nobody likes running because I wasn't sure if it was just me. I've often said I'm much better if I'm chasing a ball. I'll run a lot more and get a lot more out of it. Jason Armitage: Well, I believe I've seen you play basketball, and you're probably the reason I don't play anymore. I realized I wasn't any good at it. Timothy Webb: Well, like you, I'm still trying. Jason Armitage: That's good. Anytime you want to run, I got a position for you on the team. Timothy Webb: You'd be dragging me across the finish line, Jason. Jason, if you could talk to anyone from the past, present, or future, who would it be and why? Jason Armitage: If I had a chance to talk to anybody again, it would be my dad. That would be for telling him that his grandkids have become a success. I've got a son that's just entered college, doing great in what he loves. He's a runner also. I've got a daughter that I forced to be a runner, and she's doing great. He didn't live long enough to be able to see that. Timothy Webb: I'm sure he would love to hear that. Jason, what are your future plans? Jason Armitage: Future plans? Stay on course, find the next toughest race possible, train my runners to be the fastest they can be, continue fixing cars. I love what I'm doing so much. I have no aspirations of getting any type of different job. There's nothing out there that appeals to me what I'm offered here. If I could live out the rest of my life training students to repair cars, training students to run faster, getting to live the life that I'm living right now, I could call this merry-go-round ride a success. Timothy Webb: Yeah. I'm so happy to hear your story, to be honest with you, because you hear this so often that it's possible, the dream is possible, but you're a great example of the dream, honestly, coming true. You found what you're passionate about in two different areas, and now you're getting to make a difference in those areas. Jason Armitage: I credit that mainly to the people that are around me. They have directed me that way. Now, success is individual, but it's also because of the people that set up those opportunities for you. A lot of times, the experience at a college is not what you've learned, but who you've met and how to apply that. I would like to be a coach or a teacher that can set those opportunities up for our students. I'm probably not the smartest mechanic in the world, maybe not the best technician, but I try to take what I know and then help the students apply that to their lives in a way that's useful to them. Timothy Webb: Yeah. Jason, is there any advice or quotes or mottoes that you live by that help direct you? Jason Armitage: Well, because of my running, there's one that comes up quite often, and any of my friends that would happen to hear this would probably know it's going to be relentless forward progress. That's our motto. It doesn't matter how fast you're traveling. It's just keep moving forward, keep trying to get better. Relentless forward progress, that's a cliche in running, but it works pretty well for my life. Timothy Webb: I used to cycle some, and one I used to always hear in a similar vein was minimal gains or something like that, because those little bitty gains over time end up to be quite a bit. Jason Armitage: That's exactly right. When I used to cycle, I would've told you keep the rubber side down. Timothy Webb: Jason Armitage, I want to thank you so much for joining me today on Elevate. I really appreciate it. Jason Armitage: Well, thank you very much for having me, and anytime you want to run, I got a spot for you on the cross-country team. Timothy Webb: Okay. I appreciate that, and thanks to all of you for listening to Elevate today from the Razorback Camper Sales Studio. New episodes are released each Thursday. Special thanks to National Park College and The Sentinel-Record for making this podcast possible. Until next time, this is Timothy Webb reminding you that every day is a chance to elevate.