FAIRMONT — Marion County Schools and Pierpont Community and Technical College are seeking closer collaboration when it comes to careers in aviation.
Officials from Pierpont made a presentation at the Dec. 18 Marion County Board of Education meeting.
“Careers, and I try not to call them jobs anymore, because they’re actually careers,” Brad Gilbert, Pierpont’s director of Aviation Technology, said. “A lot of these students that we get probably never thought they would go to college. We encourage them and then when they get into the program and they see they can be successful and get jobs and careers down at these industries, it’s heartwarming that they can see they can succeed.”
Gilbert sought to invite board members to come to the Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Education Center in Bridgeport to see what the school has to offer. He added Pierpont’s Aviation Maintenance program has grown tremendously in the past five or six years. The school is currently capped at 130 students by the Federal Aviation Administration, for which the school had an 18 student waiting list in August.
Gilbert said Pierpont still plans to build a new classroom hangar at the North Central West Virginia Airport, which would boost the school’s student enrollment capacity to 200 or 225 students. Large aviation companies have also made investments to the surrounding airport, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Boeing Subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences, which will create demand for aviation mechanics.
Skills acquired in the aviation field also translate to work for oil and gas companies, which provide lucrative employment in the state.
Gilbert said thanks to a grant the college received, he wants to hold Friday workshops for middle schoolers at the Aerospace Education Center. He said Marion County School Superintendent Donna Heston was receptive to the idea. The program would provide four hours of instruction and include lunch. Students would receive exposure to aircraft maintenance through hands-on activities. Currently, Pierpont does half hour presentations to every high school and middle school in Harrison County, and Gilbert said they want to do something similar in neighboring counties, like Marion.
The wisdom older generations have on how the job market works no longer applies, Gilbert said. Only 49% of high school graduates move on to college, leaving the other half not pursuing any form of higher education.
“The days of going to the coal mines, or the glass plants, you know that took place back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it’s not really happening anymore,” he said. “We need to provide these students with some technical skills. That’s all I have to say.”
Discussion of Career and Technical Education was a prominent topic for much of the meeting. Board member Donna Costello asked if the Marion County Tech Center could host classes for adults. Costello said, if her research was correct, the classes would not be at a cost to the county, and that there are funds available for these types of programs. Heston was open to developing the idea.
“I think that is an opportunity, not only for the tech center, but also for some of the adults who currently may be traveling to Morgantown, or even Clarksburg, Harrison County,” Costello said. “I know there’s real interest right now in welding.”
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