12 minute read
Flying High
TCSG's aviation maintenance and avionics programs are helping Georgia's $57.5 billion aerospace industry soar
When you think of aviation in Georgia, perhaps you picture Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. After all, it’s the busiest airport in the world. Or maybe you imagine a Gulfstream luxury plane flying into a private airport. Or perhaps a Thrush Aircraft crop-duster soaring over Georgia’s fields of peanuts and corn.
Here in Georgia, the aviation industry is all that and more. In fact, over 800 aerospace companies call Georgia home, including big names like Delta Air Lines, Lockheed Martin, and Pratt & Whitney.
Each of those companies need skilled employees to build and maintain aircraft, and that demand is only going to increase thanks to the existing workforce beginning to retire even as the industry continues to grow.
The Technical College System of Georgia is partnering with the state’s aerospace industry to bolster that workforce through FAA-approved airframe and powerplant (A&P) courses, avionics, and more.
“Our mission as a technical college and as a technical college system is workforce training,” says Dr. John Watford, president of South Georgia Technical College. “We don’t check the box when students graduate. We check the box when they get employed in the field that they trained in.”
A History of Flight
Georgia’s connection to the aviation industry goes way back – more than 115 years to when Ben Epps made his first flight in Athens. Not even a decade later, in 1917, the infrastructure and land for what would eventually become South Georgia Tech was established as a training base for U.S. Army pilots.
South Georgia Tech’s very history is interwoven with the aviation industry. Charles Lindbergh, who would go on to fly non-stop from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927, first learned to fly on the grounds that would become South Georgia Tech. And it was here that during WWII, the British Royal Air Force could safely train its forces – one of only three sites in the U.S. to do so.
When the college was officially established in 1948, aviation maintenance was one of the original programs offered – and is still offered today “We’re proud of our legacy as an aviation maintenance college,” says Watford.
Students can test for FAA certification after successfully completing the program, earning an Air Frame and Power Plant license, which they can use to work anywhere in the world. The majority of graduates, however, choose to stay in Georgia.
That’s important for companies like Delta Air Lines and Lockheed Martin, both of which partner with TCSG colleges to fill their ranks.
“Our ability to grow would not be possible without those partnerships,” says David Logan, vice president for production operations for Lockheed Martin. “Our key priority as a company is strengthening our Georgia skilled workforce, ensuring we have a robust pool.”
A global company with more than 120,000 employees, one of Lockheed Martin’s biggest campuses is in Marietta. There, the company manufactures the C-130 line of aircraft and the first phase of the F-35 Lightning II center wing assembly and employs more than 6,000 people.
Today, Georgia’s aviation landscape is as vast as the sky itself. In fact, the aerospace sector is Georgia’s second largest manufacturing industry, generating a $57.5-billion economic impact. Aerospace products are also Georgia’s No. 1 export, accounting for $11.1 billion in exports in 2023.
All those companies need a workforce that knows how to move around – and build – a plane. And when a student completes any of the 15 certificates and diplomas at the six TCSG colleges that offer aviationrelated degrees and certificates, they will be ready to work on pretty much anything that can fly through the sky.
“The FAA A&P license certifies them to work on any non-military aircraft in the United States,” Watford says. “That means helicopters, passenger planes, private planes, even hot air balloons.”
But there’s so much more to aviation jobs in Georgia than just maintenance. “We have Lockheed Martin that’s assembling entire aircraft,” says Jason Tanner, executive vice president of instruction for Chattahoochee Technical College. “But we also have a lot of industries that provide the components, the machining, the tooling, the seats that go into an airplane.”
There are already more than 200,000 people currently employed in Georgia’s aerospace industry, but that nowhere near addresses the need.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall employment of avionics – which deals with the plane’s electrical systems – and aircraft equipment mechanics and technicians is projected to grow 4% through 2032, on average about 12,800 new job openings a year.
Here in Georgia, that demand is being fueled in part by the existing skilled workforce aging and getting set to retire.
According to one recent study, most aircraft mechanics are over 40 years old, and some 35% of the current workforce is 55 to 64 years old. “So, for the next 10 to 15 years, the rate of retirement is going to grow and create those openings for A&P mechanics,” says Jimmie Smith, dean of aviation at Savannah Technical College.
“We had big hiring in the late ’80s and early ’90s, so those folks are all getting ready to retire in the next five years,” says Mark Sandrin, general manager for Delta TechOps Learning and Development. Delta TechOps is the operational division of Delta Air Lines responsible for maintaining the safety and reliability of the airline’s fleet of almost 900 mainline aircraft and has some 12,000 employees, around half of which are licensed and certified aviation mechanics.
Sandrin also notes that during that time, there was a big emphasis on attaining a four-year college degree. Now, that trend is starting to shift as more people see the value in a technical college education and the high-paying, quality jobs you can get after graduation.
There’s also a need for more skilled employees thanks to the state’s solid reputation – in 2023, Georgia celebrated 10 years as the No. 1 state for business according to Area Development magazine, the only state to ever reach this benchmark – and more aerospace companies continue to call Georgia home.
“There’s a very high demand. We cannot satisfy the market, to be honest,” says Watford, who adds that they currently have five full-time aviation maintenance instructors and are looking to add a sixth soon. “Because the demand’s so high, most [graduates] stay in Georgia to work.”
Lockheed Martin’s Logan agrees, saying that the company’s partnership with TCSG has been crucial to expanding its workforce. “The growth that we’ve experienced at Lockheed Martin, we would not have been able to fill the over 1,000 jobs that we’ve filled in the high-tech and high-paying roles without that partnership,” he says.
