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WATC’s Aviation Training Gets Boost

Wichita Area Technical College
WATC interim president Sheree Utash speaks Monday at a press event announcing two major donations to the college.

Wichita Area Technical College’s aviation training received a boost Monday morning from a major equipment donation and a workforce training grant.

The Kansas Department of Commerce provided a $183,000 grant to Wichita Area Technical College to cover the tuition and training for 70 sheet metal workers.

Spirit AeroSystems is looking to hire up to 500 sheet metal workers but is having a hard time finding qualified candidates.

WATC vice president of advancement and marketing Joe Ontjes says this workforce aid project will serve as an employment training pipeline for Spirit.

"The sheet metal students will go through a three-month training program which prepares them to work as sheet metal mechanics at Spirit AeroSystems," he says.

WATC aviation students will get a chance to explore a major part of a commercial airliner. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus gave the college an elevator from the tail section of an A-320, worth about $500,000.

Students will use the elevator to learn how to work with composite materials as well as conduct testing and repairs.

"It's a great learning experience that goes way beyond a textbook or a computer simulation and allowed a student to actually touch and feel and explore and work upon this aircraft part," Ontjes says.

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Follow Deborah Shaar on Twitter @deborahshaar.

To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.