43
PIA Youngstown preparing students for in-demand jobs in aviation
VIENNA
Two months before graduation, Joseph Gape already has a job offer from the first place he applied.
Gape, of Rootstown, plans to work in aircraft maintenance at the Akron-Canton Airport, a job he is interested in because it will allow him to work with his hands.
He is among the 94 percent of students at the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics Youngstown campus who have jobs lined up when they graduate.
Students – including the 100 or so who attend the local campus, located in Vienna next to the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport – are graduating from a school with a stellar reputation in the aviation industry and entering a workforce that is clamoring to hire people with their qualifications.
The success of PIA – which has a main campus south of Pittsburgh, as well as three branch campuses – has recently earned recognition for in preparing its students for the workforce from Forbes. It ranked the school No. 1 on its second-annual list of top two-year trade schools. The magazine, which has long provided rankings of top four-year colleges, noted that PIA alumni “outearn students from two-thirds of Forbes’ highest-ranked four-year colleges at a fraction of the price.”
PIA was founded in 1929 and added the Youngstown branch in 2006.
Joseph DeRamo, Youngstown campus director, said the ranking is a source of pride for the school. Just as significant, he said, is the fact that Forbes is now ranking schools such as PIA, which he sees as an important shift in how society views trade schools.
“For so long we’ve heard, ‘Four-year degree, a four-year degree is the way to go,’” DeRamo said.
But at schools such as PIA, “students get out fairly quick, with a reasonable debt-to-income ratio,” he said. “Students are not defaulting on their student loans.”
PIA Youngstown offers a 16-month certification program that trains students to be aviation technicians.
DeRamo said students spend about half their time in the classroom and the other half getting hands-on experience.
“When they’re here, they’ll work on all aspects of the aircraft,” he said. The campus has four aircraft and a number of different engines on site.
Increasingly, prospective employers are getting involved in PIA students’ education. Their involvement is driven by a trend in the aviation technician field: According to Boeing, airlines in North America will need 189,000 technicians by 2037. Technicians are aging out of the current workforce, and there are not enough young people who are qualified and interested in filling the jobs.
That’s good news for PIA students: “As fast as I can graduate [students], they’re getting jobs,” DeRamo said.
That demand for job candidates is what brings people such as Rich Myers to PIA.
Myers, Cincinnati maintenance base manager for Delta regional airline Endeavor Air as well as a 1987 PIA graduate, visited the Youngstown campus last week. Delta has a partnership with PIA in which the airline company supplies instructor training, equipment, grants and educational materials, giving students the training they need to come work for Delta after they graduate.
In his line of work, Myers sees a need for more mechanics and more people in the skilled trades in general.
“Everybody seemed to go away from [the trades] and toward the four-year degree,” he said.
Myers believes there are as many talented individuals as ever, but that students aren’t encouraged to pursue skilled-trade careers.
“Kids don’t know these programs exist. Not everybody is cut out for four-year degrees,” he said. “It’s an outlet for kids who are not college-oriented.”
Which is not to say that just anyone can be an airplane technician.
“We have to train the mechanics to keep our airplanes flying safely. They can’t just walk in and work on an airplane,” Myers said. “It’s not the same as building a deck.”
In fact, DeRamo said, the field is more specialized than you might expect.
“Aviation is big. It’s a huge industry,” he said, noting that jobs might range from working on jet engines to changing airplane tires and brakes to working on an airplane’s exterior structure. “You can find your niche within the aviation industry.”
Some students might pursue jobs in repair facilities, or they could go into manufacturing, or work in flight operations for a traditional airline, DeRamo said.
Plus, he said, students can find plenty of job opportunities in this region if they’d like to stay around here. The income opportunities are also attractive; according to Payscale, the average annual salary for aviation maintenance technicians is $54,149.
“We might not be for everybody, but I think if you have problem-solving skills, some trouble-shooting skills, or you enjoy working on things, the aviation industry is really for you,” DeRamo said.