By Stephen Smoot
West Virginians of Generation X and older remember the bad old days of the Mountain State economy. Double digit unemployment during Jay Rockefeller’s governorship is now a receding memory in state history.
Today West Virginia, especially the Clarksburg to Morgantown corridor, boasts of tremendous growth of high paying job opportunities. Most of these can come after obtaining a trade certification or associates degree through the free community college program.
Approximately 40 Lincoln High School students joined others from Liberty to learn about how to break into the ever-expanding field of aviation technology and maintenance. They did not sit in a classroom, but toured the facility.
One stop for the students was the aviation technology and maintenance area. Chuck Peters, aviation instructor, greeted them as they entered.
As the students put on safety glasses, they gathered around to hear Peters explain the skills needed to work in aviation maintenance technology, while underscoring the vital need for complete accuracy.
Peters brings over a decade of industry experience to the program. He holds a Federal Aviation Administration certification in Airframe and Powerplant and focuses heavily on airframe structures and inspections. He learned his passion for teaching while serving in the military, including a deployment to Afghanistan.
Peters also brings his love of teaching to area youth sports.
“There’s a lot of math involved in getting this stuff accurate,” Peters explained. He went on to say that mistakes can “cause corrosion and cracking to start,” which compromises the safety of the aircraft in flight.
Quickly, Peters had the students learning the basics of using special precision tools to do special precision jobs. For most of the time spent there, the sounds of hammering and drilling were punctuated by the excited murmurs of students sharing with each other the tasks they had just completed.
In the next bay students could easily see a number of aircraft, engines exposed for work. A safety poster portraying a horse kicking a man trying to shoe it read “Make Sure You Are Familiar With the Job Before You Start!”
Before they left, Peters said that he would give a more in-depth tour to any student interested in learning more about the program.
Accompanying the students on their tour were two guidance counselors, Katie Yeagar and Jessica Freeman. As Yeagar stated, “not everyone is an academic student.” She added that “learning about different kinds of jobs than typical classroom jobs is important.”
Many academic learners favor the visual and audio when it comes to teaching. Tactile learners are challenged in the traditional school environment because they learn actively and with their hands. Often times, they thrive best in the technical education environment rather than the traditional classroom.
It also just so happens that these types of learners are best poised to take advantage of ever-expanding high paying opportunities in everything from aviation maintenance to commercial and residential plumbing.
Brad Gilbert, president of Pierpont Community and Technical College, shared that “the demand in aviation technology is tremendous nationwide.”
Freeman stated that the demand for these jobs in North Central West Virginia well outstrips the currently expected number of people available to work in them. Looking up to at least 20 years down the road, “they don’t have enough people working to fill the need.”
That means ample numbers of high-paying jobs in aviation for the foreseeable future.
It has been an unintentionally well-kept secret that many of these jobs pay much better than those that require four year or masters degrees, but interest in these fields is growing.
Freeman also explained that students can also start right away earning high paying salaries, as opposed to spending four to six years in school. “You can make money really quick with a year of training or an associates degree.”
Pierpont, as Gilbert explained, also has a dual credit program where students can start career training in their junior year of high school.
As the students filed out of the building to board the bus and return to Lincoln High School, Gilbert stood at the door to say good-bye and wish them well. All the students expressed gratitude for the experience that may very well change some of their lives.
The last young man to exit looked Gilbert in the eye and said “Thank you, Sir. We appreciate it.”