StandardAero recently celebrated the graduation of the company’s third and fourth classes from its in-house Aviation Mechanic Training Programme at the company’s San Antonio site located at Port San Antonio in Texas.
Twenty-five new employee students graduated from the recent programme and celebrated the event on 11 December at the nearby Boeing Center at Tech Port along with their family members, StandardAero leadership, and representatives from the City of San Antonio and Port San Antonio. Russell Ford, Chairman and CEO of StandardAero, travelled from the company’s Scottsdale, Arizona headquarters to deliver the keynote speech at the graduation ceremony.
StandardAero’s in-house training programme and Academy focuses on training groups of up to 25 employees in each of its cohorts, working through a comprehensive 12-week programme featuring a variety of experiences ranging from classroom training to hands-on training with tooling, equipment and engines. The Academy is located at the San Antonio MRO facility, which houses five major engine MRO programmes, serving both commercial and military customers, under more than 810,000 square feet of industrial space.
“Hiring, training, and retaining aviation maintenance technicians is one of our biggest challenges and top priorities for StandardAero and our entire industry,” said Greg Chapman, Director of Training and Workforce Development. “To accelerate our ability to quickly bring on new skilled workers as the business expands, our senior leadership had the vision and the foresight to work with local partners and invest in an upskilling programme. That investment included hiring 12 dedicated instructors and providing dedicated space, resources and a customised curriculum for our new hires to hit the ground running – whether they have any aviation or mechanical experience or not.”
“Our goals for our graduating students are quite high,” added Russell Ford. “We want to bring in the most diverse candidates, train them quickly, retain 100% of our graduates and create a lifelong career path that provides them with meaningful work and rewarding pay and benefits.”
