INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS Education
To sustain all that growth, North Texas has a
network of educational opportunities to grow the
next breed of pilot, engineer, mechanic and more.
To prevent a shortfall in skilled, experienced job
candidates, higher education institutions such as
the University of North Texas have taken a proactive stance, offering courses that help train the next
generation of aviation leaders.
Dr. Terry Pohlen, associate professor and director of the Center for Logistics Education at the
University of North Texas (UNT), says, “We’ve got
that covered.”
In 2011, UNT introduced its bachelor’s of science
in Aviation Logistics, a program focusing on aviation in the transportation sector of the economy.
The majority of the program’s enrollees are students
focusing on the decision-making and supervision of
everything required to lead a flying business, from
planning flight schedules to managing safety and
maintenance programs, to manufacturing aviation
equipment and more. By 2015, more than 200
students will have graduated from this growing
specialty, infusing the North Texas workforce
with professionals who are passionate about
the logistical aspect of an industry that only
continues to take flight. Eighty-five percent
of the graduates will be focused on everything
that happens outside the cockpit.
The other 15 percent? The pilots. By
teaming with Tarrant County College (TCC),
students obtain their flight training at TCC,
which has a Part 141B program and then UNT
offers the additional aviation-related coursework to get to a total of 60 hours in aviation
and the four-year degree. Individuals would then
receive an Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) rating after
logging an additional 1,000 flying hours on their
own and eventually fill that pilot seat.
The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) is initiating another specialty pilot bootcamp to help fill
the workforce needs, and it’s bringing in some special people to do that: UTA is calling in the troops.
A special program for some very honorable students seeks to put more boots on the ground in
DFW with a special brand of expertise. In Fall 2014,
UTA hosted a pilot program for veterans from
across the country who are interested in the manufacturing sector. The program seeks approval from
an organization called the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, a nationwide
organization that offers training in entrepreneurship to post-9/11 veterans who have service-connected disabilities, designed to enable them to start
and successfully grow their own business -- creating
jobs not just for themselves, but also for those they
eventually hire. These camps are currently offered
by eight different universities within the U.S. More
than 850 veterans have completed the training
and have launched hundreds of companies with
nearly 2,000 jobs created thus far. UTA plans to
go full-scale with their program in 2015, drawing
from key resources already in place at the university
and will offer the bootcamp to veterans with and
without disabilities.
With a world-class entrepreneurship faculty led
by Dr. Edmund Prater, program director of the Department of Information Systems and Operations
Management at UTA, participants will sample a
boot camp of opportunity.
The UT Arlington Research Institute (UTARI),
headed by General Rick Lynch (retired, U.S. Army)
will focus on developing next-generation assistive
technologies, including advanced manufacturing
techniques such as 3-D printing. Because of an
agreement with the U.S. Navy through the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, students will have
access to hundreds of Naval Research patents for
the development of business plans for commercialization. Additionally, students receive assistance in
refining products and making them easier to build
from the Texas Manufacturing Assistance Center,
a federally funded program, and from the Texas
National Institute Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which provides
expertise in prototyping and design for manufacturing capabilities