Saturday, September 06, 2014

Northeast State Community College will offer 2-year aviation program

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. — Those interested in a career in aviation may want to take a look at a new two-year program that started this fall at Northeast State Community College.

The program, which will offer additional classes come spring 2015, came about through the Northeast Tennessee Aviation Education Initiative. Hank Somers, a co-founder of the initiative, presented detailed information about the program to the Tri-Cities Airport Authority this week.

Somers along with co-founders state Rep. Tony Shipley and Richard Blevins of Bell Helicopter began the planning process for the initiative last July. In the beginning of talks for the initiative, Blevins said Bell Helicopter couldn’t find enough trained people from the Tri-Cities area to employ and the problem needed to be fixed, according to Somers.

“What we’re interested in rather than those students finding jobs somewhere else, we want to attract aviation-related industries,” he said. “We want to provide jobs for graduates right here and we want to have economic impact.”

The founders decided that the aviation curriculum would fill the needs for craftsmen and promote aviation.

“We realized for this to be successful, you don’t just put a curriculum in place and put a pamphlet out and tell the kids, ‘Come on over. We’ve got something for you to do,’” Somers said. “What we want to do is get back in the high schools and start talking to kids to have a passion for aviation. This would be a feeder of the pipeline into aviation curriculum. Also, if we’re going to do that we need to promote aviation and so we have in mind another group that would promote aviation, especially to kids, to create a passion.”

Blevins suggested that a helicopter simulator could be taken to schools as part of the promotion.

“We want to work with Clay Walker and Networks to help promote Tri-Cities Airport and also aviation,” he said. “We have in mind region aviation jobs here, region aviation impact.”

He noted that graduates of the program don’t have to use their learned skills in aviation; the skills can also be used in auto repair, the building trade, electrical work and sheet metal work.

Somers believes that the program is an opportunity for students who work with their hands to “make a good living for their families in high technology if we can all pull together and put the support mechanisms in place.”

Sullivan County Mayor Richard Venable believes the initiative is outstanding.

“It’s started off on the right foot and can’t be anything but good,” he said.

The mission of the initiative is to promote work force development by fostering the advancement of aviation-related skills. The vision for the initiative is for Northeast Tennessee to become a national leader for aviation high technology with a highly trained work force and an emphasis on craftsmanship.

Somers and the co-founders hope a four-year program will be offered at East Tennessee State University in the future, but that part of the plan is not being worked on yet, he said. ETSU is currently part of the steering team for the initiative.

Other goals for the future include a Northeast State flight school targeted for 2016 and the promotion of aviation to K-12 students with presentations at schools in Bristol, Johnson City, Washington County, Tennessee, Unicoi, Johnson and Carter counties.

“We think this is a very exciting opportunity for aviation education and economic development,” Somers said. “We think this is really exciting for the airport. If we can all pull together, I think there’s some aviation support here that can help us all to help develop this airport, which is such a wonderful facility.”

He mentioned that the close proximity of Northeast State to the airport is also a plus.

Tri-Cities Airport Director Patrick Wilson said he believes the initiative meets the need Bell Helicopter has expressed “of providing more formalized training programs to supply its work force needs.”

“If in any way that initiative can make use of the airport facilities, whether it be pilot training or anything related to that is part of our goal,” he said. “… It plays in so well with our aviation park, which is designed for aerospace industry to move into. One of the most important things those industries look for is a trained and available work force so the aviation initiative really meets one of the primary selection criteria that an aerospace company would be looking at to attract them to our aviation park area on the airport.”


- Source:  http://www.tricities.com

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