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Florida Aerospace Training Center Contributes to the 21st C Industrial Revolution

By Kathryn B. Creedy

In Florida, a new training center developed a new training model for the aerospace community – one focused on short-term training to meet a specific employer’s needs that ensures the machines keep running. And it addresses one area that is little discussed in workforce development — small- and medium-sized companies who invest in training only to watch that investment walk out the door in answer to a solicitation from a larger company. The key is retention rather than recruitment.

Focus on Trade Skills

The overwhelming shift to trade skills in the past decades is a reaction to college costs and the Great Recession but it also provides a lifeline for the unskilled, the unemployed, the underemployed and those threatened with job loss owing to AI. We first saw it with teens in high school more than a decade ago as a hedge against college costs and it is now attracting displaced workers and those seeking second careers.

That shift has paid off as employers, too, have shifted from degree credentials to skills hiring. To illustrate the demand, the entire graduating class of Eau Gallie High School’s Aerospace/Aviation Assembly Program was already employed before graduation, snapped up by commercial space companies. In addition, the Brevard School District’s Career & Tech Ed programs added aerospace, drone and manufacturing curricula around the county. Just down I-95, in Vero Beach, Piper Aircraft worked with the state’s workforce development program – CareerSource – to develop a training program for its manufacturing of general aviation aircraft and trainers.

Speaking before the Space Coast Alliance for Tech & Innovation (SCATI) event, Tom McCullough, program and operations manager at the Aerospace and Defense Training Center (ADTC) near the Kennedy Space Center. “ADTC’s mission is to provide short-term training not provided by the state’s community colleges. It is also tasked with developing the entry-level skills to take someone with no manufacturing experience to the production line.

“The goal here is to enable our manufacturers, especially small businesses, to retain a competitive edge when it comes to the workforce and to maximize the return on investment in training,” he reported. “The current pattern in business is to grow, level out and then shrink. Our job is to identify the skills gaps, reskill, upskill and backfill. Instead of shrinking, promoting and reskilling costs far less than recruiting. Recruitment costs, the costs of having a vacancy, paying a premium wage owing to scarcity, onboarding, productivity ramp up, risk of early turnover and security clearance all come at a high price. But if you have a staff, you save in recruiting and onboarding because it is quicker to reskill and get them up to speed once they hit the production line. You not only build loyalty but by adopting these strategies companies become the employer of choice.