Tina Dodd, a former law enforcement officer and military veteran, has had plenty of tough assignments through the years. But in 2007, one of those assignments changed her trajectory. That’s when, as a detective with the Greenville Police Department just finishing her shift, Dodd worked a car accident where three teens had died. She remembers having to keep the anguished parents away from the scene.
Dodd says at the time, her son was about the same age as the crash victims. He was hoping to get his driver’s permit but they were having difficulty finding a training program that was effective and affordable.
It was a frustrating experience.
“I knew then something needed to be done differently,” Dodd says of the idea that would eventually become Greenville’s Drive Alert Training Academy.
As the idea for a new type of driver training took shape in her mind, she was not idle. Dodd went back to college, joined the Army, served in Afghanistan, and finally connected with SCORE when she came home.
Train like a pilot
Through all that time she studied and made plans. She says her time working counterintelligence in a combat zone taught her how to call on people with expertise in different areas, which helped her appreciate the value of SCORE resources and the expertise its mentors could bring.
“The expertise is there,” Dodd says. “There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.”
SCORE helped her refine her plans and stay focused on what she wanted to accomplish. In July 2013, Drive Alert Training Academy on Miller Road opened.
Drive Alert is the only driver training school in the state to use simulators. The machines are like the ones used to train pilots, a fact that inspired the school’s motto: “Learn how to drive the way pilots learn how to fly.”
“We believe in providing excellent, quality training,” Dodd says. “We want people to make their mistakes in the simulator … we have a crawl, walk, run philosophy.”
A ‘dream client’
SCORE mentor Bill Heitz has been working with Dodd for three years and says she is meticulous in planning and frequently bounces ideas off him to test their soundness. He adds they have developed mutual trust and can be honest about ideas without taking disagreements personally.
“Every once in a while SCORE mentors get assigned what I call a ‘dream client’ where you not only have a professional relationship but you become friends,” Heitz says. “And that’s how it’s been with Tina.”
Dodd agrees and says Heitz and SCORE have been invaluable in helping her make her dream of an innovative driver training program a reality.
7 instructors, 14 simulators
Drive Alert employs seven certified driving instructors and has 14 computerized driving simulators. It also has four training vehicles with two more planned, and those vehicles have multi-angle cameras to help students see and learn from mistakes.
Dodd says her goal is to provide the most comprehensive and practical driver training available. She says this is why she requires her instructors to take more training than the 40 hours required by the state for certification.
She also points out that cameras in the vehicles not only help drivers learn from their mistakes but also give peace of mind to parents of girls assigned male instructors.
“That’s a great example of how Tina thinks,” Heitz says. “She’s always looking ahead.”
For more information about Drive Alert Training Academy, visit drivealerttraining.com.
SCORE is funded, in part, through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. Learn more by phone at 864-271-3638, email at info@piedmontscore.org or online at https://piedmont.score.org.
