WESTFIELD – After much speculation, the ink is finally dry on an agreement between Gulfstream Aerospace and Westfield Vocational Technical High School in which the Savannah, Georgia-based corporation will provide $200,000 over the next four years.
The money will go toward assisting the school in getting the nascent Airframe & Powerplant (A&P) aviation maintenance program off the ground by the target date of September 2015.
“We’ll have the money by the end of March every year and they’re specific as to what they want us to purchase,” said WVTHS Principal Stefan Czaporowski Friday. “The money must go toward aviation and funding educational tools – equipment, tools, textbooks, anything curricular.”
Czaporowski said that the school had originally requested $100,000 and Czaporowski added that the school’s Aviation Advisory Board is moving along with other fundraising efforts, as well.
“The Community Preservation Commission granted an additional $30,000 for the interior of the hangar (at Barnes Airport), so that’s $500,000,” Czaporowski said. “We’ve gotten $25,000 from MassDOT (Massachusetts Department of Transportation) to hire a consultant to kind of be our facilitator with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and bring it all home, if you will. That RFP (request for proposal) for that went out last week.”
“We have another $1 million rolling grant for more equipment that we’re finalizing and will be submitting very soon,” Czaporowski added, along with a $36,000 Perkins grant. He said that the school has also applied for an additional $500,000 grant after a recent visit from state Secretary for Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki.
“If you add it all up, we’re up to $2.36 million,” Czaporowski said before estimating what is still needed to get the program in the air.
“It’s hard to tell what the interior will cost, but we have a rough idea, but we’re looking at about $3.5 million,” he said. “But $2.36 out of $3.5 ain’t bad considering we just started.”
Fran Ahern, general manager of Gulfstream’s Westfield facility and head of the Aviation Advisory Board’s finance committee, spoke of what the grant will mean for not just the fledgling program but also the survival of the flight industry, one that experts believe will be in need of tens of thousands of new workers within the next 20 years.
“I’m certainly proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish locally and that’s a reflection of all the employees we have here,” said Ahern of Gulfstream’s continued efforts to help local initiatives. “This will provide some opportunities for some folks and it helps the company, as well. It’s a win-win for everybody.”
