While many companies are content to rely on the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program to secure trained staff, several years ago Patek Philippe established its own educational program

in Shanghai to help it find qualified personnel for its after-sales service centers in China. Last fall the company took more direct action, launching its first such training in the States with the opening of the Patek Philippe Horology Programme of New York.

“It is very hard to find watchmakers,” says Larry Pettinelli, president of Patek Philippe USA. “We are trying to repair every watch we have ever made from 1839 and we are struggling to find qualified watchmakers.”

“The four or five schools in the U.S. just don’t have enough graduates,” he says, adding the quality of that training varies. “Then even if they are qualified, it takes one or two years to apprentice them here. So we thought to ourselves we are never going to be able to make any strides by finding one or two people a year and training them.”

When Patek Philippe moved into fresh New York facilities in 2013, Pettinelli designed a watchmaking space for the future, planning that in 20 years the workshop would be filled with 44 watchmakers. Right now “we’ve got 19 watchmakers who do 10,000 repairs a year and we desperately need to ensure that we have the skilled labor to make sure we take care of everyone’s timepiece,” Pettinelli says about the New York service center.

“Our program starts the students from zero, we train them completely in the world of watchmaking, and the last six months they focus on Patek Philippe movements,” he says.

“As soon as they graduate, they are qualified to work on Patek watches,”Pettinelli says. “If they score well, they are prime candidates for Patek Philippe. We have two years to evaluate them and they have two years to evaluate us. If they score well, we hope that they will work here,” he adds.

“We wanted people with no watchmaking experience,” says Laurent Cantin, who heads international customer service for Patek Philippe. “We wanted a blank canvas,” he says, noting the curriculum is Patek Philippe made but based on the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program. “The six students we have did not know anything about watchmaking when they started; they didn’t even know who Patek Philippe was.”

A consulting firm helped Patek Philippe find 300 candidates among the applicants. Patek interviewed 80, eventually choosing six students for the first semester. Joshua Figueroa, one of the initial six, had been searching for a career involving hands-on craftsmanship and had his interest in horology training piqued after a tour of a Patek facility. Now a few months in, he realizes just how much there is to learn before someone works on a watch.

“What surprised me the most was that I was able to create a .50-milimeter screwdriver blade,” he says. “My ultimate goal is to continuously improve my abilities in watchmaking.”

Laurent Junod, who can count 27 years at Patek Philippe, now serves as
the director of technical training for the New York program. “I look forward to passing on my knowledge of and passion for Patek Philippe watches to the next generation of watchmakers,” he says.