and welcome back to Houston newsmakers
and the chance to hone in on a career
you or your children may not have even
thought about it
aviation with me this morning John
Willis president of the Houston mi 80
college of technology and chair of the
HISD Career and Technical Education
Advisory Council that's a long one
John Shiloh senior chair of the Sterling
high school aviation transportation and
logistics department and Nicole Ramirez
is a senior at Sterling aviation high
school enrolled in the aviation
maintenance program she said she's not
interested in leaving school but you
gotta leave I'm sorry thank you all for
being here you know I've been reading a
lot of articles they've been telling me
and if your friends in the industry as
well who talked about the fact that
there's an approaching crisis in the
airline aviation industry because the
job just aren't getting filled with
increasing frequency how significant is
this problem and what are your program
is doing to help alleviate that you know
I think I think that is the real
challenge it's a it's an aging industry
the median age for an aviation mechanic
is about 51 years old which is well
above the national average for most
industries about 30% of the industry now
is at retirement age or older and only
about 2% of the population every year
coming in our new mechanics so you know
part of our commitment with the
partnership with sterling was to try to
introduce the career path of aviation
making that sooner to students before
they leave high school so students can
start to really see what the pathways
look like and they can make educated
decisions about their career and
sterling you do not only you deal with
the maintenance proper you have people
who want to fly as well that's the same
kind of problem isn't it I mean the
pilots are aging out too are they not
yes correctly powers are aging out the
automotive diesel mechanics they are
aging out welder niasia now so we the
pathways that we have all fit on fit
with the aviation flight so we have a
automotive diesel
MIT aviation maintenance flight
logistics futures in all those ties into
the flight area
so now we talk about Nicole who is gonna
be a senior we already determined you
don't really want to leave sterling
because it's a great school great
program how this the aviation
maintenance fit into what you're doing
well the aviation program helps me learn
new things like I never worked with you
before until I joined the program really
yeah like the things I get to learn is
part of the engine and the good thing it
could help him for mechanics so at this
point not in Sterling is the magnet
school right now so what made you decide
to try to attend there they gave us a
little they gave us like a little tour
before I was a freshman and we have a
little classroom called the hangar and
they actually showed us around the
airplanes and the parts of the airplanes
the cables in the tools and when I saw
them I wanted to join okay well if
whatever it takes to get you involved we
take a look at some of the video from
the mi eighty college of technology
program and there many-faceted this
program for all different types of
aircraft throughout this process and
because of the knowledge this shortage
is coming up I'm sure that as you even
Congress is getting into the act they
started to put together some programs so
if grants can be made available for
students so if someone says I can't
really afford to be a part of that
program you have processes now where you
may be able to prou where you hope to be
able to provide grant money for students
who might want to come in right the
Aviation Technical Education Council a
tech is a you know there's a lot of work
in Washington trying to raise this
awareness of this crisis that's looming
so there's a there's a bill that's being
passed that's going to open up grant
dollars for for schools for students to
try to attract new students into the
industry and provide that support as
well as most schools and my 80 college
of technology is the same is a title for
institution so as with any education the
investment through financial aid grants
loans is also available to students and
we've been aware of a for a while now
last few years that there's a real
problem in this community when you don't
have enough people who really want to go
into the Technical Trades correct
and they don't they don't want to go on
the trade because they don't know they
don't know in what we do you know what
MIT being a partner you know they Auto
out of programs we were able to get the
kids at the eighth grade we go into the
middle schools we talked to the kids we
get them familiar with all the programs
that's going on at the school and they
have an opportunity to pick which
program they want to go to what does it
take for somebody to want to get
involved at Sterling what do they have
to do to apply do you have to apply to
get in correct
they have to apply it again the process
is is that they have to fill out
application MIT application and then
they go through an interview they sit
down and they sit down with one of
John's people they interview and then
it's they actually picked and the way we
pick them is that we look at the star
scores you look at if you're good in
math if you get in size if you get in
all the other different areas if you you
know if you can have the time if you'll
be able to do the seat time so Nicole
what's your plan going forward how you
plan to use this as a main thing going
forward or a backup going forward yeah
so it's good to have that knowledge and
how much fun has it been for you to be
able to be exposed to what you've been
exposed to great cuts of my sophomore
year I was a lot in the hangar the
hangar is when I started using the tools
working with the engines using a lot of
oil and when I was using a lot of oil
they also showed me how to build parts
of the engine it's a fascinating way I'm
gonna put the information on my website
no my newsmakers website here and I know
that people who can get involved was the
easiest way to get in contact with your
technology college college so we would
direct them to our to our website
mit.edu was a great place to start will
give you a lot of information about the
school about the program and give you
the ability to request information and
we were to cursors to come by there's
lots of great things to look at new
airplanes and tools and toys that we
like to show off so we would encourage
students to come by set up a tour and
learn more about it I'm gonna put my
information put your information on my
website as well and there's no age limit
right
- oh you got you John Willis John Shiloh
Nicole thank you for coming in we
appreciate you big happiness good luck
to you all as you go forward in coming
up after the break