Bombardier apprentice program in Red Oak, TX graduates 1st class
Montreal-based business jet maker Bombardier has so far spent $ 2.7 million on building and maintaining the program. His first class graduated last week.
RED OAK, Texas – Think of Bombardier’s aircraft flight training program as a junior college. It takes two years. Apart from not paying tuition fees and actually getting paid during your studies.
When you graduate, you won’t get an associate degree. Instead, your diploma is federal recognition that you are a certified aircraft fitter – and you are guaranteed a job and health benefits.
When Colt Simon received his certificate from Bombardier in Red Oak, Texas last week, he was pretty happy to be assembling wings for one of the world’s most advanced business jets.
Simon and his alumni are the first of more than a hundred apprentices to emerge from a program that could transform the Texas aerospace industry. You will spend three months in intensive face-to-face training at the nearby Texas State Technical College (TSTC), another three will accompany an experienced worker on the factory floor and work alongside certified fitters for 18 months.
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It all costs money. Montreal-based business jet maker Bombardier has so far spent $ 2.7 million on building and maintaining the program. She found a teaching partner in the TSTC. It brought trainers from Canada to teach the TSTC what to teach. The Texas Workforce Commission started with its own grant. TWC chairman Bryan Daniel said education programs are resonating across the state. But this one is in the vanguard.
The U.S. Department of Labor reviewed the program to ensure it was rigorous enough to develop workers who could build the sophisticated wing for the world’s fastest, tallest business jet.
“Our job was to make sure the program wasn’t easy,” said John Kuznar of the US Department of Labor in Dallas.
New graduate Simon said the two years he spent were difficult. While apprentices do not need to have aircraft experience, they do need to pass exams to get in. They are also tested during the classroom training and can be sorted out.
“There was so much packed in the first three months,” said Simon.
The graduate of the program grew up in Grand Prairie, where his parents both worked for the aircraft manufacturer Vought. “I feel like I work in the family business,” he said. His starting salary is more than $ 16 an hour, with opportunities for growth.
Plant Manager Tony Curry said the time, money and effort were worth it. It takes around six days to assemble thousands of parts into the 104-foot wing for the Global 7500, the world’s fastest, longest-range business jet. The production time has halved in the last two years.
Curry himself began as an apprentice in Ireland in the aircraft business 353 years ago. He hopes other North Texas aerospace companies will develop programs of their own.
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