Trade School Offers a Launching Pad for Aviation Mechanics

Like a love-struck suitor, Kevin Finkel’s eyes twinkled as he gazed at the sleek, silver-clad body.

“This made up my mind,” he said, nodding toward the 1950s-era Lockheed T-33 jet trainer languishing in a mustard-yellow steel airport hangar. “I love getting dirty,” Finkel shouted, paying little heed to the deafening whine of a nearby Gulfstream III.

Like 150 classmates enrolled at a little-known school at Van Nuys Airport, the 23-year-old Northridge resident said he has discovered his calling. He is studying to become an airplane mechanic.

For the 30 to 50 graduates a year who persevere through the gritty 20-month training program, the outlook is lucrative. In a booming economy that is churning out jetliners faster than the time it takes to train workers to maintain them, certificated mechanics are snapped up like star-power athletes.

“The demand is unprecedented,” said Phil Struyk, a veteran instructor at the aviation trade school of the North Valley Occupational Center. “Over the last five years, salaries for licensed mechanics have increased by 20% to 30% because of the demand.”

He pointed out that annual earnings of $70,000 to $90,000 are not unusual. Finkel and his classmates are in the midst of a critical nationwide shortage of aviation maintenance technicians.

“Our students are on the good side of the balance of supply and demand,” Struyk said.

U.S. Labor Department statistics indicate a need for about 12,000 new aviation technicians a year, yet the Federal Aviation Administration is issuing an average of only 8,100 certificates annually, said Stan Mackiewicz, director of maintenance and overhaul training at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.

“Within the last three years, we have seen tremendous growth and projected growth, so it’s a great time to enter the industry,” said Mackiewicz, pointing out that some recruiters offer tuition reimbursements for work commitments and signing bonuses of $2,500.

Still in its infancy is a nationwide consortium of aviation businesses that have pooled their resources to encourage more people to enter the field. The Make It Fly Foundation, launched last year, now has an Internet site (https://www.makeitfly.com) and is initiating an ad campaign aimed at “career influencers” such as parents, teachers and counselors.

“We all need to be planting the seed with regard to aviation maintenance careers very early on,” Mackiewicz said. “We need to get kids into the hangars. We’re challenging the industry to start opening its doors.”

Experts attribute the unprecedented shortage of airplane mechanics to several factors, including the cyclical peaks and valleys of the industry, the aging of the work force that emerged out of the military, and highly advertised campaigns for competing careers in computers, automotive repairs and other technical fields.

Even the theme park industry, with its evolving array of complex hydraulic ride systems, is wooing workers away from aviation, Mackiewicz said.

Despite the demand, officials at the Van Nuys mechanics center said few people know the school exists.

“Even many of the personnel within the Los Angeles Unified School District aren’t aware of it,” said Donald Gaskin, principal of the North Valley Occupational Center, which offers the only aviation mechanics program in the district.

In an effort to boost enrollment, the school is about to send out 180,000 mailers listing class offerings. Enrollment in aviation classes is ongoing, and completion of the courses costs only about $700, school officials said. In comparison, tuition at private aviation schools costs $16,000 to $22,000 a year, industry leaders said.

About 180 schools nationwide, including many sponsored by community college districts, offer training for the Federal Aviation Administration technician certificate. But enrollment in adult schools typically drops with the unemployment rate, Gaskin said.

In the school district, enrollment in the 37 adult schools is down about 12% since the peak of the recession in the early 1990s, Gaskin said, costing the district about $8 million in lost state revenues.

“It has not been this bad in this decade,” he said.

But all of that is good news for students at the aviation school. Finkel, who held various dead end jobs in retail sales before enrolling at the school, said he is now eagerly anticipating graduation in nine months.

“Before, I was just floundering in junior college,” Finkel said. “I couldn’t sit still in class for more than 15 minutes.”

Cesar Marquez, 19, of Woodland Hills said the school is the first step in his goal to become an aviation engineer. The son of a gardener and the oldest of five siblings, he said his family “doesn’t have the economic resources to pay for a university.” After he graduates next March, Marquez said, “I’m going to first look for a job and then keep studying.”

Jeffrey Kaddu, 24, of Panorama City calls the aviation courses “my greatest opportunity.” An emigre from Africa, Kaddu supports himself working as a janitor at night and expects to graduate in January.

“In the whole of Africa, there is not a school like this,” he said. “I had to embrace it.”

The youngest is 15-year-old Chris Thomson of Sun Valley. He is attending full time this summer, taking flying lessons and intends to continue on Saturdays in the fall.

“I want to graduate, get a good job and make some money,” said Chris, whose father, Keith, works as an aviation mechanic nearby.

Michael Barba, who graduated a year ago, stopped by the school last week while on vacation from his job in Tucson where he works as an outfitter on new business jets.

“I wish I would have done this years ago,” said Barba, 35, who has a wife and three children. He previously worked as a shipping clerk at a movie lab, but now boasts of earning nearly $50,000 a year. He credits his father for discovering the aviation school.

One of only a few aviation mechanics schools in the nation actually located at an airport, the Van Nuys campus was opened in 1973 at a small, private hangar on the south end of the field. The school district in 1981 built the current facility, a 45,000-square-foot corrugated steel hangar on property leased from the airport at 16550 Saticoy St.

The school is just west of the airport control tower, where some of its graduates now work as controllers at the busiest general aviation airport in the world. Adjacent to the school, which has four classrooms, is the so-called “corporate row,” a series of hangars and offices of the aviation divisions of some of the most prominent businesses in Los Angeles, such as Dole Foods.

Among the learning tools at the school are nine donated aircraft, including the Air Force jet, a Sikorsky heavy-lift helicopter and several small planes. There are more than 50 engines that students can dissect and reassemble, as well as a paint shop, fully stocked tool room and shelves filled with manuals for every aircraft conceivable.

Although the goals and ambitions of students and their teachers are diverse, they all share a common love: the noise of aircraft. The din of a vintage airplane taking off nearby, for instance, draws a sudden rush of students to the tarmac to watch in awe.

Noise, they say, never bothers them.

“We learn to stop talking,” Struyk said. “The noise they make is like music to our ears.”