The Sky’s the Limit
Just north of Atlanta in Paulding County, Chattahoochee Tech is working to address workforce challenges by investing in the future of its aviation programs in a big way – with a brandnew facility.
This past spring, Chattahoochee Tech celebrated the grand opening of its Aviation Training Academy at the Paulding Northwest Atlanta Airport in Dallas. The three-story, 55,000-square-foot facility
includes a 12,000-square-foot hanger, instructional labs, classrooms, a technical library, testing lab, and classroom space, all with the ability to train up to 200 students at a time.
Students can earn aviation certificates and degrees and go on to find success in high-demand careers in the repair, service, and maintenance of airframe components and power plant systems and components like engines, landing gear, brakes, and air-conditioning systems.
The new academy’s location makes sense for many reasons.
“We have a lot of students in our service area because we have Cobb County, and we have Cherokee County. We have growing counties like Paulding, Bartow, ones that we know there’s more manufacturing coming. There’s more commercial travel in Georgia, more freight travel,” Tanner says. “There’s just going to be more and more aviation mechanics needed.”
While some students started in the upholstery and avionics tracks when the facility opened in the spring, the first full cohort of A&P students started this fall after the college received its FAA certification. It takes two years to complete the program and receive an aviation mechanics diploma – one that requires FAA approval of the curriculum and the students testing for certification before they can get a job following graduation.
“It’s a little over 80 hours for those certificates,” Tanner says.
The FAA also regulates the teacher to student ratio with 25 students for every teacher. With four instructors already on board, Chattahoochee Tech is aiming to soon have 100 students in its A&P program.
But even if students are interested in getting started in the industry faster than two years, TCSG colleges have a path forward. Many programs that do not involve aircraft maintenance, such as the aircraft upholstery, aircraft structure, and avionics certificates, have a much faster path to employment.
“We have upholstery, we have cabinetry, we have avionics, we have sheet metal,” Savannah Tech’s Smith says. “Depending on how quickly you want to get into the workplace, some of our courses are as short as eight and 16 weeks, just to get their certificate and get employed.”
Most people coming out of these programs get a job quickly, and the starting salary is solid. The median annual wage for aircraft mechanics, service technicians, and avionics technicians is $70,000-$75,000 a year.
That’s especially a good deal when you consider that aerospace is considered a high-demand industry, so with the HOPE Career Grant for aviation technology, some students can earn their certificate or degree practically for free, then go on to have a long, high-paying career.
“If a person comes here, there’s opportunity for them to advance over the course of their career and build a very dynamic, very good career over time,” Logan says. “We offer excellent longterm, good-paying career opportunities. There’s a lot of people who have come in here, and this is where they have spent their entire career.”
While graduates typically land at some of the larger, more wellknown companies like Delta Air Lines, Lockheed Martin, and Gulfstream, many also work at one of the military bases throughout the state.
“We do work a lot with the military,” Watford says. “We send a lot of students, especially avionic students, to Warner Robins’s air logistics base to work in the civil service.”
And that works both ways, with military vets coming to TCSG to build on their experiences, as well for a career following their service.
“We have a lot of military veterans come to us if they’re in the Air Force or work on planes – even in the Army or the Navy, they learn how to work on planes – but they don’t get an A&P license when they’re in the military,” Watford says. “So, they can work on military planes, but they’re not licensed to work on non-military.”
Piloting a Pipeline
While TCSG is busy creating a strong workforce to meet demand, getting people into the pipeline for aviation maintenance can be a challenge.
While many students first learned about the possibilities of a career in aviation mechanics because they grew up around it – either a family member was a mechanic themselves or maybe piloted planes – many don’t know the career path’s potential.
“A lot of young people who don’t grow up around some form of aviation, they don’t know what great opportunities are there,” Watford says.
Aviation classes often attract the same people that the auto technician, engineering, and welding programs do – people who took things apart and put them back together when they were kids.
“Those types of people who like to tinker, have a mechanical aptitude, and understand how engines work –we get a lot of those students as well,” Watford says.
And many of the skills learned in those other career tracks offered by TCSG can be transferred to aviation.
“We’ve approached that with the automotive students, our industrial maintenance students, our diesel technician students, welding students,” Tanner says. “We are telling all of them about aviation.”
“You have to think outside the box, so to speak, to realize that the aviation industry probably has employment for people from all different skill sets and not just the airframe and power plant side of it,” Watford agrees.
Chattahoochee Tech is also working with local high schools to get the word out about their new programs, and down on the coast, Savannah Tech has partnered with Gulfstream and nearby Robert W. Groves High School on a four-year aviation manufacturing and service program. High school students who participate gain a deep knowledge of the aviation industry, including aviation history and regulations, the key principles of flight, technologies, aviation meteorology, and the basics of aircraft maintenance, performance, and design.
Once they complete the program, they will have earned three aviation technical certificates of credit (TCC) as dual enrollment students. They also get the opportunity to job shadow and complete apprenticeships at Gulfstream. The first three students to graduate from the aircraft maintenance and manufacturing program in 2023 all committed to employment at Gulfstream Aerospace.
Regardless of which TCSG college a student chooses to earn their aviation certificates and diplomas and how they go about it, they are practically guaranteed a job once they graduate.
“Aviation is not going away. Commercial and private planes are more ubiquitous than ever. There’s a strong earnings potential, and it’s fun. It’s fun being around the airplanes and all those things that fly and coming in contact with people from all over the world on a daily basis,” Watford says. “So, it just has a lot of attractive aspects to any young person. It checks all the right boxes.”
