By Kathryn B. Creedy
The aviation and aerospace industries are woefully behind the power curve when it comes to promoting aviation/aerospace careers, as evidenced by small participation at the American School Counselors Association (ASCA), a notoriously difficult, but critical, group to reach.
The industry has been talking about approaching school counselors for years and rather than nod again for the umpteenth year, I decided to check it out.
Future and Active Pilot Advisors (FAPA) for years organized an “Aviation Row” at the conference intended to educate the counselors about all aviation careers and sold out the entire row of 16 one year. The organization passed this year because of changes to ASCA’s policies. FAPA is also the only organization, to my knowledge, to have a School Counselor page on its website. But here again we are too siloed. We need to discuss all the careers not just mention flight dispatchers, airport executives, designers, air traffic controllers, aircraft manufacturing, cybersecurity and IT specialists in passing.
“School counselors are one of the top sources of information for students on career requirements,” said Exhibitor Dawn Vinson, executive director of the University Aviation Association, who added the UAA booth was keep very busy throughout the four-day conference. “We had lots of good questions and found counselors had no idea about aviation careers. Unfortunately, students may not receive accurate information to assist in career decisions. Our industry must continue to expand our support of schools and STEM programs during the critical elementary school years. We must also engage with career counselors to expand their awareness of the broad spectrum of careers and education opportunities available across aviation. They have the capability to be change agents for students’ lives. In addition, they may encourage a diverse population of students to pursue aviation by providing information and tools.”
We Must Compete
Aviation and aerospace are not the only industries facing workforce shortages. We must compete in an arena we know little about – Career School Counselors who start career awareness before kids even get to school. I’ve been preaching this for years since I was hooked at age five. While many wonderful programs, such as AOPA Foundation High School Curriculum and EAA’s online courses, have been created along with New England-based Aerospace Component Manufacturers Association high school curriculum and annual career fair focused on manufacturing. There is little for the elementary level and it is here, say counselors, kids begin to explore careers.
“Kids discover careers much earlier than we target them,” said Kasey Dixon on LinkedIn. “Research actually shows that gender norms become established aroind 6-8 years old! This means we are massively alienating a huge future workforce by not ensuring young girls (in particular) are being reached before they’ve been conditioned to think aviation is ‘mens work’.”
Overwhelmed by Other Trades
There were only five aviation entities in attendance at ASCA but it seemed every other profession was there to educate school counselors on their industries and help them promote their jobs to kids.
The conference was in Atlanta so naturally Delta was a big sponsor and had a booth discussing only pilot and aviation technology careers. It also had an education session attended by perhaps 25 counselors who seemed knowledgeable about pilot and tech careers. But its presentation was woefully inadequate to other disciplines including air traffic controllers, flight dispatchers, manufacturing and host of other disciplines that are never mentioned when discussing shortages except in industry circles. ALPA and US Aviation Academy were also there along with the National Business Aviation Association and the Universal Technical Institute, a member of the Aviation Technical Education Council. Aerospace was completely absent.
NBAA Regional Director Southeast Gregory Voos said ASCA was worth it. “Overall, the conference is a worthwhile event,” he told Future Aviation/Aerospace Workforce News. “About 20 stopped by each day. I’ve had few follow-up communications already as a result of the event. Anytime we can get the word out about our industry we must take that opportunity. Our organizations all have unique strengths that should be leveraged to address the workforce challenge.”
US Aviation Academy Vice President Business Development Scott Sykes agrees.
“Counselors were interested, and we talked to about 100 individuals including some vendors,” he said. “They were generally aware of aviation careers from the news but had little idea how to get into them. Some knew of local colleges, but few had any idea about vocational training paths. Even those who knew of aviation colleges, didn’t really understand the career opportunities, training costs, and overall pathway.
“I agree the industry needs to get involved! There is a lot of opportunity out there,” he continued. “I use my position as board member of Flight Schools Association of North America and Aviation Technical Education Council extensively just to promote aviation as a whole and offer advice on schools that may be nearby the counselor’s respective district. We also did some work promoting Choose Aerospace and its scholarships.”
Meanwhile, there were a dozen sessions on what school career counselors do and how they can develop effective career-development programs. I attended them all.
