Collision Technology work on military-style Humvee

The military style 2012 Humvee ambulance was eased out of the garage on Dec. 8 looking nothing like it did when it arrived in January. It entered the space a dusty green color with camouflage highlights and left a shiny black, sophisticated-looking machine ready to go to work.

This was the first leg of the vehicle’s new purpose: assisting the City of Rye Police Department in emergency flooding situations.

Students in the Collision Technology program at the Center for Career Services were responsible for transforming the vehicle. It was the second such project the students had done; the first was repainting a Chevy Tahoe that is now part of the City of Rye Police Department’s auxiliary fleet. Both vehicles were obtained through the federal Law Enforcement Support Office, or LESO, 1033 program, which enables law enforcement departments to acquire military surplus vehicles for their fleet.

“We built a relationship with the BOCES team, the kids and Paul from the last project they did for us,” Lt. Scott Craig of the City of Rye Police Department said, referring to teacher Paul Casagrande. “They were looking for something bigger and more exciting to work on. We told them we had this Humvee from the military. They just jumped at the chance to paint it, so the kids and Paul were excited to have a chance at it.”

“I wanted to work on it. One hundred percent, I wanted to work on it,” student Emily Vazquez from White Plains High School said. “And look what happened, I did.”

Emily said she helped work on the sides of the vehicle and had to use two gallons of paint because it is so big.In addition to honing her skills in painting, Emily said the project also taught her patience.

“It helped me learn to be more patient with the paint. You have to learn to wait on it and paint layers,” she said.

Breyner Gramajo from New Rochelle High School helped sand and prime the rig as well as pop out some dents on one of the doors.

“It was a really ugly green and it was really ugly before. Now it looks really nice, it’s a nice glossy black. It’s really shiny so it just catches your eye,” he said.

“It was great,” Jose Nava, a student at New Rochelle High School, said of working on the project. “We wanted to do a nice job.”

Apparently, they did.

“I was blown away. I mean for such a big piece of equipment that came in a flat military green to have such a black shine to it. These guys paid very close attention to the details right down to the rims and lugnuts. I mean they did a phenomenal job,” Lt. Craig said.