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Monday, Mar 18, 2024

Airport Turns To Education

Where passengers used to wait to board their flights at Palmdale Regional Airport is now a classroom for the Aircraft Fabrication & Assembly Program at Antelope Valley College. Nearby, the ticket counters and baggage claim area are still in place with faculty offices and laboratory space beside them. The Lancaster-based community college spent about $400,000 renovating the interior of the 9,000-square-foot terminal building. The city handled fixing up the roof and exterior of the facility that has sat vacant for more than eight years since United Airlines stopped operating flights at the airport at the end of 2008. College President Ed Knudson said using the terminal is not a permanent solution to relieving space issues at the main campus. The institution is committed to staying for two years to provide daytime and evening programs for the certificate program whose graduates are coveted by Northrop Grumman Corp. and other aerospace manufacturers in the Antelope Valley. “In partnering with the city, we are getting a space that helps us and it helps them as they hope to rejuvenate this into an airport,” Knudson said. Summer classes in the fabrication program started at the terminal building on June 12. There is currently a waiting list of 1,000 people looking to get into it. In addition to the city and college, Goodwill Southern California is another major partner in the fabrication and assembly program by providing the screening services for the students before they begin classes. Joel Morgan, regional director for workforce and community development, said that prior to the nonprofit’s involvement, about 40 percent of the students completing the program were hired on at Northrop. That figure has improved to about 85 percent, he added. “We are being more diligent in making sure the individuals coming through have the aptitude and can make (national security) clearance,” Morgan said. In April, a recruitment event by Goodwill for Northrop brought out more than 500 people. On-site interviews were conducted for 50 potential workers. “That would not have happened a year ago,” Morgan said. “Our relationship has blossomed to where we are an extension and arm of their recruitment.” $60 billion contract This is the not the first time that Antelope Valley College has gone an untraditional route to create classroom space. Last year, the school leased and renovated a long-vacant former Albertsons supermarket and adjoining medical offices into a satellite campus in Palmdale. While only a temporary solution, the terminal fills an important need in training students to work for one of the area’s largest employers. Ever since 2015, when Northrop won the contract for the next-generation Air Force bomber, the defense contractor has been on a hiring spree, with some estimates in the thousands of new hires needed in the coming years. Observers believe assembly work on the B-21 bomber will be performed in Palmdale. The project is scheduled to last in the 2020s, with a total potential value of nearly $60 billion. Kari Blackburn, the economic development manager for Palmdale, said Northrop wants to make sure there is a reliable pipeline of employees for its manufacturing needs. “This is not a short-term bump,” Blackburn said. “This is a trajectory that is going to be this way for 20-plus years.” The college’s training program consists of four classes taught over an eight-week period. The courses in aircraft structures and composites involve a lot of hands-on training in a lab setting. The blueprints and ethics classes require more reading. Palmdale’s Blackburn said the course work is not for the faint of heart and a student can be dismissed for missing just one class. Morgan told of the diverse backgrounds of students who have completed the program and gone to work for Northrop – a single mother working as a waitress who had never picked up a power tool in her life; a woman who used to work for Bank of America Corp. on the path to being a Northrop supervisor; a 63-year-old man who had been in real estate and made a career change; and an 18-year-old recent high school graduate who was earning $17.50 an hour plus benefits. “He gave up a free-ride scholarship to go through this program,” Morgan said of that student. “I thought his mom was going to kill him.” Maria Clinton, an instructor in the fabrication program and Industrial Technology Department chairwoman, said that while Northrop has been the main employer taking these students, it’s not the only career path. Lockheed Martin Corp., Scaled Composites (a subsidiary of Northrop), Space Exploration Technologies Corp. in Hawthorne and Spaceship Co. in Mojave have hired graduates as well. “We have instructors from almost every single one of those employers,” Clinton said. Additionally, electric bus manufacturer BYD Motors Inc. and Lance Camper Manufacturing Corp., both in Lancaster, and light rail car maker Kinkisharyo International, in Palmdale, can hire the students. Northrop called its partnership with the college a successful model between private industry and community colleges. The company recognizes it needs to be involved in preparing future defense workers with needed tools and skillsets, a Northrop representative said. “With recent contract wins in the Antelope Valley, our staffing projections told us that we would need to drastically increase the number of classes at (the college) to produce enough candidates to meet our entry-level technician staffing needs,” the representative said.

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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