Aviation, Aerospace Way Behind
As I walked the exhibit floor, it was clear aviation and aerospace didn’t have a clue on the importance of this event. I found an entire section devoted to the building trades with individual booths from the carpenters’ union, fire sprinkler industry, HVAC, plumbing, plasterers, sheet metal workers, bricklayers, roofers and electrical contractors. Other industries included architects, opticians, jewelers, surveying, pharmacy, cybersecurity, physician assistants, trucking, actuaries, maritime and even the RV industry which is competing with us for maintenance techs and manufacturing. Then there is the military with all branches presenting and sponsoring events. There was even a booth for the $24 billion event/trade show exhibit makers which has more than three million jobs for designers, videographers, interior designers, graphic designers, electricians, welders, painters.
Earn While You Learn
Speaking of competing. Building trades unions have earn-while-you-learn programs paying for the training so there is no cost barrier to join the industry as we have in aviation. One told me current union members fund this and then, once the students enter the career, they pay it forward. The message to counselors is they can join the industry with free certification education. The closest we get is the AOPA Foundation curriculum but, even here, aspiring pilots still face hundreds of thousands of dollars in training to get to the right seat. Meanwhile its aviation maintenance track goes a long way to get them into the workforce.
For credentialed professions such as aviation maintenance technicians and flight dispatchers, the aviation industry needs to compete by funding both training and the testing for their certification, a huge reason our AMT graduates gravitate toward theme parks and other disciplines who need maintenance technicians. The $250,000 in flight training costs for pilots is a tougher nut to crack but given how unions are funding the next generation of workers in other fields, this is something we need to figure out. Airlines meanwhile are fronting the costs for a select few but requiring the loan to be paid back while other trades are touting their students come out debt free.
“While you want to engage with counselors, the financial investment required for aviation careers is an eyebrow raiser,” noted Rikeshia D. in response to my first LinkedIn Post about the conference. “From the aviation perspective, until funding and scholarships are more accessible there will be understandable hesitance from schools. Exploratory, hands-on programs for students are a smart investment on behalf of aviation companies.”
Canadian-based Lori Payne, co-founder and president of Project Blue World, agreed. “We need to set up apprenticeship opportunities for our youth in every province and state,” she posted on LinkedIn. “Let’s add AMEs and all the sub-categories, engine technicians, propeller techs, avionics, accessories, painters, test technicians and all the business-related jobs such as customer service reps, accountants, purchasers, planners, fleet maintenance engineers, repair technicians…let’s get kids involved!”
ASCA exhibitors are poaching potential employees who could work in aviation because school counselors don’t know about aviation and aerospace. All these professions are investing in educating school counselors so why isn’t aviation and aerospace?
Diversity groups were there as well with Career Girls and Distinguished Young Women promoting more women in STEM and developing programs to achieve those goals. They could be working with Women in Aviation International, Association for Women in Aviation Maintenance, Women in Aerospace, Women and Drones, Women Military Aviators, the 99s, Sisters of the Skies, and Aviation Women Inspiring the Next Generation (AWING) to promote women in aviation careers. Together, we could be a force multiplier and attract more women to aviation and aerospace in the bargain. Imagine what would happen if we combined the efforts of Career Girls, Distinguished Young Women and Women in Aviation’s Girls in Aviation Day!
Industry-Wide Participation
Since school counselors are hard to reach, we cannot leave it to these few entities to promote aviation and aerospace careers. ASCA has a scholarly magazine, but it does not publish the kind of articles we need school counselors to read. The ASCA conference is really the only way to approach school counselors with effective messaging.
We need an industry-wide push to define all careers, develop the content, videos and website school counselors can reference to help them help us. If we want to reach the students, we need to raise the awareness of our careers amongst school counselors who already recommend tech schools to students.
More importantly, school counselors are already working with a host of exhibitor companies that have developed career information platforms including Xello, Pathful, Major Clarity, SkillPointe, and Skilled Career Coalition. They already have at least two aviation careers as I scrolled through their programs. One highlighted an Alaska Airlines female captain – extra points for that – and the other was an aerospace engineer. We need to ensure they have the entire menu aviation and aerospace careers and how to get to them. Worktour makes day-in-the-life videos for different professions while Skilljam has a docuseries premiering this fall. It’s America’s Dirtiest Jobs for the rest of us.
Questions from school counselors included whether we had any programs for the disabled and I was able to tell them yes. Since the conference, I have shared Mitre, NGA, Feds Launch Neurodiversity Pilot Program with counselors I met. In addition, there is Able Flight focusing on connecting people with disabilities to the challenges of flight and aviation career training. We must leave no one behind.
We do not have to reinvent the wheel. We just need to copy what other professions are doing and work with these companies to incorporate aviation and aerospace careers into the school counselor career portfolio starting in Pre-K. This is important because counselors were excited when I began discussing aviation careers. They asked if there were a website that put all the information together in one place. Nope, although FAA has one that needs to be more TikTok. So, that should be our top priority a one-stop-shop for information on aviation and aerospace careers, for aviation education programs and for corporations who need employees.
