A middle school student participates in the Wright Flight aviation program at Barnes Regional Airport and the local school district. (File photo by Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The group helping the Westfield Vocational-Technical High School’s planned Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) program take flight presented a detailed progress report to Greg Bialecki, the Secretary of Housing and Economic Development for Governor Deval L. Patrick at the school’s Tigers Pride restaurant on Wednesday.
Bialecki visited WVTHS during a western Mass. tour of several vocational-technical high schools and their manufacturing shops during Advanced Manufacturing Week.
Brian Barnes, manager of Barnes Regional Airport and a member of the school’s Aviation Advisory Board, described the initiative to bring a high school aviation program – the first-of-its-kind in the Commonwealth – as a matter of leveraging the city’s aviation resources to “invest in tomorrow’s leaders.”
“Introducing kids at the middle school level with science, technology, engineering and math through the Wright Flight Program, to high school physics classes and the A&P program and then to college,” Barnes continued, stating that a more “rounded and fundamental” baseline education can put students on an aviation management, maintenance, operations, or military career path.
Listing the 104th Fighter Wing and local engineering firms as companies that want educated, homegrown kids filling their future workforces, Barnes spoke of commercial aviation corporations such as Boeing. He said they will require a whopping 27,000 additional pilots a year for the next 20 years in addition to 29,000 maintenance personnel.
Fran Ahern, general manager of Gulfstream’s Westfield facility and head of the board’s finance committee, attested to the industry’s needs.
“Gulfstream is a worldwide company with 14,000 employees and at least one third of those employees have been hired in the last five years,” he said. “I have employees who have 25/30 years with our company and make a good wage. But you don’t drive down the street and see an airport on every corner. Unless you were introduced in one means or another, to actually fall into it is unusual.”
Ahern then spoke of his committee’s budgetary plans.
“We’ve targeted between $2.8 – $3 million as a start-up budget.” he said. “$500,000 has been raised so far – made up from the Community Preservation Commission (CPC) for renovations to one of the buildings, a Perkins grant and also from MassDOT – so we’re well on our way to raising some funds.”
Ahern mentioned a $100,000 grant from Gulfstream that WVTHS applied for that he said has “upside potential” and spoke of over 50 companies that the board can reach out to for funding.
Westfield City Advancement Officer Joe Mitchell, a former airport commissioner who is heading the board’s land committee, spoke more about the building targeted for use by the program.
“It’s right at the heart of the airport, close to where the tower is,” said Mitchell of hangar two. “It is centrally located. There is parking available. It has 10,000 square feet, is currently underutilized and unfortunately, in a state of disrepair.”
Mitchell highlighted the approach the board is taking to rehab the building – fixing the roof, windows and brickwork and outfitting the interior with heating, electricity and plumbing – repairs and installations highlighted in Ahern’s budget.
“(The A&P program) would enable young men and young women to leave the school with a rating of Airframe and Powerplant and go into the aviation industry,” said Adrian Marjoram, director of maintenance at Janus Equities, LLC and head of the board’s technical committee, adding that his tech team is the point of contact between the school and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
He said that the committee is following FAA Advisory Curricular (AC) 147 guidelines and has submitted a pre-application to the FAA and is now in the process of introducing the curriculum for the school.
“They (FAA) will tell you what you need and how you’re going to conduct the process,” Marjoram said.
WVTHS Principal Stefan Czaporowski said that he’s optimistic that the program will be admitting the first students next fall.
“We met with our FAA inspector yesterday and kind of came up with a plan for what we need to do, but certainly we have needs in the areas of funding, but the curriculum and real estate are coming together nicely,” he said. “One of the things we’re worried about is that this program may grow faster than our capacity to grow it. But there’s a clear need.”
“I didn’t realize their plans for this (A&P program) were this far along,” said Bialecki of the presentation. “I didn’t realize they had figured it out in this detail, picked the hangar, got the budget.”
Bialecki stressed the state’s continued emphasis on creating opportunities for workers of all skill sets.
“We’re a state famous for our colleges and universities and we have a lot of sectors that are really focused on college grads and people with advanced degrees,” he said. “There are all kinds of industries in Massachusetts where there is a chronic need for middle skilled folks, jobs that need more than a basic high school education but not a four-year degree.”
“The manufacturers are telling us that and we’ve really started working with them and the more we’ve worked on that, the more other industries are saying ‘we have the same problem with that’,” Bialecki said adding that his office and the legislature have worked to bring extra funding for economic development targeted toward addressing these skills gaps.
Despite the impending departure of the Patrick administration in January, Bialecki believes the Commonwealth’s industries will continue to grow in western Mass.
“I think it is going to tend toward the manufacuturing side, but that is true within industries, as well. It doesn’t mean you won’t see life sciences here,” he said. “In fact, a lot of the precision machining shops in the area increasingly are making stuff for medical devices. A lot of these companies are focused on aerospace and aviation, but a lot of the stuff they do, a lot of the precision in metals and plastics, is required for medical devices.”
“It’s very exciting,” he said. “Westfield, we see you, we know what you’re doing. It’s fantastic and we want to work with you to help you thrive and grow.”
