BUSINESS
A student high fives Nissan Senior Engineer Dusty Pierson during a Next Gen Driver Experience.
Left: Alex Floore and his son, Alex Jr., talk about a test drive. Right: A Nissan volunteer stands with a “World in Motion JetToy Challenge” trophy May 12. The trophy is awarded to the winning class at Butterfield Elementary School classes every spring.
Seeing the proving grounds in person revealed more career paths behind the scenes. Jacob Sustayta, a marketability engineer at Nissan, joined Hernandez and other colleagues to talk about those possibilities with students at the threshold of adulthood. “Reaching out to students that are in this very critical phase of their life, determining what they want to do for their career, is super impactful,” he said. “To show what you can do as an engineer and a technician right here in your own backyard is one of the highlights of my career for sure. We’ve never done this before at this scale, so it’s really special to show them.” Taking the wheel The highlight of the morning, of course, was the drifting demonstration and test rides. Tires squealed as students lined up eagerly for rides with professional drivers. Some climbed out of the cars laughing. Others huddled around phone videos from friends, replaying the experience. Floore admitted he felt n ervous in the first moments of the ride. “At first, I was a little nervous because I thought I was going to flip over,” he said. “But as we went through the track, I started getting pretty happy because I just like fast cars and drifting.” Other students felt the same rush. Sixteen- year-old Xavier White described the ride as “wild” and said it felt like he might “jump out the window” when the car whipped through tight turns. “Just adrenaline,” said Desert Sunrise junior Ava Hoellwarth. “I’d love to do that again, but I’d rather be the one driving.”
NISSAN’S DESERT ROOTS
every vehicle Nissan builds for the North American market, often years before drivers see them at dealerships. Hot-weather testing is a major part of the work, but the site has become far more than a place to bake cars in the Arizona sun. Engineers and technicians test durability, handling, ride quality, brakes, powertrain systems, road noise and safety technology. The location also gives Nissan access to other testing environments, from higher elevations near Flagstaff to sand dunes near Yuma and public-road testing in urban Phoenix. The camouflaged vehicles Maricopa drivers sometimes spot on local roads are part of that development process. Pierson said a typical vehicle can spend three to four years in development, with prototypes tested at different stages before a model is ready for public release. Exterior wraps and covered
interiors help hide the design while engineers collect real-world data. The facility also brings a global workforce into Maricopa. Nissan employees rotate through from Japan and Mexico, while local engineers, technicians and test drivers work alongside counterparts from the company’s technical center in Michigan. For Pierson, who has spent nearly 34 years with Nissan, the relationship between the company and Maricopa is changing. What began as a remote testing site is now a neighbor to a fast-growing city. That is why Nissan has started opening the door wider through school partnerships, student visits and community events. “We’re here in Maricopa,” Pierson said. “We want to be a community partner, and we want to share what we do out here.”
When Nissan picked Maricopa for its Arizona
Testing Center, the city looked nothing like it does today.
Peeking over the wall From 5th grade classrooms to test tracks, Nissan brings students to STEM careers in new ways BY MONICA D. SPENCER AND ELIAS WEISS
Senior Engineer Dusty Pierson said the company was “out here long before there were any schools or homes.” The area was mostly farmland, which was exactly the point. Nissan needed heat, space and privacy. The proving ground gave engineers a place to test vehicles in extreme desert conditions while keeping early designs away from spy photographers and competitors. Decades later, the city has grown around the facility, but the work behind its gates remained largely unknown to many residents. Nissan’s Maricopa facility is its only proving ground in North America, Pierson said. The site spans more than 3,000 acres and touches
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Pathways in their backyard For Nissan employees, the goal was to help students see opportunities they may not have considered before. “These students are getting ready to graduate and go to college. We want to show them this is at their backdoor. There are so many different career paths that you can take,” Hernandez said. “It’s a whole different part of the automotive world that a lot of people don’t get to see.” For students like 17-year-old Alex Floore, a Desert Sunrise junior, the experience opened a new perspective in an industry he already loved. Floore grew up around cars with his father and, with plans to eventually become an automotive technician, was immediately interested when the school’s Career and Technical Education director mentioned the trip. “I’ve always been interested in [cars]. I like fast cars,” he said.
venturing beyond the walls of Nissan’s Arizona Testing Center. For many of the high school students visiting the facility April 18, it was their first glimpse inside a place they likely spent years wondering about from behind fences and security gates, as about two dozen Desert Sunrise High School students finally got a closer look. “A lot of people know the proving grounds exist, but they don’t know what actually goes on,” said Santiago Hernandez, a marketability technician. “It’s kind of more of a secret that goes on out here.” The field trip, organized through Nissan and Maricopa Unified School District’s career and technical education program, gave students and their parents a behind-the-scenes look at one of the city’s most mysterious industrial neighbors. But the experience was about more than fast cars and crazy roads.
ONG STUDENTS climbed into drifting cars, they peered over seats and crouched to look through the bus windows as Nissan engineers directed their gaze left, toward the curved track lining the horizon. BEFORE “This lane is 70 miles per hour,” a guide told the group as the bus rolled onto the high-speed oval. “Fastest we’ve ever had a car go on this track is 246.” A black Nissan Armada lingering behind the bus gained speed and zoomed past on the 34-degree track. The bus continued through other parts of the route: mile-long, exact replicas of impossibly rough roads from New York, Michigan and Southern California. All were recreated in the scorching desert, so engineers could repeatedly test potholes, mountain curves, rough pavement and years of wear and tear without
InMaricopa.com | June 2026
June 2026 | InMaricopa.com
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