The Aerospace Education Program Alliance and Shaesta Waiz’s Dream Soar both have a one-stop-shop website as a mandate. We need it yesterday, according to school counselors. I have a list of aviation/aerospace education programs on my website, but hundreds of programs need to be added to make it complete and it needs to be organized by state.
Everyone agrees such a thing is needed but how do we get there? Who’s going to pay for it? And can we work together beyond our parochialism to make it happen?
Piquing Their Interest
School counselors don’t promote industries to kids. They educate kids using the tools mentioned above about careers and then spend time getting to know their interests. It’s really a dating game. They match those interests to careers but if they don’t know about aviation/aerospace careers there are no matches. Elementary school counselors then hand off to their counterparts in middle and high school who build on each other’s lessons to develop ambitions in the kids and teach them what they need to achieve their goals.
FAPA indicated school counselors are hungry for information. “Our presentations about the pilot profession were always standing room only,” said Smith. “In the past, we would produce a drawing and give away two free round-trip airline tickets for the winner to attend ASCA in the subsequent year. The airlines (Southwest, American & Piedmont, etc.) would usually provide those to us. ASCA officials would announce the drawing for free tickets at some of their large gatherings and encourage attendees to stop by Aviation Row to register. To register for the free tickets, counselors were required to visit each vendor in Aviation Row. It worked very well for everyone. The counselors loved Aviation Row and the ticket drawing, and ASCA would announce the winners at their closing presentation for all the counselors.”
Smith explained FAPA’s absence this year citing changing ASCA policies. “We wanted to establish Aviation Row as we have in the past,” he reported. “In the past, ASCA would provide FAPA a complimentary booth at the head of the Aviation Row, and we would solicit appropriate aviation companies to purchase a booth. ASCA would provide a discount on the booth prices since we were selling them for ASCA without any commission, just a 10 x 10 booth. It was a lot of work for us but enjoyable. The new ASCA conference organizers refused to collaborate with FAPA on any of our initiatives this year. Since the show is a no-revenue event for us and is basically an act of charity and good PR, we decided we will return to ASCA when they return to their senses.”
In response, ASCA said it does not discount exhibit and/or sponsorship pricing.
What is An Aviation Career?
We must also broaden the definition of aviation career. I’ve used social media for years to promote aviation careers because we don’t know where artists, fashionistas, designers and school tinkerers will eventually end up when matching their interest to aviation and aerospace. For instance:
- Interested in art? There’s a place for you in aviation. Airlines and airports need art curators for their lounges and concourses.
- Interested in animals? There’s a place for you in aviation. Cargo carriers and business aviation companies have animal wranglers responsible for everything from pandas to quarter horses while airports have Arks to take care of traveling pets and other animals.
- Interested in interior design? There’s a place for you in aviation. Aircraft manufacturers need interior designers.
- Interested in being a chef? There’s a place for you in aviation. Inflight airline and business aviation service is a very important part of success.
Aviation & Aerospace Must Be More Strategic
Career promotion in aviation and aerospace is very siloed. Everyone promotes their own sector as well they should. But that ignores the fact we need to put parochial interests aside in favor of creating content from the 35,000-foot level before we can help students navigate to a particular aviation/aerospace industry runway. We need to attract them to aviation and aerospace first. It is only then we can break down the different sectors and careers to help them narrow their choices and funnel them into airlines, business aviation, manufacturing.
Can the aviation groups in Washington chip in to create and fund developing what is needed for those ASCA exhibitors who already work with career counselors?
Aviation and aerospace largely rely on someone else to do the heavy lifting including the ponderous federal government and Congress. We are seeing an increase in FAA’s Workforce Development Grants working its way through the reauthorization process but there are thousands of deserving programs. Those efforts must continue but in order to compete, it is clear the industry must do more.
Will it pony up to create faster and nimbler programs on our own or continue to struggle waiting for the government or Congress?
As for me, I’m already tuned in to the aviation education community but welcome more connections. I plan to discuss my experience at ASCA with those I already know in hopes of creating a coalition to create the content we need, work with the career platforms and link to ASCA. Our aviation and aerospace associations alone are pretty powerful.
But it is clear industry career awareness efforts needs to pivot. Join me – kcreedy@kathrynbcreedy.com or on LinkedIn and Facebook where I post about aviation and aerospace workforce issues and reach out to aviation student organizations.
futureaviationaerospaceworkforce.com 