on May 24, 2013 at 10:57 AM, updated May 24, 2013 at 10:59 AM
MOBILE, Alabama – With enrollment at the Alabama Aviation Center in Mobile continuing to climb, growth must be carefully managed to ensure southwest Alabama’s increasing aviation and aerospace workforce needs are met.
“We’re trying to make things work the best we can with what we have, and right now that means daily phone calls trying to figure out what’s going to work,” Kyle Cook told nearly two dozen business and training leaders gathered May 23 for the Aviation and Aerospace Advisory Council’s second quarterly meeting.
The council is a joint project of the Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council and Enterprise State Community College, designed to more efficiently identify and address skills gaps while working proactively to meet evolving workforce development needs.
Cook, who serves as director for both ESCC’s Gulf Coast operations and the college’s Alabama Aviation Center at Mobile’s Brookley Aeroplex, said the program’s enrollment increased 60 percent in the fall of 2012 and current enrollment for summer courses represents a 50 percent year-over-year increase.
“We have 51 students (involved) with an ST Aerospace Mobile co-op program and another 50 we’ve gotten through a Mobile Works program, and I anticipate the fall semester will bring another big increase,” Cook said.
Prior to Airbus’ July 2012 announcement of plans to build a $600 million final assembly line dedicated to production of A320 family aircraft at Brookley, Cook said the aviation center’s enrollment hovered for the past several years between 100 and 150 students per semester. The recent surge, however, in aerospace and aviation activity is boosting interest in the programs. The Mobile campus was established in 1976 as a satellite facility for ESCC’s original aviation center in Ozark, Ala.
In fact, he said, the Mobile aviation center’s enrollment jumped another 13 percent between August 2012 and the start of the spring 2013 semester as local students jockey for skills required to be among the 1,000 Airbus plans to hire to staff its first final assembly line in the United States, slated to begin production in 2015 and deliver its first Mobile-assembled aircraft in 2016.
Ground will be broken in June on an adjacent $6 million aviation training facility to be used by the Alabama Industrial Development Training program to recruit and prepare those 1,000 employees. The facility will be used primarily for fuselage assembly training specific to the Toulouse, France-based Airbus, Cook said, but original plans called for the 35,600-square-foot facility to transfer to the Mobile aviation center after that training moved in house after three years.
Cook said after speaking this week with Lee Hammett, AIDT’s assistant director for south Alabama, it appears the statewide training program might need to add on to the size of the training facility at Airbus’ request, so “that transfer date is very fluid.”
Hammett confirmed a timeline for AIDT’s transfer of the training facility “has not been decided.”
Cook said Mobile’s aviation campus is currently equipped by Federal Aviation Administration standards to serve 500 students per semester but realistically that figure is closer to 380 if student-instructor ratios are left low and the institution continues its commitment to work around students’ work schedules offering day and night courses.
“Just to give you an idea of what we’re seeing, in the summer we have 10 classrooms, and we’ve never used all 10 at once, but this summer we’ll be using all 10 during the day,” Cook said.
Meanwhile, the aviation center’s hangar used for hands-on aircraft training is currently located across Brookley’s runway and students must currently pass through property owned by the University of South Alabama. On July 1, however, that access will no longer be available, leaving the program to scramble for additional space to house its four aircraft used for educational purposes.
AIDT had originally offered half of what will remain on the Alabama Aviation Training Center lot once construction is complete for that purpose, but if that training facility is, in fact, expanded at Airbus’ request that option vanishes.
Cook said that leaves another lot only 50 feet further away from the AIDT property, but the school has no funding toward its lease. Meanwhile, the Mobile Airport Authority could add on to the college’s existing – but soon-to-be inaccessible – hangar, but is not authorized to build an entirely new hangar for the school.
“We just have a lot of details to work through and logistics to work out,” Cook said.
Story: http://www.al.com
“We’re trying to make things work the best we can with what we have, and right now that means daily phone calls trying to figure out what’s going to work,” Kyle Cook told nearly two dozen business and training leaders gathered May 23 for the Aviation and Aerospace Advisory Council’s second quarterly meeting.
The council is a joint project of the Southwest Alabama Workforce Development Council and Enterprise State Community College, designed to more efficiently identify and address skills gaps while working proactively to meet evolving workforce development needs.
Cook, who serves as director for both ESCC’s Gulf Coast operations and the college’s Alabama Aviation Center at Mobile’s Brookley Aeroplex, said the program’s enrollment increased 60 percent in the fall of 2012 and current enrollment for summer courses represents a 50 percent year-over-year increase.
“We have 51 students (involved) with an ST Aerospace Mobile co-op program and another 50 we’ve gotten through a Mobile Works program, and I anticipate the fall semester will bring another big increase,” Cook said.
Prior to Airbus’ July 2012 announcement of plans to build a $600 million final assembly line dedicated to production of A320 family aircraft at Brookley, Cook said the aviation center’s enrollment hovered for the past several years between 100 and 150 students per semester. The recent surge, however, in aerospace and aviation activity is boosting interest in the programs. The Mobile campus was established in 1976 as a satellite facility for ESCC’s original aviation center in Ozark, Ala.
In fact, he said, the Mobile aviation center’s enrollment jumped another 13 percent between August 2012 and the start of the spring 2013 semester as local students jockey for skills required to be among the 1,000 Airbus plans to hire to staff its first final assembly line in the United States, slated to begin production in 2015 and deliver its first Mobile-assembled aircraft in 2016.
Ground will be broken in June on an adjacent $6 million aviation training facility to be used by the Alabama Industrial Development Training program to recruit and prepare those 1,000 employees. The facility will be used primarily for fuselage assembly training specific to the Toulouse, France-based Airbus, Cook said, but original plans called for the 35,600-square-foot facility to transfer to the Mobile aviation center after that training moved in house after three years.
Cook said after speaking this week with Lee Hammett, AIDT’s assistant director for south Alabama, it appears the statewide training program might need to add on to the size of the training facility at Airbus’ request, so “that transfer date is very fluid.”
Hammett confirmed a timeline for AIDT’s transfer of the training facility “has not been decided.”
Cook said Mobile’s aviation campus is currently equipped by Federal Aviation Administration standards to serve 500 students per semester but realistically that figure is closer to 380 if student-instructor ratios are left low and the institution continues its commitment to work around students’ work schedules offering day and night courses.
“Just to give you an idea of what we’re seeing, in the summer we have 10 classrooms, and we’ve never used all 10 at once, but this summer we’ll be using all 10 during the day,” Cook said.
Meanwhile, the aviation center’s hangar used for hands-on aircraft training is currently located across Brookley’s runway and students must currently pass through property owned by the University of South Alabama. On July 1, however, that access will no longer be available, leaving the program to scramble for additional space to house its four aircraft used for educational purposes.
AIDT had originally offered half of what will remain on the Alabama Aviation Training Center lot once construction is complete for that purpose, but if that training facility is, in fact, expanded at Airbus’ request that option vanishes.
Cook said that leaves another lot only 50 feet further away from the AIDT property, but the school has no funding toward its lease. Meanwhile, the Mobile Airport Authority could add on to the college’s existing – but soon-to-be inaccessible – hangar, but is not authorized to build an entirely new hangar for the school.
“We just have a lot of details to work through and logistics to work out,” Cook said.
Story: http://www.al.com
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