Vale Technical Institute was established in the early 1940's in Blairsville, PA offering training classes for the automobile repair trades. The company consisted of Eugene Vale, President and COO; Verner Vale, Vice President and Eugene Nicely, Treasurer.
Prior to WWII Vale was known as the Ivy League of Technical Schools and assumed the nickname of Vale Tech. During WWII, Vale trained females (a first in that era) to repair automobiles.
Students in the automobile repair trade classes went through an eighteen month training regime learning all phases of auto repair. Room and board was dormitory style in Blairsville.
In approximately 1948, State Farm approached Eugene Vale to conduct auto estimating classes for claims adjusters. He agreed and a three week auto estimating class was first offered in 1949 in Blairsville. The course was called Automotive Estimatics. Eventually the word Estimatics was registered for a trade mark, which is still current today. Estimatics is defined as the analytic approach to automobile damage estimating.
Eventually most of the major property and casualty insurers in North America and some repairers supported Estimatics training for their appraiser staff from Vale Tech in Blairsville.
Sometime in the 1960-62 time periods, Eugene and Verner Vale and Eugene Nicely retired and sold Vale Tech to the CBS Television Co. CBS owned other trade schools and folded Vale into their business structure.
In 1964 the first residential building damage estimating course was offered to the insurance industry, closely followed by the development of Vale Labs Research, a research department designed to advance estimating techniques.
In the early 1970-72 time periods, CBS shed their trade schools and Vale was purchased by the National Education Corporation of Newport Beach, CA.
Seeking to separate the estimating training from the automobile repair enterprise, in 1979 the estimating department was relocated to Chambersburg, PA and renamed VALE NATIONAL. Robert Penn was named President. The Chambersburg location was housed on the campus of Wilson College, a private women's college. This location used college dorms for housing, four to a room, with classrooms and estimating areas in separate buildings.
Vale National opened a West Coast location in Fresno, CA in 1981. This location was originally staffed by Instructors from Chambersburg. The Vale West location was designed to be contained within one building, housing the classrooms and estimating areas for autos and residential buildings. For the first time, students were housed at a nearby motel, two to a room.
In March 1985, Vale National was sold to Lindsey Newsom Claims Adjusters of Tyler, TX. The company was incorporated in Texas as VALE NATIONAL TRAINING CENTER, INC. Robert Irwin was CEO, Terry Grant was President and Steve LeClaire, Vice President.
In 1988, Steve LeClaire, CPCU was named President. Vale National opened a Vale Central location in Arlington, TX and held the first class in late 1988. Vale Central was the first Vale location to have a complete residential house built inside the location for estimating training.
Vale East was moved from Wilson College in Chambersburg to a new location in Mechanicsburg, PA in January 1990. This new Vale East location also had a complete house built inside the estimating training area.
Vale West was relocated to a new facility in the Fresno, CA area in 1995.
In October 2008, the trade name was changed to VALE TRAINING SOLUTIONS to represent a new focus to serve clients with a broad spectrum of training delivery and services.
On January 1, 2009, Jon McCreath, was named President of VALE NATIONAL TRAINING CENTER, INC and VALE TRAINING SOLUTIONS.
It is estimated that over 50,000 individuals have been trained through Vale in the past 60 years.